The Georgians

 

Who would have thought that the word Yahoo, isn’t as modern as we first thought? It actually dates back to the 18th century. This month I am starting a series of articles about the Georgians having taken inspiration from Simon’s bay front cover from last month (February) illustrating the properties at Cambrian Place.

The Georgians, have a rum deal, in the whole of the history story. We are taught at school, the Tudor dynasty – Henry VIII and his 6 wives – followed by the Stuarts – the rise, following the Gunpower Plot, and fall with Charles I, losing his head, followed by the Restoration with the Merry King, Charles II, 1660. History then misses a huge chunk leaping to the Victorian period. So, let’s stop this and press pause and rewind. Who were these Georgians?

    The term Georgian refers also to British art, design, furniture, landscaping gardening but above all to architecture.

This first article will cover Georgian Literature.

The number of men and women, who were both literate and numerate decisively overtook previous eras. People were encouraged to read aloud, not just with the family but also in semi-public places like taverns, work-rooms and coffee houses. It was before George I ascended the throne in 1714, that the 1662 Licensing Act, ended during 1695, allowing the publication of unlicensed books and pamphlets. It’s during this period 1692-1714, that pamphlets and newspapers were being developed. Newspapers were still not free from government control, The Stamp Acts of 1712 and 1725, made advertisements subject to taxes.

Two of the early newspapers included the (see above right) Post Boy (right) (1695-1728) and Post Man (1695-1730). These newspapers adopted the 4-page format. This is the format of the Swansea newspaper, The Cambrian which was first published in 1804. It was during the Georgian era that the newspapers changed from the 4-pages to 8-pages, by the 1870s The Cambrian changed.

    Also emerging during the Georgian era were advice manuals such as Sarah Stone’s A Complete Practice of Midwifery (1737) and The Complete Letter – Writer: Or, New and Polite Secretary (1755) and to help with grammar and spelling, Dr. Samuel Johnson’s two volume Dictionary of the English Language (left) (1755). Even though this wasn’t the first dictionary, it did set the standard for the next 150 years! The dictionary (left) contained 42,773 entries and Johnson wasn’t shy to include some vulgar phrases including “bum, fart, piss and turd”. If Johnson is yin, Thomas Bowdler is yang, with his publication The Family Shakespeare (1807) which cleaned up the bard’s work.

However, during the Georgian era, the big-gest change in the literary scene was the birth of the novel. From the 1690s to the 1750s the literature movements were known as Enlight-enment – The Age of Reason. Novels during this period are usually satire based included Daniel Defoe Robinson Crusoe (1719); Moll Flanders (1722) and Jonathan Swift Gulliver’s’ Travels (1726). This novel featured Yahoo (left), described by Swift as ‘filthy and unpleasant habits “a brute in human form”’

The Romantic Period which lasted from the 1790s until the crowning of Queen Victoria in 1837 was the literary period in answer to the Enlightenment Period. Novels included Mary Shelley’s gothic Frankenstein (1818) and numerous novels by Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility (1811); Pride and Prejudice (1813); Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1815).

Wales during this time had its own Rom-antic movement, the countryside inspirating writers and poets alike.

In the next article we will be looking at the landscape and the inspirations it gave to both artist and gardeners.

Copyright - The Bay Magazine, March 2022