ENLIGHTENMENT PHYLOSOPHY

                                                        Neoclassicism is a tendency in literature and art derived from classical and contemporary French model of seventeenth century. It embodied a group of attitude towards art and human existence. Neoclassicsm comprise a return to classical models and literary style. Neoclassists adopted renaissance humanist. Imitation and nature are the two concepts central to neoclassical literary theory and practice. Like enlightenment philosophers neoclassical critics also gave a place to reason. “The neoclassicists certainly saw literature as subject to a system of rules, and literary composition as a rational process, subject to the faculty of judgment” (Habib, 278). Some German neoclassical thinkers influenced by the enlightenment philosopher Descrates and other rationalist thinkers. “Reason to which the neoclassical writers appeal is in general not the individualistic and progressive reason of the Enlightenment” (Habib, 275).

                                                           Pierre Corneille was a French playwright. Three Discourses on Dramatic Poetry is one of the major works of Corneille in literary criticism; it is an explanation of his own dramatic practice. The play ignores the classical rule of theatre opening from Aristotle and Horace. So a lot of controversies are created. Many of critics believed that the play violated not only the three unities of time, place and action but also probability and necessity of Aristotelian theatre. Corneille responds to this by producing his Three Discourses.

                                                            John Dryden was a neoclassical poet as well as a critic.  A new era Criticism began with him, he is the first one to teach to determine the merit of composition upon principle. There were only occasional utterances on the critical art till his contribution. So, he is known as the father of English Criticism. He gave his attention to almost all literary forms such as poetry, satire, tragedy etc. He wrote only one formal treaty on Criticism- An Essay of Dramatic Poesy .He believed that poetry is an imitation of fact, popular belief and things in their ideal form. Poetry is not only an imitation of life but a whole resemblance of it, that is poet is a creator neither an imitator nor a teacher. He regards that an end of poetry is a delight rather than instruction. For him nature and life are the raw material, by using these raw material produce a new superstructure which is deviate from his original base.

                                                        Alexander Pope was a neoclassical critic and poet. His magnum opus in criticism An Essay on Criticism published in 1711.It is written in verse imitating the tradition of Horace’s magnum opus Ars Poetica . Habib in his---- argued that the same contradiction  permeate the Essay on Ctiticism effects stylistic neoclassicm and modernity in the wake of figures such as Bacon, Hobbes and Locke, pioneers of Enlightenment philosophy.  Pope swap the use of language of Theology into aesthetic, because he believed that the aesthetic humility that allow critics to avoid their biased view and their arrogant in learning, so he can do better . Pope viewed Criticism itself an art, so in the beginning of his treaty An Essay on Criticism, he deals with art not criticism. Pope’s An Essay on Man is a critique on Enlightenment; here he seeks to the place of men in universe through reason not of the recourse of scriptures. Pope believed that reason is a universal archetype in human nature, which is guarded by theological framework. His view on reason is differing from the secular notion of the advocates of Enlightenment. Habib in his History of Literary Criticism from Plato to Present noted “Reason in this sense is a corollary of humility: it is humility which allows the critic to rise above egotistical dogmatism and thereby to be rational and impartial, and aware of his own limitations, in his striving after truth”.                                                        

                                                            Aphra Behn is one of the pioneers of English novel. As a female writer she faced a lot of obstacles in her career, although she elevates to a newly perfomative dimension of drama. Ben refutes dramatic poets, “can be justly charged with too great reformation of men minds or manners.”  She believed that common sense and reason helps one to understand a text properly, “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” .She believed that common sense and reason that help women to free from the prejudice and malicious of men in which they were distorted and abused. Even though she gave emphasis to reason to think in proper way but her writing does not follow a logical pattern, it is an expression her emotion, righteous anger etc.

                                                      Samuel Johnson is regarded as the last and also one of the great neoclassical critics. He articulates the spirit of Neoclassicism by freeing criticism from the excessive dependence of rules and regulations. Lives of English Poets and eight-volume edition of Shakespeare are the prominent work of Samuel Johnson in criticism. “Johnson’s classical commitment to reason, probability, and truth was complemented by his equally classical insistence on the moral function of literature” (Habib, 304). Johnson in Rambler argued that rule should be drawn from reason rather than mere precedent.

