ENLIGHTENMENT
PHILOSOPHY
Neo-classicism
refers to a broad tendency in literature and art enduring from the early
seventeenth century until around 1750. While the nature of this tendency
inevitably different across different cultures, it was usually marked by a
number of common concerns and features. Most fundamentally, neoclassicism
comprised a return to the classical models, literary styles, and values of
ancient Greek and roman authors. Neo-classicists were reacted sharply against
what they perceived to be the stylistic excess, superfluous ornamentation, and
linguistic over sophistication of some renaissance writers and also rejected
the lavishness of Gothic and Baroque styles. The neoclassical writers
reaffirmed literary composition as a rational and rule bound process, craft
labour and study.
Fundamentally
neoclassicism comprised a return to the classical models, literary styles, and
values of ancient Greek and Roman Authors. The neo-classicists were to some
extent heirs of the renaissance humanists. Two of the concepts central to
neoclassical literary theory and practice were “imitation” and “Nature” which
were intimately related. The connection of neoclassicism to recent science and
to the Enlightenment was highly ambivalent and even paradoxical.
Neoclassical
literary criticism first took place in France from where its influence spread
to other parts of Europe, notably England. The major figures in French
neoclassicism were Corneille, Racine, Moliere and La Fontaine. Corneille’s
theories grew up to defend his dramatic practice against strict classicists
such as Scudery and Jean Chapelain. Corneille’s most important piece of
literary criticism is ‘Trois Discours sur le Poeme Dramatique’. Neoclassicism
in England neoclassical criticism was not so systematic. The classical tendency
in England embraced a number of major prose writers who laid the foundations of
the modern English novel.
This
period is divided into three periods. They are
1) Restoration
period: This period is from 1660 to 1700. After the long period of puritan
domination in England British King came into throne. The writers who belong to
this period, John Dryden, John Locke, Sir William Temple, Samuel Pepys and
Aphra Behn.
2) The
Augustan Age: This period is from 1700 to 1750. This period is marked by the
imitation of Vergil and Horace’s literature in English letters. Sample writers
include Addison, Steele, Swift and Alexander Pope.
3) The
age of Johnson: this age marks the transition toward the upcoming romanticism
though the period is still largely neoclassical. Major writers are Samuel
Johnson, Boswell and Edward Gibbon etc. In America this period is called the
Colonial Period.
The
famous neo-classicist in England was Ben Jonson, whose recourse to the laws of
dramatic form was part of a combative mentality. He says that “in the battle to
distinguish true poet from false rhymester. English neo classical criticism
inspired by French. In England it was not so systematic. The most flexible
exponents of neoclassicism in England were John Dryden and Johnson. Johnson
said that Dryden was the first writer who taught us the principles for
determining the merit of a literary composition, is pregnant with meaning.
John Dryden
The
famous writer Samuel Johnson called him “the father of English criticism” he
meant was that Dryden was the one who launched this new genre of literary
criticism on its way into the world of art. He wrote his famous work “Essay on
Dramatic Poesy” in 1668, that ‘Modern English prose begins here’. His works are
very extensive, in various genres such as epic, tragedy, comedy and dramatic theory, satire,
nature of poetry and translation relative virtues of ancient and modern
writers. He wrote number of prefaces, reviews and prologues. He was also known
as poet, dramatist and translator. In his poem “Heroic Stanzas” celebrated the
achievements of Cromwell, who ruled England as Lord Protector. His major poems
are including mock- heroic “MacFlecknoe” and political satire “Absalom and
Architophel”. In his Essay he says that his chief purpose of the text is “to
vindicate the honour of our English writers, from the censure of those who
unjustly prefer the French”.
