Safwana Arayapurath, A3- Enlightenment

THE ENLIGHTENMENT PHILOSOPHY

The Enlightenment philosophy or generally termed as the Age of Reason with its principal goals of liberty, progress, reason, tolerance, and ending the abuses of the church and state was a movement which dominated Europe in the mid 18th century. In his essay “What is Enlightenment?” (1784), Immanuel Kant described it simply as freedom to use one’s own intelligence. More broadly, the Enlightenment period is marked by increasing empiricism, scientific rigor, and reductionism, along with increased questioning of religious orthodoxy. Historians traditionally placed the Enlightenment between 1715, the year that Louis XIV died, and 1789, the beginning of the French Revolution which is also the period of late neoclassicism. Some recent historians mark the beginning of the period in the 1620s, with the start of the scientific revolution, which later undermined the authority of the monarchy and the church, and prepared the way for the revolutions of the 18th and 19th centuries.

NEOCLASSICAL AGE

The Enlightenment period overlaps with the neoclassical age. As the term suggests, neoclassicism found interest in the revival of the classics. It comprised a return to the classical models, literary styles, and values of ancient Greek and Roman authors. The neoclassical writers reaffirmed literary composition as a rational and rule-bound process, requiring a great deal of craft, labor, and study. They tended to insist on the separation of poetry and prose, the purity of each genre, and the hierarchy of genres and so on. The typical verse forms of the neoclassical poets were the alexandrine in France and the heroic couplet in England. Much neoclassical thought was marked by a recognition of human finitude, in contrast with the humanists’ (and, later, the Romantics’) assertion of almost limitless human potential.

Neoclassicism refers to a broad tendency in literature and art enduring from the early seventeenth century until around 1750. In English literature, it refers to the period between 1600 and 1785.  There are many sub periods in the neoclassical period. The period between 1660 and 1700 is known as “Restoration period”. This period refers to the restoration of the monarchy by Charles II in 1660 marking the end of Commonwealth. It was during this time "heroic drama" and the "comedy of manners" or "the restoration comedy" was developed Sir George Etherege, William Wycherley, William Congreve and John Dryden. This period was followed by the “Augustan age” which extends from 1700 to 1745. It was "the age of Queen Anne" when the England witnessed one of the brilliant periods of literary production in its history with writers such as Pope, Addison and Swift who tended to imitate the classics. The period is thus named the Augustan age after the reign of Roman Emperor Augustus (27 B.C. - 14 A.D.), which was a glorious literary period with gifted writers like Virgil, Horace and Ovid. Then the period between 1745 and 1785 is termed as the “age of sensibility” or “age of Johnson”. It denote the period between the death of Alexander pope in 1744, and 1785, one year after the death of Samuel Johnson. It was also the time when Samuel Johnson and his intellectual circle including Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, James Boswell, Edward Gibbon, and Hester Lynch Thrale dominated the English literature.

Michael Moriarty argued that a specifically literary criticism, he urges, began to emerge as a specialized and professional discipline in the seventeenth century, with literature being identified as an autonomous field of study and expertise. Seventeenth-century criticism addressed an expanded readership which it helped to create: this broader public ranged from the aristocracy of the court and the salons to the middle strata of the bourgeoisie. The critical ideology of this public was oriented toward pleasure and to evaluation based on polite “taste.” The rise of periodical presses during the second half of the seventeenth century “provided a new channel for discourse about literature addressed to a non-scholarly social elite.” But there was a reciprocal interaction: the habits of literary consumption modified critical discourse; for example, despite the epic’s high theoretical status, the demands and tastes of an increasing theater-going public generated far more criticism about drama. Along with these developments, a class of literary men newly emerged from bourgeois backgrounds, the nouveaux doctes, specialized in a specifically literary training, and focused on language, rhetoric, and poetics. This mastery enabled them to establish a new, more respectable identity for themselves as men of letters, whereby they could offer polite society the kind of pleasure befitting its dignity. This general tendency of neoclassicism toward order, clarity, and standardization was manifested also in attempts during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to regulate the use of language and the meanings of words. They believed that philosophy should proceed by defining its terms precisely, using “clear and distinct” ideas and avoiding figurative language. This ideal of clarity, of language as the outward sign of the operations of reason, permeated neoclassical poetry, which was often discursive, argumentative, and aimed to avoid obscurity.  Two of the concepts central to neoclassical literary theory and practice were imitation and nature, which were intimately related. The imitation meant the objective copying of external world of human action as well as the imitation of the classics. The term nature had multifarious meanings as far as the neoclassicists were concerned. It refered to the presentation of the harmonious universe, of the human nature and experience and also exclusion on "unnatural" things.

