Journalism in Augustans
Journalism in Augustans
Because of the printing boom during the Augustan age, the number of periodicals and journals mushroomed. Everywhere, someone or other was starting a new journal. People developed an appetite for news and commentary, and the multiplying number of journals and periodicals fed that appetite.
The development in print journalism totally had consequences for the literature of the period. For example, the novels of the Augustan age (like Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe or Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels) often take on a journalistic tone. They're narrated as "real-life" events, and sometimes, as in the case of Defoe's novels, they're even inspired by real-life events. The journalistic style pretty much led to the beginnings of realism in the novel as we know it.
Shmoops:
The line between fiction and journalistic writing is thin during the Augustan age. Daniel Defoe, for instance, may have based his novel Robinson Crusoe on the true-life story of a castaway.
In Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe again blurs the line between fiction and journalistic writing when he insists that the events he narrates in the book are true. Check out this quotation (Quote #1) to see it in action.