The
period 1660 to 1770 is rightly called the age of Dryden. We had better realise
that he was the pioneer, the first practitioner of comparison and analysis in
the history of criticism. Dryden uses the term ‘examen’ for critical analysis,
and this term was originally used by French playwright, Corneille. His work Of
Dramatic Poesy deals with major issues in drama: the ancients verse the
English, blank verse versus heroic verse. Dryden is only interested in
defending his profession as an English playwright. He uses Johnson’s play
“Silent women”, not to pay any tribute to him, but to build up a case for the
English tradition in drama. He favours and defends the genre tragicomedy,
rejects the addiction to the unities. He explains
reason behind this, is that if there were two major points, this would destroy
the unity of the play. Corneille says: the unity of action “leaves the mind of
the audience in a full repose”; but such a unity must be engineered by the
subordinate actions which will “hold the audience in a delightful suspense of
what will be”. Most modern plays, says fail to endure the test imposed by these
unities, and we must therefore acknowledge the superiority of the ancient
authors.
While
he was examining and judging past writers with historical point of view, this
does not mean that he is a relativist. He says that rules were invented to
reform our taste and refine our judgement. He defined play as ‘A just and
lively image of human nature, representing its passions and humours, and the
changes of future to which it is subject; for the delight and instruction of
mankind’. He called Chaucer as father of English poetry. He is perpetual
fountain of good sense. Aristotle, Horace and Longinus were the major
influences on Dryden. His criticisms came at a time of transition, ushering in
a new age. He wrote criticism more than three decades. Dryden was a versatile
professional man of letters. Dryden’s work of literary criticism remains a
lasting testament.
Alexander Pope
Alexander
pope was the tallest critics of his age. We find his criticism in ‘An Essay on
Criticism’, ‘Preface to Shakespeare’, ‘Art of Sinking’, ‘Epistles to Augustus’,
‘Preface to the Translation of the Iliad’ and his ‘Letters’. An Essay on Criticism, published by
Alexander Pope in 1711, is perhaps the clearest statement of neoclassical
principles in any language. Pope lacks historical sense. Watson says that ‘It
is clear that Pope exploited his critical interests too early to exploit them
well. The Essay is clever, but it is the indecent, puppyish cleverness of a
precocious boy and it does not advance on Dryden’s except in terms of
virtuosity’. Pope gives important to the rules. He says that rules are
important in so far as they lead us to the works of great writers.
Much
has been said that the use of the term ‘wit’ by Pope. It was a part of poetic
vocabulary of 17th and 18th centuries. At least four
classifications Pope’s uses of wit are noticeable. They are: 1) to refer to all
mental and intellectual faculties taken together. 2) To refer to the gift of
the poet, the poet’s genius. 3) To refer to the quality of ingenuity in a poet.
4) To refer to the poetic imagination.
His
‘An Essay on Criticism’ is perhaps the clearest statements of neoclassical
principles in any language. It is written in verse. While Pope Cautions that
the best poets make the best critics, and while he recognizes that some critics
are failed poets.
Samuel
Johnson
Samuel
Johnson is the most widely figure among the Augustans. He was treated as pure
academic critic. The anti-intellectualism is most characteristic of Johnson. He
says ‘Criticism, in my opinion is only to be ranked among the subordinate and
instrumental arts’.
He
believed in a direct relationship between life and literature and he believes
that literature is what caters to a good life and what is born of experience.
Literature helps to enjoy and endure life and its entirety. He says truth is man’s
guardian angel and he praises those works which tells the truth of human
existence in a new and original. He literally believed that the aim of
criticism is to establish laws with which to estimate excellence in works. He
was known as textual reader, a historical critic and sound scholar. English
neoclassical criticism has Dryden at the beginning, Pope in the middle and
Johnson at the end. He was the first person to establish the principles for
sound textual criticism. Leavis said that ‘Johnson’s criticism, most of it,
belongs with the living classics: it can be read afresh every year with
unaffected pleasure and new stimulus. It is alive and life –giving. He stands
committed to the neoclassical faith in maintaining decorum in the use of
language and poetic diction. Hence neoclassical criticism was concerned with
what poets ought to do rather than what they might do or have done.
Aphra
Behn (1640-1689)
Aphra Behn was
one of the founders of English novel. Her first novel ‘Oroonoko’ oppose the slavery.
