The Development of Literary Style

1. Poetry. In poetry we have to chronicle the domination of the heroic couplet. This meter produced a close, clear, and almost prosaic style, as we have noticed in the work of Pope. Blank verse is still found in Young’s Night Thoughts. Another example of blank verse is found in the mock epic of John Philips (1676–1708) called The Splendid Shilling (1703). The use of blank verse at this time is important, for it marks both a resistance to the use of the couplet and a promise of the revival of the freer forms of verse. The following is a fair example of the blank verse of the period. In style it is quite uninspired, and is philosophically dull, but it is metrically accurate and has a certain dignity and force.

Amidst my list of blessings infinite

Stands this the foremost, “That my heart has bled.”

’Tis Heaven’s last effort of goodwill to man;

When pain can’t bless, Heaven quits us in despair.

Who fails to grieve, when just occasion calls,

Or grieves too much, deserves not to be blest;

Inhuman, or effeminate, his heart:

Reason absolves the grief, which reason ends.

May Heaven ne’er trust my friend with happiness,

Till it has taught him how to bear it well,

By previous pain; and made it safe to smile!

Young, Night Thoughts

The lyric still survives as a pale reflection of the Caroline species. A short specimen will suffice to show the facile versification and the lack of real passion that marks the treatment of the almost universal love-theme:

Blessed as the immortal gods is he,

The youth who fondly sits by thee,

And hears and sees thee all the while,

Softly speak, and sweetly smile.

’Twas this deprived my soul of rest,

And raised such tumults in my breast;

For while I gazed, in transport tossed,

My breath was gone, my voice was lost.

Ambrose Philips, Sappho

The only other kind of meter of any consequence is the octosyllabic couplet, which is largely employed in occasional and satirical compositions. Its style is neat, sharp, and dexterous, as can be observed in Swift’s and Prior’s verses.

2. Prose. In prose the outstanding feature is the emergence of the middle style. Of this the chief exponent is Addison, of whom Johnson says, “His prose is of the middle style, always equable, and always easy, without glowing words and pointed sentences.” We now find established a prose suitable for miscellaneous purposes—for newspaper and political work, for the essay, for history and biography. The step is of immense importance, for we can say that with Addison the modern era of prose is begun.

Along with this went the temporary disappearance of ornate prose. Prose of this style, though it had its beauties, was yet liable to be full of flaws, and was unacceptable to the taste of the age of Pope. It was therefore avoided. When ornate prose re-emerged later in the work of Johnson and Gibbon it was purged of its technical weaknesses, a development largely due to the period of maturing that it had undergone in the time we are now considering.

While the school of Addison represents the middle style, the plainer style is represented in the work of Swift and Defoe. Swift reveals the style at its best—sure, clean, and strong. Defoe’s writing is even plainer, and often descends to carelessness and inaccuracy. This is due almost entirely to the haste with which he wrote. We give an example of this colloquial style:

“Well,” said I, “honest man, that is a great mercy, as things go now with the poor. But how do you live then, and how are you kept from the dreadful calamity that is now upon us all?” “Why, sir,” says he, “I am a waterman, and there is my boat,” says he, “and the boat serves me for a house; I work in it in the day, and I sleep in it in the night, and what I get I lay it down upon that stone,” says he, showing me a broad stone on the other side of the street, a good way from his house; “and then,” says he, “I halloo and call to them till I make them hear, and they come and fetch it.”

Defoe, A Journal of the Plague Year

TABLE TO ILLUSTRATE THE DEVELOPMENT OF LITERARY FORMS

Date Poetry Drama Prose

Lyric Narrative Didactic Satirical
and
Tragedy Comedy Narrative Essay Miscellaneous

1700 Blackmore Garth Steele

Defoe

Addison Lady
Winchilsea Defoe Swift

1710 Pope Addison Steele Addison

Pope A. Philips Steele Addison Steele

Swift Arbuthnot

Gay Young Addison Bolingbroke

Berkeley

1720 Prior Defoe

Lady M. W.
Montagu

Swift A. Ramsay

A. Ramsay Swift

|Savage Gay

1730 Pope

1740