Eighteenth-Century British Culture

The goal of this blog is to provide a textual and visual immersion in the British long eighteenth-century (1660-1832). I am a PhD student in literature studying this period, and this is an attempt to provide short examples of why the British eighteenth century (woefully unpopular in literary studies) is amazing and worth studying. These entries are not chronological; rather, they provide snapshots of particular cultural moments or movements.

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The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes c520, mosaic, Ravenna, Northern Italy

Christ Feeding the Five Thousand, c1200, stained glass, France

As described in Lumen’s “Art in Society” entry, both of these Christian art pieces are intended to convey a tenet of the theology and history. In this example, the pieces depict the story of Jesus feeding 5000 people with a very small amount of food. It’ s one of the many miracles depicted repeatedly in church iconography with the intent of showing Jesus’ godhood-a vital idea to the basis of Christianity as a religion. 

We could assume from the very specific subject matter, that the artists were members of the church, or were employed by the church and at the very least didn’t completely despise it’s teachings. The culture surrounding the art would logically be at least somewhat Christian as those are the individuals who would most likely appreciate and/or commission such decidedly Christian art. 

The pieces themselves are fairly different in style due to the difference in medium. As a mosaic, the first is able to have more fine detail without needing thick lines separating the colors like in the second piece which trades detail for very saturated and vibrant colors. The differences in clothing, hair length, and numbers of people should be noted as well. The mosaic depicts five men with short hair where the four apostles wear matching robes, while the stained glass shows longer hair, more clothing variation, and also depicts some of the crowd along with Jesus and the apostles. There could be some underlying symbolism behind some of the differences like color choices, but it’s difficult to know without having a stronger art history background. Perhaps the purpleish hue in Christ’s robes is significant to the mosaic’s creator, but I can’t make those assumptions without knowing more historical context.

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Differences in medium certainly lead to different effects. So, an artist might select a particular style based on the supplies and technologies available to them, but also based on the effect they want to create.

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"The Abolition of the Slave Trade, Or the inhumanity of dealers in human flesh exemplified in Captn. Kimber's treatment of a young Negro girl of 15 for her virjen [sic] modesty." Engraved colored print by Isaac Cruikshank, 1792. This anti-slave cartoon illustrates the debate over the slave trade in the late eighteenth century. Opposition to slavery and the slave trade grew steadily, and in 1807 the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act prohibited slave trading in the British Empire. (The act, which had earlier failed, succeeded due to the 1800 Act of Union with Ireland, which brought over 100 mostly abolitionist Irish MPs to the Commons). However, not until the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 is slavery itself abolished.

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Late seventeenth-century engraving of Mary Carleton.  Carleton came from relatively humble origins in Canterbury and married twice (without divorcing) before embarking on the series of adventures that would make her famous.  She appears in London in 1663, dressed finely, and convinces a tavern keeper and his family that she is a disguised German princess fleeing an arranged marriage.  Determined to capitalize on the situation, the tavern-owner, Mr. King, convinces the young woman to marry his brother-in-law, John Carleton, by boasting of the family’s wealth and gentility.  John and Mary are wed, and two weeks later they discover that neither of them is wealthy, both parties having exaggerated their wealth and status to ensnare the other.  John Carleton’s family sues Mary as a bigamist, and the resulting trial, publicized through pamphlets, ballads, and plays, captivates the London public.  The Carleton family publishes their own account of the affair, which is countered by The Case of Mary Carleton, marketed as written by Mary Carleton herself.  Carleton was executed for a different crime a decade later, but her notorious story provided source material for Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders and Roxana.

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You know that as a female I am particularly attached to her--I feel more than a mother's fondness and anxiety, when I reflect on the dependent and oppressed state of her sex. I dread lest she should be forced to sacrifice her heart to her principles, or principles to her heart. With trembling hand I shall cultivate sensibility, and cherish delicacy of sentiment, lest, whilst I lend fresh blushes to the rose, I sharpen the thorns that will wound the breast I would fain guard--I dread to unfold her mind, lest it should render her unfit for the world she is to inhabit--Hapless woman! what a fate is thine!