She faced many
obstacles as a female playwright. These views are expressed in her
plays like, ‘The Dutch Lover’, ‘The Rover’ and ‘The Lucky Chance’. She elevates
to a newly important status performative dimensions of drama, like ability and integrity
of the actors. She defends the value of drama by telling it favourably with
traditional learning as taught in the universities. She denies dramatic poets
saying that “can be justly charged with too great reformation of
men’s minds or manners.” Her moral condemnation of the theatre which
accompanied the rise of Puritanism in England. She says that “no play was ever
writ with that design”. She says about
the best characters in tragedy, presents “unlikely patterns for a wise man to
pursue...and as for comedy the finest folks you meet with there, are still
unfitter for your imagination”. She
points out that many works of poetry have long treated the subject of women in
a different way, but the offense is overlooked “because a Man writ them”. She
challenges to the critics saying that: “I make a Challenge to any Person of
common Sense and Reason . . . to read any of my Comedys and compare ’em with
others of this Age, and if they can find one Word that can offend the chastest
Ear, I will submit to all their peevish Cavills”.
The
Age of Enlightenment
The age of Enlightenment
is known as the philosophical movement which dominated the world of ideas in
Europe in the 18th century and was defined as “man’s leaving his self-caused
immaturity”. The central ideas of the enlightenments were individual liberty
and religious tolerance, in opposition to the Principle of absolute monarchy in
France and the fixed Dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church French historians
traditionally place the Enlightenment between 1715. Some recent historians
begin the period in the 1620s, with the start of the scientific revolution.
The major figures of the Enlightenment were, Baron de
Montesquieu, Voltaire, Denis Diderot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Etienne Bonnot de
Condillac and the Marquis de Condorcet. In England, were, David Hume and Adam
Smith. In Germany, were, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Immanuel Kant and in
Italy, Giambattista Vico, Cesar Beccaria and Francesco Mario Pagano. Several
Enlightenment philosophers drew up a theory of the “social contract,” that
might be agreed upon by citizens of a state. So that social life would be
governed by laws and ruler’s power and his relation to his
People in terms of rights and
duties would be defined.
The main goals of
Enlightenment thinkers were liberty, progress, reason, tolerance, and the
removal of the abuses of the church and state, although they varied widely in
their ideas of how to accomplish their goals. The period is marked by
increasing empiricism, scientific rigor, and reductionism, along with increased
questioning of religious orthodoxy. The period challenged the interdependent
relationship between the hereditary monarchy, and the text of the bible, and
the rule of the King.
John Locke was one
of the most important Enlightenment thinkers. His most influential works were
‘An essay concerning human understanding’ and ‘two treatises on civil
government. He influenced other thinkers like Rousseau and Voltaire. “He is one
of the dozen or so thinkers who are remembered for their influential
contributions across a broad spectrum of philosophical subfields in Locke’s
case, across epistemology, the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind,
metaphysics, rational theology, ethics, and political philosophy.” Locke is
well known for his assertion that individuals have a right to ‘life, liberty
and property and his belief that the natural right to property is derived from
labor. His most influential works were “An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding” and “Two Treatises on Civil Government” published in 1690. He
argues that all our ideas come from experience, either through sensation or
reflection. He
was the founder of the classical British empiricism. His father supported the
parliamentarians against the king. He was a friend of Isaac Newton.
Mary Wollstonecraft
Another major
writer was Mary Wollstonecraft. She was one of the earliest feminist
philosophers. She is best known for her work ‘A Vindication of The Right of The
Women’. Before this she wrote ‘the vindication of the man’ in 1790. She was 18th
century feminist writer. She says that society only focused on male not women.
She criticised this tendency. Women should be educating for the pressure of
men. She describes about marriage and education of the women and education of
children. Day schools are to be established to give education for both men and
women. She tells to give rational education for men and women. Mother is first
teacher to teach her child. When she gets education she will able to teach her
children.
