As has been stated above, technical innovation contributed to industrialization and the social change in the period. The most relevant were inventions for the textile industry (the shuttle, the spinning jenny, spinning mule), which made spinning faster and the products more resistant. Iron production increased spectacularly when the Darby family discovered how to melt iron by using coke. John Watt improved the steam engine. The appearance of inventions was in accordance with the classical spirit of the 18th century, when reason was highly esteemed.
In art, conventional forms became popular and they were considered the measure of good taste and elegance. It was in most part the age of Neoclassicism (the Augustan Age), also called the Enlightenment and the new trends were associated with the Whig government of liberal-minded politicians as opposed to royal autocracy with its connection to continental tyrannies.
In the field of literature, Augustan influences produced a scientific desire to organise and improve the language by means of prescriptive dictionaries, the most notable being that compiled by Samuel Johnson. The most representative poet of the time, Alexander Pope also stuck to classical forms as he only used the closed heroic couplet: two rhymed decasyllabic lines with a complete sense in themselves.
While the 18th century is known as the Augustan Age, it has to be noted that non-Augustan trends also appeared at that time and the best example is the appearance of the novel as a distinct literary form. The first English novels differ greatly as far as the style is concerned, and the most representative writers, Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne and Swift, each write in their individual manner.
In art, conventional forms became popular and they were considered the measure of good taste and elegance. It was in most part the age of Neoclassicism (the Augustan Age), also called the Enlightenment and the new trends were associated with the Whig government of liberal-minded politicians as opposed to royal autocracy with its connection to continental tyrannies.
In the field of literature, Augustan influences produced a scientific desire to organise and improve the language by means of prescriptive dictionaries, the most notable being that compiled by Samuel Johnson. The most representative poet of the time, Alexander Pope also stuck to classical forms as he only used the closed heroic couplet: two rhymed decasyllabic lines with a complete sense in themselves.
While the 18th century is known as the Augustan Age, it has to be noted that non-Augustan trends also appeared at that time and the best example is the appearance of the novel as a distinct literary form. The first English novels differ greatly as far as the style is concerned, and the most representative writers, Defoe, Richardson, Fielding, Sterne and Swift, each write in their individual manner.