Mary Wollstonecraft, Letters Written in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark (1796).  Wollstonecraft writes here about her infant daughter, Fanny, to Fanny's father, Gilbert Imlay.  Fanny was born out-of-wedlock, and Imlay's philandering prompted two suicide attempts by Wollstonecraft, the second on her return from the voyage during which she wrote the Letters.  As this passage demonstrates, Wollstonecraft was an early feminist; her most famous treatise on the subject, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, advocates for education for women.

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Yay this tumblr exists! You make me happy. Eighteenth-century British literature is my favourite to read (I find it relaxing and invigorating). Do you have any ideas as to why it is unpopular?

Glad to hear from another fan of 18C lit!  My opinion on why it is unpopular is that the novels are very hybrid in their form, which makes their structure unfamiliar (and sometimes off-putting) to modern readers. What are some of your favorites?

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"Theophila Palmer Reading Clarissa," Joshua Reynolds, 1771.  This painting illustrates what were in the eighteenth century new and potentially concerning aspects of private reading, an activity which was on the rise due to the increased portability and decreased cost of books coupled with rising literacy rates.  The female reader is engrossed in her book, signaling that reading is private and potentially anti-social.  The book itself is also significant: while Clarissa was meant to be didactic, the ruin of the heroine was also titillating, potentially inciting the opposite emotions Richardson intended. 

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AUTHORITY! what a full word is that in the mouth of a narrow-minded person, who happened to be born thirty years before one!

Clarissa, by Samuel Richardson, in a letter from Anna Howe to Clarissa Harlowe. The major conflict in the first half of this novel concerns Clarissa's refusal to display filial obedience and marry a (rich) man she despises. The conflict over Clarissa's desire to veto her father's choice of a match (and therefore implicitly reject his authority) represents a larger move during this period away from what were essentially arranged marriages and toward marriages in which both partners had at least some measure of choice and marital affection and personal (rather than merely class or economic) compatibility was considered.  Anna Howe's sentiment here, which questions unlimited parental authority, was more and more common as the century progressed.

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Turkish merchant John Verney sent his pregnant wife a letter in the late seventeenth century, concluding with "everything that the lovingest of husbands can express to the best of wives, and love to the little ones, not forgetting the kicker in the dark."  Lawrence Stone inThe Family, Sex, and Marriage 1500-1800 argues that this letter represents one example of the emerging belief during this period that marriage was an arrangement that should be personally fulfilling and based on affection rather than being contracted based purely on financial or status considerations (194).

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Why, Sir, if you were to read Richardson for the story, your impatience would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself. But you must read him for the sentiment, and consider the story as only giving occasion to the sentiment.

Samuel Johnson, from James Boswell's Life of Johnson, in which Boswell recounts a debate he and Johnson have over whether Samuel Richardson's novels are tedious.  Readers of Richardson's Clarissa (the longest book in the English language, which is surprisingly short on plot) would no doubt agree with this charge.  What is most interesting is Johnson's response, which indicates the importance of sentiment to novel-writing in the mid-eighteenth century.  This remark suggests that Richardson's genius lay in his ability to incite the emotion (or appeal to the sensibility) of his readers rather than in his ability to construct a narrative.  This remark also has implications in terms of the moral purpose of the novel as a genre.

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"Beauty in Search of Knowledge" (1728).  Artist unknown.  While exact figures are impossible to determine, literacy increased dramatically over the course of the eighteenth century, with women as a group seeing particularly large gains in literacy rates.  Women thus became increasingly associated with novel reading and later novel writing, a development bolstered by increased leisure time (among the middle and upper classes), access to texts, and genres of literature (such as sentimental novels) that emphasized feminine concerns and values.

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“I resolved on turning my thoughts towards literary labour, and projected a variety of works, by which I hoped to obtain at least a decent independence. Alas! how little did I then know either the fatigue or the hazard of mental occupations! How little did I see that the day would come, when my health would be impaired, my thoughts perpetually employed, in so destructive a pursuit! At the moment that I write this page I feel in every fibre of my brain the fatal conviction that it is a DESTROYING LABOUR”

Mary Robinson, Memoirs of the Late Mrs. Robinson (1801).  Robinson was an author, actress, and mistress to the future George IV.