She was a
victim of unfortunate romantic encounters. She did not directly write on
literature. She mentioned the issues of nature of women, their innate abilities
and their characteristics as arising from social and economic circumstances. He
also mentioned their capacity for education which is central theory of feminist
literary criticism. In A Vindication if the Rights of Women she said that “for
the rights of women, my main argument is built on this simple principles that
is she be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will
stop the progress of knowledge and virtue, for truth must be common to all”. She argues that “The rights of the women may
be respected, if it be fully proved that reason calls for his respect, a loudly
demands justice for one- half of the human race”. Women can cooperate ‘supreme
being’ they can have a productive role in the world. Many male writers
effectively render women “useless members of society”. Male writers argued that
the whole tendency of female education should be directed towards one purpose
to make women pleasing to men. She also attacks female writers like Hester
Lynch Thrale Piozzi, Mme etc. Men from their infancy regaled with method and
the need for systematic and exact thought, women receive only a disorderly kind
of education. There a number of degrading and injurious consequences of women
being given such a haphazard education. The most important is that women are
unable to act as genuine moral agents.
The French National
assembly said the rights of man in 1789 said nothing about the rights of women.
Wollstonecraft argued for rational education for both sexes was based on the
promises of freedom enthusiastically greeted by many English writers in the
early days of the French revolution. While working as a governess for the
Kingsborough family in Ireland, Wollstonecraft wrote her first novel ‘A
Fiction’. By comparing women to military men both are fond of dress trained in
obedience and not expected to think for themselves. She implies that education
and socialization account for more difference than does gender alone. To
prevent any misconstruction, that she do not believe that a private education
can work the wonders which some sanguine writers have attributed to it. Men and
women must be educated, in a great degree by the opinions and manners of the society
they live in.
The most perfect education
in her opinion is such an exercise of the understanding as is best calculated
strengthen the body and form the heart. All the writers who have written on the
subject of female education and manners from Rousseau to Dr.Gregory have
contributed to render women more artificial, weak characters and consequently
more useless members of society. Many are the causes that in the present corrupt
state of society contribute to enslave women by cramping their understandings
and sharpening their senses. Perhaps that silently does more mischief than all
the rest is their disregard of order.
Women
are to be considered either as moral beings or so weak that they must be
entirely subjected to the superior faculties of men. At last she says that she
be loved or neglected, her first wish should be to make herself as respectable,
and not to rely for all her happiness on a being subject to like infirmities
with herself.
Joseph Addison (1672-1719)
Joseph Addison was a poet and dramatist as well as a
politician. He was best known as an essayist. He much contributed for the
development of the essay. In January 1711, Addison and Steele published the
work ‘Spectator’. After closing of the Spectator they launched the ‘Guardian’. Most
of the literary criticism is we find in pages of Spectator’. It includes a
series of essays, serious issues, philosophy and literature.
These
periodicals were addressed to the middle classes, their function and merely
propagate them. In the spectator there are several issues on nature of tragedy,
wit, genius, the sublime and the imagination. He was also tried to distinguish
between true and false wit in his spectator. He himself adds that not every
resemblance of ideas can be termed wit, the resemblance must give delight and
surprise to the reader. Addison says about Romantic that we derive imaginative
pleasure from whatever is new such novelty offers “agreeable Surprise” and
gratifies our curiosity because we are “tired out with so many repeated Shows
of the same Things,” and we welcome “Strangeness of Appearance”.
Giambattista
Vico (1668-1744)
Vico
was a Italian Writer who expressed his writings in historical view point that
the progress of human thought, language and culture. His important work was
“Scienza Nuova” (new science), published in 1725, 1730 and 1744. He had a wide
range of interests, extending from philology and poetry to sociology, theology
and law. He was joined a group of radical
intellectuals who Reacted against the central idea of medieval philosophy and
whose vision expressed the rationalist and empiricist values of the
Enlightenment. Then he joined another group the Palatine Academy, which was
also committed to Enlightenment and the liberation of philosophy and science
from theology.
