This age is called the Age of Sensibility because reason, sensible views, and “original genius” controlled the literature of the time. It is also called the Age of Johnson after the name of Dr. Samuel Johnson who dominated this period. This age started after Pope’s death and ended with the first edition of Lyrical Ballads in 1798.

The important facts which influenced the literature of this period are:

1. James Watt invented the steam engine in 1769. In 1733 John Kay invented the flying shuttle. In 1764 Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny. All these contributed to the Industrial Revolution.
2. Industrial towns appeared.
3. There was a revolution in agricultural production.
4. The British founded its empire in India in 1757 and lost its American colony in 1776.
5. French Revolution started in 1789 and continued till 1799. Voltaire (1694-1778) and Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) taught individualism and inspired revolution for more freedom and equality. During the reign of Louis XVI of France (whose wife was Marie Antoinette), there were several social inequalities among the people. The King and the nobility were enjoying all the good things of the country and the common people were deprived of their due shares. The law of the country was not equal for all classes of people. The existing social injustices prompted the great revolution known as the French Revolution in 1789. The slogan of the revolution was “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity”. The King along with his Queen was overthrown by the common people. This revolution had a tremendous effect on the life and literature of the people of England.
6. In 1764 Dr. Johnson founded his famous literary club known as Johnson’s Literary Club; its members were Burke, Pitt, Fox, Gibbon, Goldsmith, and a few other great persons of the time.
7. The development of industry and commerce, the rise of political parties, and democracy created problems and a change in the social infrastructure ensued.
8. A literate middle class grew and the range of the reading public widened.

Major Writers of the Period and Their Major Works:

1. Samuel Richardson (1689-1761):
   * He had started writing novels at a previous age and wrote the following novels at this age.
   
   Clarissa Harlowe (1748)
   Sir Charles Grandison (1754)

2. Henry Fielding (1707-54):
   * He had started writing novels at a previous age and wrote the following novels at this age.
   
   Tom Jones (1749)
   Amelia (1751)

3. Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-84):
   Dictionary ( 1755)
   The history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia (1759)
   “Preface to Shakespeare” (1765)
   The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets (1779-81)

4. Thomas Gray (1716-71):
“Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” (1751)

5. Oliver Goldsmith (1728-74):
The Citizen of the World (1759)
The Vicar of the Wakefield (1766)

6. Edmund Burke (1729-97):
“On American Taxation” (1774)
“Speech on Conciliation with America” (1775)
“Speech on Mr. Fox’s East India Bill” (1783)

7. Edward Gibbon (1737-94):
The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire (1776)

Main Literary Features of the Age:

1. The Restoration spirit dies away.
2. The age marks a gradual change in poetic taste and techniques.
3. The heroic couplet and blank verse decline and the ballad and lyric revive.
4. Pindaric ode appears.
5. Intellectual prose writings flourished.
6. The novel takes a definite shape and rises to dominate the literary scene.
7. Poetry shifts its focus from intensely social issues to melancholy, isolation, and reflection.
8. Features of romanticism that flourish in the next age come into view.
9. Literary criticism finds solid ground.