1700 to 1799: Iphigenia in Tauris to Cecilia....

Chronology of World, British and American Literature.

Goethe. German. 1779. Play. Iphigenia in Tauris. From Euripides’ play. In place of “deus ex machine,” resolution results from “pure humanity.”

Samuel Johnson. British. 1779/81. Essays. The Lives of the Poets. Interested in establishing causal relationship between artist’s life and art. 52 English poets.

Immanuel Kant. German. 1781. Nonfiction. Critique of Pure Reason. Although reason can understand a thing as object, reason cannot understand the “thing itself.”

Michel Crevecoeur. American. 1782. Nonfiction. Letters from an American Farmer. Farm life on the American frontier. Idealized, yet unpleasant facts of the social life and customs in the Colonies. He saw America as a refuge for persecuted and oppressed people of the world.

Fanny Burney. British. 1782. Novel. Cecilia, or Memoirs of an Heiress. In order to keep her fortune, Cecilia, an heiress, must marry a man who is willing to adopt her name.