In Vico’s view poetry
form an integral part of his attempt to explain the origins and development of
human society. He takes his threefold division of history from the Egyptians:
1.The age of gods, 2.The age of heroes, and 3.The age of men. In these periods
he says about language, civil society and form of government. The age of gods
represents a time when people lived directly under “divine Governments”. The
age of heroes refers to “aristocratic commonwealths” in which the “heroes” rule
over the common people. Age of men represents, in “which all men recognized
themselves as equal in human nature”.
David
Hume (1711-1776)
He was a
Scottish philosopher. He was one of the major figures in the enlightenment
period. He was an empiricist, believing that knowledge drives from experience.
His major philosophical works were ‘A
Treatise of Human Nature’,’ An
Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding’ and ‘An Enquiry Concerning the
Principles of Morals’. He also produced Political Discourses and a number of treatises on religion,
including The Natural History of
Religion and Three Dialogues
Concerning Natural Religion, which was not published until 1779, after
his death. In addition he managed to write a six-volume History of England. His essays were on history of religion, the passions and tragedy.
Hume is one of the
major figures of the Enlightenment. Many criticized his sceptical views as
extremist and alarming, because they were challenged religious orthodoxy.
According to modern scholar Walter Jackson Bate “in Hume’s writings, human
reason was dissected with such devastating effect that philosophy has never
since quite recovered the traditional classical confidence in reason”. His
moral and philosophical writings include ‘a Treatise of human Nature’, and
essays ‘On moral and Political subjects’, ‘an Enquiry concerning human
Understanding’, etc.
Hume
draws attention to the previous thinkers who make a distinction between
judgement and sentiment. This sceptical view judgement of the understanding
refers beyond them. In his view beauty “is no quality in things themselves: It
exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a
different beauty”. Hume argues that the rules of art are not fixed by a priori
reasoning but by experience. He states that whatever features of art are found
to please people cannot be faults. There are certain general principles whereby
we can approve or criticize the art. He says that a sense of aesthetic taste is
developed not by following abstract rules but by practice in a particular art.
According
to Hume True taste, is a rational process, we rely on good sense to check our
prejudices and reason is important to the formation of good sense in a number
of ways. Hume says that the principles of taste are universal, only few are
give judgement on a work of art. Most of the people cannot overcome obstacles
in the way of achieving true taste. The standard of taste is not objective
rather it is based on subjective consensus. Artistic taste all which are based
on experience. He said to believe in experience. Different tastes are based on
reality and morality. He calls a need of standardization of taste. There is a
wide difference between rational and sentimental judgement. He says beauty does
not exist in object it exists in the minds of the human being.
He
makes difference between primary and secondary qualities. Primary fitted for
nature and secondary fitted for human mind. On the basis of Qur’an he discussed
about what is justice and injustice. In reality the difficulty of finding even
in particulars the standard of taste, is not as great as it is represented.
Religious principles are also a blemish in any polite composition, when they
rise up to superstition, and intrude themselves into every sentiment, however
remote from any connection with religion.
The enlightenment was a broad and sweeping intellectual
movement with many features and implications. It embraced reason over religion,
superstition and tradition. They believed that reason and secularism were
necessary for political, economic and social progress. In general the major
tendencies of enlightenment philosophy were toward rationalism, empiricism,
pragmatism and utilitarianism. Enlightenment ideas have been especially
influential in politics. Enlightenment ideas continue to guide our political
system. The legacy of the enlightenment will never be forgotten. The period of
European history from 1760 to 1860 was dominated by two series of events, the
French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution which caused for the emergence
and growth of Romanticism. There are many versions of Enlightenment-
aristocratic and bourgeois, rationalist and empiricist, modernist and
classicist, mercantilist and laissez- faire, urban and pastoral, religious and
secular.
Bibliography
Habib,
M.A.R. Modern Literary Criticism and Theory; 2005.
Age
of Enlightenment: Pdf.
Narayanan,
M.S. English Literary Criticism and Theory; An Introduction History, Hyderabad:
Orient Blackswan, 2008.
Nayar,
Prasad K. A Short History of English Literature; New Delhi: Cambridge, 2009
Curran,
Stuart. The Cambridge Comparison to British Romanticism; Cambridge: 2010.
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