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SOCIAL BACKGROUND
The Augustan age [E1] [I1] was characterized by the expansion of the middle classes made up above all of traders, merchants, bankers and other professional men. Actually the middle-class was favoured by the development of foreign and colonial trade and by the mercantilistic policy adopted by the government, thus growing in power and prestige and strongly influencing the social life of the Augustan Age. They promoted the emergence of new, more practical values, which contributed to create a materialist, worldly, pragmatic society, interested more in material than spiritual goods. This society presented an unequal distribution of wealth, therefore the money and prosperity of the middle classes were contrasted with the poverty and terrible living conditions of the lower classes[ES1] . A religious movement, Methodism [I1] [F1] [ES1] , arose in reaction to the general apathy about the misery and squalor among the poorer classes (providing them with services to improve their life) and to the material middle-class values (stressing moral dignity, piety and temperance).
The 18th century in England was called Augustan after the period of Roman history which had achieved political stability and power as well as a flourishing of the arts. In particular ancient Augustan writers were considered to be precious provided models for their clarity and simplicity.
This period was also known as the Age of reason since it was dominated by a search for order, discipline and balance, by a profound faith in reason and common sense, which prevailed over emotions and imagination, and by a greater importance given to education. This rational trend accounts for the essential qualities the Augustans looked for in literature. They were interested in real life, in the recognizable facts of their own existence. This emphasis on realism, verisimilitude and necessity for precise, detailed descriptions led to the predominance of prose over poetry and especially to the development of journalism and of the MODERN NOVEL, expressing the belief in the power of reason and the individual trust in one’s own abilities. These prose genres provided stimulating reading matter for the wider reading public, mostly the middle-class. Another factor that gave much impulse to the new prose forms was the sudden growth of women readers from the upper and middle classes, in a period of emancipation for women, who, better educated and with more leisure for themselves, began to develop a taste for books.
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