The Enlightenment: Intellectual Revolution and Literary Shifts

Posted on Dec 22, 2024 in Arts and Humanities

The Enlightenment: An Intellectual Revolution

General Context

The Enlightenment was an intellectual movement, particularly important in England. It spanned from the Glorious Revolution to the French Revolution, encompassing two distinct periods:

  • Augustan Period (1680-1750): A period of relative peace until the Seven Years’ War in Europe and the Jacobite Wars in England.
  • Second Half of the 18th Century: Marked by significant events like the American Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the French Revolution in 1789.

This era also witnessed an Agricultural Revolution, improvements in communication, and the emergence of the public sphere—a space for public debate on political and other socially relevant topics, often taking place in clubs and similar venues.

Key Aspects of the Enlightenment

The Enlightenment brought a new order based on:

  1. Secularization: Faith in reason replaced the light of faith and the authority of tradition, leading to a separation between religion and science and their different approaches to reality. It also involved scientific theories about the structure of society.
  2. Crisis in the Idea of Order: A split between man and nature emerged. The relationship between the modern individual and social order was redefined.
  3. Diverse Attitudes Towards: New ideas of nature, the power of technology, and the power of reason were debated.
  4. Defense of Plain Style: A preference for plain style over rhetorical ornament, viewing language as a system of naming.

Crisis of the Idea of Order

While the belief in a universe created by God persisted, a separation between man and nature developed. Traditionally integrated into God’s order, humanity, associated with technology, began to view nature as an object of knowledge and exploration.

Moral Sense

Moral sense was associated with sensibility, the capacity to perceive and feel good, not just evil. It wasn’t based on rational senses but on feelings, something implicit in human nature. According to this view, individuals tend to be inherently good and act accordingly.

Diverse Attitudes Towards

  • New ideas of nature
  • The power of technology on society
  • The power of reason
  • The use of satire

Sentimentalism vs. Benevolentism

  • Sentimentalism: Emphasized emotions, particularly tears. Characters acted to feel and enjoy their feelings, doing good to feel good.
  • Benevolentism: Focused on goodness, associated with laughter. Individuals did good for its own sake and felt good as a result.

Culture of Sensibility

  • Community: Based on personal relations and good feelings among members.
  • Society: Based on connections and laws, where people don’t necessarily know each other.

Augustan Literature and the Rise of the Novel

  1. Philosophical Essays: On human nature, understanding, social order, and religion by figures like Shaftesbury, Mandeville, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume.
  2. Age of Satire: This period is often called the age of satire, with many writers, including novelists, employing it.
  3. Journalistic Essay: Associated with the growing importance of newspapers.
  4. Travel Books: Travel diaries that often blended with fiction.
  5. Poetry: Alexander Pope was a particularly relevant poet.
  6. The Novel: Notable authors include Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, Samuel Richardson, Henry Fielding, and Laurence Sterne. Novels, even religious ones, were popular and part of modern culture, often employing ambiguous techniques and written in prose.

The Realist vs. the Pure Novel

Pure novels were more concerned with form, while realist novels prioritized verisimilitude, aiming to make the narrative appear real. The narrator was commonly in the first or third person.

  • Third-Person Omniscient: Knew the world surrounding the story and could guide and explain the characters’ feelings and behavior to the readers.
  • First-Person: Could tell their own feelings but not those of other characters.

The Rise of Aesthetics

This period spanned from the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) to the French Revolution (1789). Key cultural events included the struggle for civil rights, economic and political changes, and an ongoing shift in sensibility.

Material Conditions of Literary Production

These were similar to the first half of the 18th century, including clubs, newspapers, increased literacy, and installments. Culture (traditions and customs) played a vital role in social order. Community was based on personal relationships (sentimentalism), while society was formed by impersonal relationships, where people were connected by culture but didn’t necessarily know each other.

Poetics: The Beautiful and the Sublime

Aesthetics rose in prominence. The beautiful and the sublime represented two dimensions of reality:

  • The Beautiful: Enjoyable, pleasing, present, and recognizable in the objects of the world. It is something we can share.
  • The Sublime: Cannot be identified, not an object of perception, but a presence or a feeling. It leaves one speechless.

There is a discontinuity between these dimensions—one cannot pass from one to the other. The sublime secularizes the religious dimension.

Beautiful vs. Sublime

  • Beautiful: Enjoyable, it pleases us. It is present and can be recognized in the objects of the world. It is also something we can share.
  • Sublime: It cannot be identified; it is not an object of perception but a presence or a feeling. You are speechless towards it.