                                                    Enlightenment is an eighteenth century Philosophical movement, which dominated the world of ideas of eighteenth century Europe characterized by belief in the power of human reason. So the Age of Enlightenment is also known as Age of Reason. For French historians it is a period between 1715, after the death of Louis XIV, and 1789, the beginning of the French Revolution. Another view of some recent historians is that the age of enlightenment started in 1620 with the emergence of Scientific Revolution. Todorov in his work In Defence of The Enlightenment argued that the Enlightenment was a period of culmination, recapitulation and synthesis , not one of radical innovation . “The Enlightenment was at once rationalist and empiricist, heir to Descartes and to Locke, receptive to the Ancients and to the Moderns, to the universalists and to the particularists, enamoured with history and eternity, details and abstractions, nature and art, freedom and equality” ( Todorov , P 4) .

 The Age of Enlightenment give emphasis to logical reasoning based on facts, therefore the age also known as Age of Reason . By giving focus to reason based facts, science became flourished in this Age of Reason; observation and empiricism is the base of the scientific method. Later scientific theory started to apply in religion as well as society, as a result of it a secularist view developed. Enlightenment is one of the key factors of both American and French revolution. As a result of Enlightenment European thought became centered on the belief in reason, science, individual rights, and the progress of civilization.

 Zygmunt Bauman in his treaty Modernity and the Holocaust argued “. . . with the Enlightenment came with the enthronement of the new deity, that of Nature, together with the legitimation of science as its only orthodox cult, and of scientists as its prophets and priests. Everything, in principle, had been opened to objective inquiry; everything could, in principle, be known— a reliably and truly”.                                  

Advocate of Enlightenment question the traditional authority and clinch the notion that humanity could be better through rational change. The notion of Enlightenment paved the way into nineteenth century Romanticism. The period between 1685and 1730 is called as Early Enlightenment. Habib in his Modern Literary Criticism and Theory argued that three seminal precursors of Enlightenment were the English thinkers Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, a French rationalist philosopher and   a Dutch rationalist philosopher Benedict Spinoza. Newton’s Principia Mathematica and John Lock’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding are the two prominent works which provide scientific and philosophical support to the major progress of Enlightenment. Individual Enlighten thinkers are differ from one another such Hume differ from Locke and Rousseau from Voltaire. Even though the enlightenment thinkers did not show any uniformity but in their outlook they represent an era which lay emphasis to reason and initiating an era to humanitarian, intellectual and social progress through such an emphasis .    

                                                        John Locke, an enlightenment philosopher was a pioneer in classical British empiricism. He was a friend of Isaac Newton, whose work The Principia paved the way to enlightenment. Essay Concerning Human Understanding, one of the famous work of Locke.   Habib in his History of Literary criticism From Plato to Present argued that Locke’s view of language providing the starting point for subsequent theory of language in eighteenth century and  also deal a  modern literary-critical thinking about language.                                                                      

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                                                          Joseph Addison, an essayist and poet, was an Enlightenment philosopher. Addison’s logical use of discussion of Milton, wit and theatrical taste etc were influenced on the taste of British middle-class of both eighteenth and nineteenth century. His writings are the fulfillments of his belief on classical notion that literature has a duty to educate through pleasing. As a Neoplatonic view he also had a tendency to see art as going beyond to both social and spiritual proportions. He thought that a critic should “dwell rather upon Excellencies than Imperfections”(Steel and Adisson,1998: 423) . He regards  it is the duty of a critic “to discover the concealed beauty of a writer and to communicate  to the World  such Things  as are worth their observation” (ibid: 423) . Addison  also exploited the psychology of John Locke . His periodical Spectator, directly addressed to the middle-class people to reform them rather than transmiting among them. Steele urges that people’s actions should be directed toward the public good rather than merely private interests, and that these actions should be governed by the dictates of reason, religion, and nature (Spectator, 68–70).

                                                              Italian Enlightenment philosopher Giambattista Vico in his work expressed the progress of human thought and culture. New Science is a famous work of Vico. He believed that human nature is shaped by specific social, economical and religious circumstance and at the same time it is neither timeless nor unchanging. Later he associate with a group of radical intellectuals, they were not only react against the principle of medieval philosophy but also expressed the empiricist and rational value of enlightenment by following the pathways of the works of Francis Bacon and Descartes. Then he mingled with another gang, Palatine Academy, they were also associated with enlightenment. The Palatine Academy related with the liberation of both philosophy and science from theology. Vico believed that the new science must be a “rational civil theology of divine providence”.  Habib in his Modern Literary Criticism and Theory:a Histoy argued that Vico’s science is a “a history of the ideas, the customs, and the deeds of mankind,” from which he develop the principles of the history of human character. Vico’s enlightenment ideal represents that mutual accommodation or the equivalence of divine and human agency is possible in historical progress, such enlightenment ideal relate with reason and science.

