Show:
Who am I?
Who wrote it?
British History
Royal Family
18th Century Themes
100
This person is poet laureate to Charles II, known for comparing London to a phoenix rising from the ashes after the Great London Fire.
Who is John Dryden?
100
"Rule, Britannia, rule the waves; Britons will never be slaves."
Who is James Thomson?
100
This year is referred to by John Dryden as the Annus Mirabilis, or Year of Wonders.
What is the year 1666?
100
This Merry Monarch was celebrated when he was restored to the throne. Too bad he never had a legitimate heir.
Who is Charles II?
100
Another name for "The Age of Johnson," this title emphasizes a shift from poetry to another genre of writing.
What is "The Age of Prose"?
200
This person is a poet, essayist, fiction writer, and lexicographer. He may have suffered from Tourette's Syndrome, but this didn't stop him from being one of the most prominent figures of the mid-18th Century.
Who is Samuel Johnson?
200
"Everyday now brought me nearer my freedom, and I was impatient till we proceeded again to sea, that I might have an opportunity of getting a sum large enough to purchase it."
Who is Olaudah Equiano?
200
This group of people believed the James II was the real king of England and fought against the English monarchy to restore James II (then James "III," then Charles "III") to the throne.
What is a Jacobite?
200
In addition to losing America in the Revolutionary War, this monarch will also lose his mind—prompting London to censor Shakespeare's King Lear for several decades.
Who is George III?
200
This word represents "a feature of nature or art that fills the mind with a sense of overwhelming grandeur or irresistible power; that inspires awe, great reverence, or other high emotion, by reason of its beauty, vastness, or grandeur" (Oxford English Dictionary).
What is the sublime?
300
Known for being something of a misanthropist, this person Is a prolific writer, especially known for writing Gulliver's Travels, poetry, and political pamphlets (including one that proposed eating infants in order to mitigate Irish poverty).
Who is Jonathan Swift?
300
"All Nature is but art, unknown to thee; All chance, direction, which thou canst not see; All discord, harmony not understood; All partial evil, universal good: And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, One truth is clear: Whatever IS, is RIGHT."
Who is Alexander Pope?
300
This is the period of time in between the beheading of Charles I in 1649 and the Restoration of Charles II in 1660.
What is the Interregnum/Commonwealth?
300
This person is not a monarch but will rule the country nonetheless after Charles I is beheaded. First order of business was to close the theaters and cancel Christmas.
Who is Oliver Cromwell?
300
This word is an important theme in 18th-century literature. Samuel Johnson gave this word eleven different definitions in his dictionary, including "an imaginary being supposed to preside over the material and animal world" and "Physics; the science which teaches the qualities of things."
What is Nature?
400
This person is an Enlightenment philosopher, known for his theories about social contract theory and the relationship of laws to mankind's freedom.
Who is John Locke?
400
"There often wanders one, whom better days Saw better clad, in cloak of satin trimmed With lace, and hat with splendid ribband bound. A servingmaid was she, and fell in love With one who left her, went to sea, and died."
Who is William Cowper?
400
During the reign of Charles II, this law was enacted to prevent anyone outside from the Church of England to hold public office, own land, or attend universities. It required citizens to deny transubstantiation, for one.
What is the Test Act?
400
This person definitely comes from royal blood but will never have the opportunity to reign over Britain. Grandson of James II, this person will spend much his life traveling Scotland and collecting supporters to battle with against what he considers impostors to the throne.
Who is Charles "III," the "Young Pretender," or "Bonnie Prince Charlie"?
400
A new genre that bursts forth from the 18th-century, scholars continue to debate whether the first work of this genre is something like John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress or something more like Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe.
What is the novel?
500
This person is a world traveller, and one of the people responsible for bring small pox inoculations to England from Turkey. This person is known particularly for letters and poetry, especially one poem that vilifies a particular Irish poet.
Who is Lady Mary Wortley Montagu?
500
"If marriage be such a blessed state, how comes it, may you say, that there are so few happy marriages? Now in answer to this, it is not wondered that so few succeed; we should rather be surprised to find so many do, considering how imprudently men engage, the motives they act by, and the very strange conduct they observe throughout."
Who is Mary Astell?
500
This historical moment changed the British monarchy drastically. In response to fear about a "Popish Plot," Catholic James II was removed from the throne and replaced with his daughter, Mary II, and her husband, William III.
What is the Glorious Revolution?
500
This person's reign will include the uniting of Scotland with England and Ireland as a single sovereign state, the United Kingdom of Great Britain, in 1707.
Who is Queen Anne?
500
This theme in literature is particularly emphasized in female characters who struggle to balance reason with irrational and fevered emotions. Mary Astell and Mary Wollstonecraft will view this concept with disdain, but it will also give Jane Austen plenty of inspiration for some of her more entertaining characters.
What is "sensibility"?