4.1 A golden age

The 18th century in England is generally regarded as a golden age, and it was called "Augustan" after the period of Roman history which had achieved political stability and power as well as a flourishing of the arts.

There was a deliberate rejection of extremism in all its forms: superstition, fanaticism, verbal violence.

The virtues of politeness, moderation and rationality were commonly praised.

Morality and fashion demanded simplicity and emotional authenticity. This influenced the emerging of the figure of the gentleman.

There was a growing tendency towards material gain, individual happiness and pleasure as the main objectives of life.

4.3 The role of women

English women were more independently active in social and cultural life than women on the Continent.

Women readers and writers influenced the rise of the novel as the most distinctive literary genre of the period. They didn't want to read stories about heroes of the past but about ordinary people of their day. Access to books increased with the spread of circulating libraries and books clubs, as well as with the reduction of book prices.

4.4 A new view of the natural world

Enlightened thinkers not only wanted to understand the world but to improve it.

They rejected the Calvinist belief that every event of life is controlled by God or the Devil.

A new optimistic view of the natural world saw it as benign and beautiful rather than decayed and corrupted by sin. Nature meant human nature and the physical environment, but it also extended to the universe beyond the earth.

The common and uncultivated lands were enclosed and improved so that the English landscape began to take its modern form as a huge commercialised garden where the principles of the Enlightenment were in practice: the harmony between man and nature as well as the hierarchical organisation of gentry estates and tenant farms.

4.5 Explorations

Voyages to new lands were commissioned to Captain Cook by the Royal Society, which led to the encounter with native peoples uncorrupted by civilisation and to the mapping of Australia, New Zealand and the Hawaiian Islands.