INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION: Essay #14

Journalism and Literature

  During the eighteenth century newspapers multiplied both in London and the provinces due to the plethora of pamphlets produced by political or religious development.  There was a high demand for news all over England. In 1727, seventeen new newspapers had been successfully established. A considerable growth in literacy among people was the reason of the demand for books and newspapers. Both Journalism and literature books had a clear and defined style during this century.

   Most people became fond of reading because there was a significant increase in literacy. Since the revolution, the number of undergraduates at the universities was rapidly declining. However, primary education improved immensely trough the charity school movement. Those schools were run largely by Dissenters and after some time, by mixed groups of Anglicans and Dissenters. Charity schools provided education for the artisan’s and small shopkeepers´ children. People who ran those societies were essentially puritan since they believed, like their grandparents before them, in godliness, industry, and thrift. Then they would form the Methodism movement.

 Some people became professionals on letters due to the products of charity school and the new grammar schools. Consequently, there was a great increase in literary styles apart from theology and travel.  Writers started to work on good, bad or indifferent poetry and plays. But in those times, novels were quite unusual. Other writers such as Young and Thomson, wrote smooth, elegant and formal verse to gratify the conventional tastes of their patrons. The growth of literature and the development of journalism deeply affected the writing of prose.

  To conclude, the seventeenth century´s pieces of writing were embellished but there was a lack of effective and deeply personal use of words. Instead, writers started to implement plainer writing and a simpler vocabulary to produce suitable books for the simply educated people.  The readers were more varied than before when only high classes used to read.