Neo-Classical or Augustan

The last quarter of the 17th century and the first half of the 18th century of English literature has been called the Augustan Age, the Neoclassical Age, and the Age of Reason. 

Augustan Age literature was noticeably influenced not only by the preceding era of Latin literature, but by Syracusa, and Alexandrian, and Greek writers.

Characteristics/Forms: 

Mock epics

Didactic poetry

Love elegies

Historic

Epic

Heroic couplets
Commonly uses satire and irony, iambic pentameter, and paradoxes

Often has a plain/ordinary plot

Alludes to ancient Roman/Greek epic poetry

Themes:

Human frailty

Standards of man's potential

Order in the universe

Mocking of human behavior

Authors:
-John Dryden
-Alexander Pope
-Jonathan Swift

Poem:
SONG

By Robert Dodsley

1     Man's a poor deluded bubble,

2    Wand'ring in a mist of lies,

3     Seeing false, or seeing double,

4    Who wou'd trust to such weak eyes?

5     Yet presuming on his senses,

6    On he goes most wond'rous wise:

7     Doubts of truth, believes pretences;

8    Lost in error, lives and dies.