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Women's dress, c1660-1670.  This close-up shows how early modern clothing was laced together (here, sleeves to bodice).  This type of clothing conformed to the contours of the body after multiple wearings, meaning that it became like a second skin to the wearer.  Clothing also indicated social status or occupation.  Scholars posit that during the early modern period the body was not theorized in terms of interiority versus exteriority (in which clothes were merely decoration), a conception that changed over the course of the eighteenth century.  The link has more information about the construction of this garment in particular and stays in general.

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James Frances Edward Stuart (the "Old Pretender") and his son, Charles Edward Stuart (the "Young Pretender") were claimants to the English, Irish, and Scottish thrones in the first half of the eighteenth century.  James Frances Edward Stuart's birth prompted fears of the continuation of Catholic rule in England, as his father, King James II, had converted to Catholicism (the presumptive heir prior to his birth, his half-sister Mary, had been raised Protestant).  During the "Glorious Revolution" (1688) James II was deposed by the Protestant William of Orange, the husband of his daughter Mary.  After James II's death in 1701, James Frances Edward Stuart, called the "Old Pretender," began a series of campaigns to regain the throne, called the Jacobite uprisings.  The most significant efforts were uprisings in Scotland in 1715 and again in 1745, the latter headed by his son, the Young Pretender Charles Edward Stuart.  The defeat of the Jacobites at the Battle of Culloden in 1745 essentially ended the Jacobite movement.  The 1745 uprising provides the backdrop for Sir Walter Scott's Waverley (1814), which romanticizes the movement, particularly the involvement of the Highland Scots.

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"Your uncle is disposed to be pleased with you in every respect; and I only wish you would talk to him more. You are one of those who are too silent in the evening circle." "But I do talk to him more than I used. I am sure I do. Did you not hear me ask him about the slave-trade last night?" "I did--and was in hopes the question would be followed up by others. It would have pleased your uncle to be enquired of farther." "And I longed to do it--but there was such a dead silence!"

Jane Austen, Mansfield Park (1814).  This conversation, between Edmund Bertram (the first speaker) and Fanny Price, has attracted much post-colonial critical attention.  Many argue that this "dead silence" permeates the novel--this is one of the few references to the slave-trade, on which the wealth of the Mansfield Park estate is based.  The unspeakability of the slave trade in this context suggests the British attempt to separate capitalist and colonialist endeavors from the domestic sphere.

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In honor of Daylight Savings Time and our perception of a lost hour--

"An Election Entertainment" by William Hogarth (1755).  This painting features a blue banner reading "Give us back our 11 days" (in the window to the right).  The banner's appearance as part of some sort of mass demonstration led to the commonly held belief that the switch from the Julian to Gregorian calendars in September, 1752, caused large-scale riots due to the perceived "loss" of 11 days (during that year Sept. 2 was followed by Sept. 14th).  However, contemporary evidence indicates that the change was relatively uneventful--although it is easy to imagine confusion in terms of bills, events, and other aspects of day-to-day life.  See the link for information about how other European countries made this switch.  

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A Bow plate decorated in "The Rubber Tree" Pattern (mock Chinese marks). c.1760-65.  China was popular and widely imported in the early eighteenth century, until the English learned to manufacture it themselves, a development that eventually led to the creation of famous English China tableware manufactures like Dansk, Royal Stanley, and Staffordshire.  The Bow factory was founded in 1744.

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The British people were noted throughout Europe for their turbulence, and the people of London astonished foreign visitors by their lack of deference. The 18th and 19th centuries are punctuated by riot....Food riots were sometimes uproarious, like the "Great Cheese Riot" at Nottingham's Goose Fair in 1764, when whole cheese were rolled down the streets....More often, the "mobs" showed self-discipline, within a customary pattern of behavior.

E.P. Thompson, Making the English Working Class (1963). 62-64.