18th century in literature Juvenal’s Third Satire, by Samuel Johnson is published. Like so many poets of the 18th century Johnson sought to breathe new life into his favorite classical author Juvenal. In 1740, Samuel Richardson's "Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded" is published and Marquis de Sade is born. 1744 1745 1748 1749 1751 1754 1755 1760–1767 Laurence Sterne wrote "Tristram Shandy". 1764 1766 1768 1770 April 7: William Wordsworth is born. 1773 Oliver Goldsmith's play "She Stoops to Conquer", a farce, was performed in London. 1776 The United States Declaration of Independence is created and ratified. 1777 the comedy play "The School for Scandal",
Paris in the 18th century into exile, and some of the most promising writers, including the poet André Chenier, went to the guillotine. In the mid-18th century, Paris became the center of an explosion of philosophic and scientific activity known as the Age of Enlightenment. The philosophic movement was led by Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who argued for a society based upon reason rather than faith and Catholic dogma, and for a new civil order based on natural law, and for science based on experiments and observation. The political philosopher Montesquieu introduced the idea of a separation of powers in a government, a concept which