                                                      David Hume, a Scottish philosopher and an advocate of enlightenment, develop Lock’s empiricist notion towards skeptical conclusion. Hume’s role in enlightenment can be found in his associationist psychology, it raise a problem in aesthetic that is -do people’s standards of beauty is derived from innate ideas, or are they product of mental association. John Locke, one of the empiricist philosopher of Enlightenment, in his work Essay Concerning Human Understanding neglect the faith in innate ideas of the mind and argued that mind is a blank slate gradually filled up by sense impression that come together in sort of ideas. But differing from Locke Neoclassical critic such as Edmund Burke neglects this associationist psychology and support the innate power of mind. David Hume is the most influential assocationist psychologist.  In his attempt to apply empirical observation of human nature to literary theory and practice, he achieved a reconciliation of neoclassical principles with the new doctrines regarding the association of ideas. By the experience of sublimity Hume means that the awe and admiration felt for object at a great distance. He was an empiricist , believed that our knowledge is derived from our own experience. A Treatise of Human Nature is one of his celebrated works. Of the Standard of Taste, one the essays of Hume deals with question of standards of aesthetic judgment like what role does the reader or audience have in determining the elements of taste? He asserts that taste may vary even though people are rear in same circumstances and imbibe same general prejudice. Hume expressed that sentiments are only a relation between an object and mental faculties not an expression of real objects. A single object produce thousands of sentiments, cannot claim the validity of one over another because all sentiments are correct. So, beauty “is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty” (“OST,” 7).  Hume argued that  rules of art are fixed by experience, not by reasoning but, by “general observations, concerning what has been universally found to please in all countries and all ages.”                                           

                                                         Mary Wollstone Craft, first feminist writer and also known as the mother of feminism. As an Enlightenment thinker Wolestonecraft propounding arguments in favor of reason and at same time against privileges that followed in the society .She became one of the controversy figures in Enlightenment as a result of her radical about women’s right and religion. Her contribution in Enlightenment thought is her skepticism about institution such as family, state, educational system and religion etc. In this Age people wanted change in the existing situations of society. Mary Wollstone finds a way to express her discomfort in the hereditary privilege of society through her writing. She believed that women should be treated as men and get equal educational opportunities as men.  A Vindication of the Rights of Women is the most celebrated work of Wollstone Craft. She argued that not only man but also women can hold their rights because she believed that like men, women also have the “gift of reason”.

 “An essential part of Wollstonecraft’s endeavor is to redeem the notion of reason from its history of male abuse and to appropriate it toward more equitable ends respecting gender ( Habib, 340)”. She asserts that man’s dominance over other animal is depending upon his rationality and man can attain knowledge differ from animal by struggling with his own passion. Wollstone Craft in the premise of her work noted- “the perfection of our nature and capability of happi- ness must be estimated by the degree of reason, virtue, and knowledge that distinguish the individual, and direct the laws which bind society”. She expressed in her A Vindication of Right of Women “deeply rooted prejudices have clouded reason, and . . . spurious qualities have assumed the name of virtues” (91). She advised readers, especially women to think rationally that has neither by prejudice nor by expediency. She also believed that both the entire history and structure of feudalism is based on the prejudice and irrational convenience not on reason. In the second chapter of her work, she noted that if a man wrote the history of women, it is prejudiced and women are degrade into “artificial weak character”. She admired by Rousseau, political thinker and an advocate of enlightenment. Habib argued “Wollstonecraft’s voice here reverberation with Enlightenment ideals; whereas many feminists, including Christine de Pisan, have appealed to direct experience to counter the theoretical reflections of men” (342).

                                                    “Hegel sees human history as a progress of absolute mind or consciousness toward self- conscious rationality and freedom” (Habib ,395). Even though he has a belief on reason , he was more associate with romanticism.

                                                  Enlightenment is followed by romanticism. Differ from the emphasis on ration a new movement giving emphasis on emotion, feeling and nature. Romanticism focuses on a return to nature. In contrary to empiricism and fact romanticism lay emphasis on feelings and emotions.   

                                                         BIBLIOGRAPHY

·         Habib, M.A.R. A History Literary Criticism from Plato to the Present:UK Black Well Publishing, .2005.

·         Nayar, Pramod K.A. A Short History of English Literature. New Delhi: Cambridge, 2009.

·          Todorov, Tzvetan. In Defeence of The Enlightenment. London: Atlantic Books,2006 .