2. Three stages of the 18th Century English Literature: (1) 1688---the end of the 1730s neo-classicism in poetry of Alexander pope, a new prose literature in the essays of Addison and steele and in the first realistic fiction of defoe and swift (2). 1740s-1750s, the realistic novels of Richardson, Fielding and smollett of whom the last two made rather fierce attacks on the existing social conditions but still maintained sufficient faith in the eventual triumph of virtue over vice and in the final attainment somehow of Soclal Justice BThe last decades, decline of the Enlightenment the appearance of new literary tendencies of sentimentalism and pre-romanticism 2021/2/232021/2/23 5 2． Three Stages of the 18th Century English Literature: ◼ (1) 1688---the end of the 1730s, neo-classicism in poetry of Alexander Pope, a new prose literature in the essays of Addison and Steele and in the first realistic fiction of Defoe and Swift. ◼ (2) 1740s-1750s, the realistic novels of Richardson, Fielding and Smollett, of whom the last two made rather fierce attacks on the existing social conditions but still maintained sufficient faith in the eventual triumph of virtue over vice and in the final attainment somehow of social justice. ◼ (3) The last decades, decline of the Enlightenment, the appearance of new literary tendencies of sentimentalism and pre-romanticism