The Enlightment.

The history of England and second part of the 17'th centure, and during the 18'th centure was marked by British colonial, expression and struggle for the leading role in cowers. The writters and philosofists of this age protested against the sovivals of feodalizm in thich they saw the main evil of this time. Man they thought was vertains by nature and wise was duty ignorence to they started a pubic movement for enlighting the people. This movement was called "the enlightment". The enlighters belived in the power of reason and the period was also called "the age of reason". This period saw a remarkable rise in literature. English literature of this period may be characterise by the following features: 1.The rise of the political pamphlets and issue. The novell became the leading genre. 2. The prose style became clever gracefull and polished. 3. The hero of the novell was no longer a prince but a representative of the middle class. 4. Literature became very instructive.

The literature of this age may be divided into 3 periods: The 1'st period is caracterised by classisizm in poetry. The greatest follower of the classical style was Alexander Pope. There appeared the first realistic novels written by Defoe and Swift.

The 2'nd peiod saw the development of the realistic social novel, represen-tive by Richardson, Fielding and others.

The 3'rd period is marked by the appiriense of a new trends: sentimenta-lizm. Typefed by the works of Goldsmith and Stern. This period also saw the rise of the realistic drama (R. Sheridan).