The neoclassical literary criticism was most pronounced in France and England. Neoclassical literary criticism first took root in France from where its influence spread to other parts of Europe, notably England. The major figures of French neoclassicism were Corneille, Racine, Molière, and La Fontaine. Pierre Corneille (1606–1684), who was primarily a playwright, authored an important text of literary criticism, Trois Discours sur le poeme dramatique (Three Discourses on Dramatic Poetry) in 1660. The text was produced in response to the criticisms against his most renowned play Le Cid (1637) for its violation of the classical three unities. Through this work in which his mastery of classical convention, he responded to the charges against his plays and justified his own dramatic practice. He believed in the liberal interpretation if Aristotilian unities and desired to make ancient rules agree with modern pleasure. The most prominent theorists were Dominique Bouhours, René Rapin, and Nicolas Boileau. Characteristically of the neo- classical tendency as a whole, Bouhours argued against excessive ornamentation and insisted on the principle of decorum. Boileau, perhaps the most influential French neoclassical critic, argued for retaining the strict divisions between classical verse forms.

The main streams of English neoclassical criticism were inspired by and also a reaction against the French example. French influence in England was intensified by the Restoration and critical texts from French got translated to English. Dryden and Johnson were perhaps the most flexible exponents of neoclassicism in England, attempting to mediate between the merits of ancients and moderns. In general, the critics ranging from Jonson to Johnson effectively advanced the notion of a viable English literary tradition.

John Dryden (1631-1700) was an expert in poetry, drama, criticism, and translation. Dryden occupies a central place in the history of English criticism and prose. Dryden's strengths and limits as a critic are displayed in his best-known critical work, the lengthy conversation An Essay of Dramatic Poesy. The essay is written as a debate on drama conducted by four speakers, Eugenius, Crites, Lisideius, and Neander. These personae have conventionally been identified with four of Dryden’s contemporaries. His stated purpose is "to vindicate the honor of our English writers from the censure of those who unjustly prefer the French before them." Through his four speakers, he treats the relationship between the ancients and the moderns, French dramatic theory and English practice, and the use of rhyme in drama, commenting along the way on Shakespeare, Jonson, and other authors. Samuel Johnson commented of the Essay that "modern English prose begins here"; he called Dryden as "the father of English criticism."

Alexander Pope (1688-1744) produced some of the finest verse ever written. His most renowned publications include several mock-heroic poems such as The Rape of the Lock (1712; 1714), and The Dunciad (1728). His philosophical poem An Essay on Man (1733–1734) was a scathing attack on human arrogance or pride in failing to observe the due limits of human reason, in questioning divine authority and seeking to be self-reliant on the basis of rationality and science. An Essay on Criticism, written in verse was published anonymously by Alexander Pope in 1711, contains the expression of neoclassicism. Like many writers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, he judges literature to be plagued by ill-informed, careless, proud, and pompous critics, whose mistaken evaluations of texts mislead authors as well as readers. John Dryden, in "The Author's Apology for Heroic Poetry" (1677), similarly laments that he and his fellow authors have "fallen into an age of illiterate, censorious, and detracting people, who, thus qualified, set up for critics." In the Essay Pope writes that the dismaying state of criticism reflects a broad historical decline from the Greek and Roman past-the golden age of art, when critics generously sought to advise authors and to instruct readers on how to appreciate them. He defines classical values in terms of “nature” and “wit”, both as necessary for good poetry and criticism. He calls for the need of moral sensibility and a sense of balance in order to criticize a work of art.

