English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century

A series of lectures that surveys eighteenth-century English literary production and explains how social institutions, tastes, and intellectual currents shaped authorship and criticism. It traces the influence of classical education and the Ancients versus Moderns debate, examines metropolitan networks of Wits, coffee-houses, and clubs that formed public opinion, and connects literary trends to philosophical and scientific ideas associated with Locke and Newton. The discussion gives attention to major genres—especially satire and the stage—and to the mechanisms by which critics and writers enforced standards of taste. Chronological narrative and thematic analysis combine to present literature as both a mirror and an active force within its society.