Something happened

Between 1700 and 1800 the body of writing we now call ‘Literature’ changed. Whatever the exact placement of the bookends or the particular labels, all of our literary histories of the eighteenth century tell tales of difference. Even proponents of the ‘long’ eighteenth century extend the time frame not because they presume continuity but because they want the discontinuities within their area of expertise. While there is considerable disagreement about the date and nature of those changes, our anthologies enshrine the overall effect: what began as Neoclassical or Augustan ended as Romantic. We know something happened during the eighteenth century but we are not quite sure what it was.

The task is complicated from the start – that is, from our failure to agree on when the ‘eighteenth century’ starts. Although some of our anthologies and literary histories observe the double zeroes, most bundle it into a larger package that starts decades earlier than 1700. Paired with the Restoration, as in this volume, the eighteenth century becomes part of a period (1660–1780) that is fully one-third in the seventeenth century. Blackwell raises that percentage to 40 by pushing the start date back to an even earlier political event; their 1996 anthology runs from the English Civil War (1640) to the French Revolution (1789). ‘Both events’, notes the editor, ‘influenced literature.’

When Leontes gazes upon the statue of his wife in the last scene of The Winter’s Tale, his initial reaction is not one of unrestrained wonder:

This unblinking perception of old age inextricably blends the miraculous with a sense of loss. Despite the brilliant spectacle of a younger generation coming to maturity, Shakespeare continues to focus on the problematic situation of their parents. As in Pericles, he moves beyond the recovery of the lost child to stress the renewal of the older generation; the reunion of husband and wife culminates both plays. Not until Thaisa is recovered does Pericles proclaim: ‘You gods, your present kindness/Makes my past miseries sports’ (v, iii, 39-40). Similarly, Leontes’s redemption requires Hermione’s resurrection; Shakespeare concentrates his, and our, energies on that act by placing the father-daughter recognition scene off-stage.