 Hello dear learners, welcome to today's program. I am Dr. Pallavi Gugoy of Krishna Kanta Handic State Open University. Today I shall take up a unit from the course title English, Social and Cultural History, Block 3 Literature Medieval to New Classical. The unit is titled The New Classical Age Major Writers. Starting with a table of contents, first I shall present the learning objectives followed by a discussion on some of the major writers or representative writers of the age, a few questions to check your progress and the references. Starting with the learning objectives, after going through this unit you will be able to identify some of the major writers of the new classical age. You will be able to mention the important literary works by these major writers. Also you will be able to gain a better idea on the literary output during the new classical age. Starting with the major writers, in this video some of the representative writers of the new classical age shall be highlighted for your study. Starting with John Dryden. John Dryden is often considered one of the greatest new classical writers and one of the most famous of the English playwrights. For 40 years he continued to produce an abundance of literary works of every kind, poems, plays and prose works. His first play, The Wild Girlant, was a comedy followed by his turn towards tragedy, which fall into two main groups. A. The Heroic Play, like The Rival Ladies, The Indian Emperor, Tyrannic Love, The Conquest of Granada and Aurangzeb. And B. Blank Verse Tragedies, such as All for Love or The World Well Lost, which is often considered to be his dramatic masterpiece. His essay of dramatic poetry, written in 1669, is his longest single prose work and a major piece of English literary criticism. So you have The Heroic Play and The Blank Verse Tragedies by John Dryden. Jonathan Swift. Swift's poems were mostly recreations, odd verses, sometimes humorously dodgerill to his friends, squibs and lampoons on his political and private enemies. His first noteworthy book was The Battle of the Books. Swift is best remembered for his longest and most famous book titled Gulliver's Travels published in 1726, which is so popular even today. Journal to Stella, which is a kind of informal private logbook written by him and sent regularly to Esther Johnson, was also another of his important works. Joseph Addison. Addison was an English essayist, poet, playwright and politician who had begun a daily newspaper called The Spectator, to which he had contributed as many as 274 essays. Sir Richard Steele. Steele earned better recognition as an essayist, even as he wrote prose comedies. He started his journal The Tatler in 1709, The Spectator in 1717 and several other short-lived periodicals such as The Guardian in 1713, The Englishman in 1713, The Reader in 1714 and The Plebeian in 1719. These are some of the important periodicals and journals of this particular period. Alexander Poe. Poe was an 18th century English poet, best known for his satirical verse as well as his translation of Homer. Also famous for his use of the heroic couplet, he is one of the most frequently quoted writers after Shakespeare. Poe's earliest important work was his pastorals, so that's an important work, pastorals. Poe had also completed the task of translating the Iliad in 1720, which was a grand task, followed by translation of the DC, another ambitious project in 1725 and 1726. His famous prologue to the satires, better known by its other title, Epistle to Dr. Albert Knott, contains some of his most brilliant and finished work, Lord Chesterfield. Chesterfield was an example of the aristocratic amateur in literature and he wrote elegant articles for the fashionable journals such as The World. His letters to his son, which is an important work, was published in 1774 shortly after his demise. Henry Fielding. Fielding was an English novelist and dramatist, best known for his humor and satirical prowess. His later works are A Journey From This World to the Next and Jonathan Wilde The Great and his last important work is Amelia. Tom Jones is his greatest novel, Oliver Goldsmith. Goldsmith was an Irish novelist, playwright and poet, who is best known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield, his pastoral poem The Deserted Village and his play The Good-Natured Man, another one of his important works is titled She Stokes to Conquer. Samuel Johnson. Often referred to as Dr. Johnson, Samuel Johnson was an English writer who made lasting contribution to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer. In 747, he began to work on his dictionary of the English language, which was also his greatest contribution to scholarship. Johnson's preface to his Shakespeare, 765, is a landmark not only in Shakespearean scholarship, but in English criticism as a whole. His last work was The Lies of the Poet, an important work and this was planned as a series of introduction to the works of 52 poets, Edward Gibbon. Gibbon was an English historian, writer and member of parliament. His most important work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788 and is known for the quality and irony of its prose, its use of primary sources and its open criticism of organized religion. His autobiography, which contains valuable material concerning his life, is his only other work of any importance and is written with all his usual elegance and suave ironic humor. This brings us to questions to check your progress, starting with question number one. Name any five writers of the New Classical Age. Question number two, who was John Dryden and Oliver Goldsmith? Question number three, what were the significant and scholarly contribution of Alexander Pope and Dr. Johnson? Question number four, what were some of the major literary initiatives that were taken by both Joseph Addison and Richard Steele? Question number five, name some of the significant literary contributions of Jonathan Swift and Henry Fielding. You are recommended to go through the MA English SLM, title English, Social and Cultural History. I wish you all the best. Thank you dear learners.