it in Pope's "Dunciad," where the booksellers engage in a peeing contest.

English authors were not the only ones practicing satire. In French, Voltaire lampooned society with Candide. This short novel also trafficked in shock and provocation. It featured violence, savagery, and rape.

Aside from satire, we also have authors seriously considering how humans should live with growing cities and impending industrialization. Pope takes up this topic in his poem called An Essay on Man. In France, Jean Jacques Rousseau confronted how modern society has had an adverse impact on humans and their capacity to live freely.

One more main feature of eighteenth-century literature is the rise of the novel. During the 1700s, we saw the novels of Daniel Defoe, Samuel Richardson, and Henry Fielding. Many of these novels featured letters or epistles. Richardson's Clarissa is told entirely through letters.

Alexander Pope was an English poet who is widely recognized as one of the greatest English poets of all time. He wrote several notable poems, such as "An Essay on Criticism," "The Rape of the Lock," "The Temple of Fame: A Vision," The Dunciad, and more. Pope was also a translator and editor; he translated Homer’s Iliad and the Odyssey and edited some of Shakespeare’s works. You can read more about Alexander Pope here.

Jonathan Swift was a popular Irish author, essayist, prose satirist, and poet who often published his works under a pseudonym or anonymously. His most significant works include Gulliver's Travels, which sold around 10,000 copies within three weeks of its publication, and A Modest Proposal, which is considered by many to be one of the greatest prose satires ever written. You can find more useful information about Jonathan Swift here.

Mary Astell was an English writer and philosopher who is commonly referred to as the first feminist in the English society. Astell was heavily influenced by René Descartes's philosophy and criticized John Locke's theories. It was incredibly rare to find a writer and/or a publicist in the eighteenth century who shared the same views and opinions as Astell, as women were generally considered inferior to men; this is why all of Astell's writings were published anonymously. Her most notable works include A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, for the Advancement of Their True and Greatest Interest. By a Lover of Her Sex and Some Reflections Upon Marriage, Occasioned by the Duke and Duchess of Mazarine's Case; Which is Also Considered. You can read more about Mary Astell's life and her work here.

There were many noteworthy literary figures in the eighteenth century. I will discuss a few prominent writers, but please note that this is by no means an exhaustive list.

One significant literary figure from this period was Jonathan Swift. He was an Irish writer famous for works like Gulliver’s Travels and A Modest Proposal. He was also famous for his use of satire. A Modest Proposal was a groundbreaking work that suggested solving a food shortage in Ireland by eating newborn babies. This was a satire that highlighted the intense poverty in Ireland and critiqued the response of authority figures. The work was revolutionary in its use of satire and is still a significant reference point in the study of literature today.

Another significant literary figure from the eighteenth century was Phillis Wheatley. She was from West Africa and was enslaved in Boston. Her work explored themes of race, current events, imagination, and religion. She captured the attention of other prominent figures like Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. Her work was also subject to a great deal of scrutiny, in part because her identity as a Black female made people question her abilities. Yet she proved these critiques wrong, and her work marked literary progress for women and people of color. She also strove to humanize African Americans in her writing, to show that even though they were enslaved, they were as intelligent and as capable as everyone else.

In the eighteenth century, the novel took its place as a respectable form of entertainment and education, while being a novelist became a respectable vocation. There are many famous eighteenth century literary figures, including Henry Fielding, Samuel Johnson, Alexander Pope, Samuel Richardson, Jonathan Swift and, towards the end of the century, Jane Austen. In France, writers and philosophers Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Diderot all contributed to the Enlightenment through their literary works, as literature, philosophy and thinking became more open to progressive ideas.

Amid this movement towards progressive thinking, writers like Henry Fielding and Jonathan Swift used satire and humor to mock the ills and shortcomings of society in the hope of spurring reforms. Fielding looked at lose morality in Tom Jones. Swift examined the overwhelming poverty he saw and presented satirical ways to eradicate it in "A Modest Proposal."

Samuel Richardson, credited with writing the first epistolary novel in Pamela, looked at classism in which the upper classes could do as they pleased while the working and lower classes had limited means of achieving a fair and level playing field.

Samuel Johnson compiled the Dictionary of the English Language, which had more than 42,000 word entries. He was also a literary critic who wrote an analysis of William Shakespeare. One of Alexander Pope’s famous works, An Essay on Man, explored humankind’s relationship to G-d.

By the end of the eighteenth century, Jane Austen was writing comedies of manners exploring a variety of issues, including classicism, lack of options available to contemporary women, and relationships between men and women.