Aphra Behn (1640–1689), a pioneer in many respects was the first Englishwoman to earn by her pen and was the first commercial woman playwright. During her career Behn wrote at least eighteen plays, as well as many poems and prose works. In addition, she is considered one of the 'mothers' of the English novel. She can be considered as one of the founders of the English novel and wrote Oroonoko (1688), the first novel to oppose slavery.  Her critical views are expressed largely in the prefaces to her plays, such as The Dutch Lover (1673), The Rover (1677), and The Lucky Chance (1687). Aphra Behn’s appeal to experience – to specifically female experience – was far more radical and she contributed to the elevation to a newly important status the performative dimensions of drama, such as the ability and integrity of the actors. She was very controversial when she dismissed the classical rules of drama in a breath. She asserted that women, if given the same education as men, are just as capable of acquiring knowledge and in as many capacities as men. In her "Epistle to the Reader", she exposes the elitist underpinnings of late-seventeenth century literary theory. She is the first English critic to reject outright, Horace's platitude that literature must instruct and delight and this view has invited scathing criticisms from her contemporaries.

Samuel Johnson literary outputs include a monumental Dictionary of the English Language, a comprehensive edition of Shakespeare, and the Lives of the English Poets, a set of insightful, vividly written biographical arid literary portraits of seventeenth and eighteenth century authors. Johnson's eight-volume edition of Shakespeare was published in October 1765. In his Preface to Shakespeare, he celebrates Shakespeare's gifts in portraying character and revealing truths about human nature and, more important, defends the playwright against charges of violating the dramatic unities of time and place and improperly mixing the genres of tragedy and comedy. Johnson was one among those to propose that authors be granted freedom to depart from classical rules and prescriptions for literary composition.

THE  ENLIGHTENMENT

The Enlightenment which is one of the greatest intellectual awakenings in Western history, offered new perspectives upon such diverse topics as political theory; economics; science and medicine; philosophy; education; literature; and history. It also sought to provide answers to questions about the development and progress of human nature. Indeed, it was hoped that all this accumulated knowledge, spread over a multitude of disciplines, would ultimately improve the lives of mankind and provide practical results that would serve in the general progress of humanity. In political terms, the Enlightenment produced several blueprints of what might be an ideal state. Several Enlightenment philosophers drew up a theory of the “social contract,” or the contract that might be agreed upon by citizens of a state so that social life would be governed by laws and that the ruler’s power and his relation to his subjects in terms of rights and duties would be defined. The whole of the Enlightenment philosophy can be summed up in Rene Descartes' cogito ergo sum "I think, Therefore Iam" and Kant's imperative "Dare to Know!".  Kant also added that an individual should ‘have the courage to use your own reason’. This is emblematic of the period as it has been frequently referred to as an ‘Age of Reason’.

The term “Enlightenment” emerged in English in the later part of the 19th century, with particular reference to French philosophy, as the equivalent of the French term 'Lumières’ (used first by Dubos in 1733 and already well established by 1751). However, scholars have never agreed on a definition of the Enlightenment, or on its chronological or geographical extent. It is difficult to draw a clear demarcation between the periods of neoclassicism and the Enlightenment. The Age of Enlightenment was preceded by and closely associated with the scientific revolution.  There is little consensus on the precise beginning of the age of Enlightenment; the beginning of the 18th century (1701) or the middle of the 17th century (1650) are often used as epochs. If taken back to the mid-17th century, the Enlightenment would trace its origins to Descartes' Discourse on Method, published in 1637. It is argued by several historians and philosophers that the beginning of the Enlightenment is when Descartes shifted the epistemological basis from external authority to internal certainty by his cogito ergo sum published in 1637. The other most frequently cited start point is 1688, the year of the ‘Glorious’ Revolution in England and a year after Isaac Newton published his scientific masterwork the Principia Mathematicia in France in 1687. As to its end, most scholars use the last years of the century often choosing the French Revolution of 1789 or the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars (1804–15) as a convenient point in time with which to date the end of the Enlightenment. Because the Enlightenment can lay claim to being the foundation of the modern world, it is also possible to argue that there is no death as such which can be attributed to it, only a metamorphosis into the world that we recognise today.  Another problem in dealing with the scope of the Enlightenment is the geographical extent to which it spread. While modern scholars acknowledge the undoubted international reach of the Enlightenment, it is not a unitary phenomenon. There are rich national and regional variations of enlightenment which all add unique flavours to the mix.

 The Enlightenment philosophy itself was not static or unique, it was multifarious in nature.  In the 18th century, reason began to shift from the rationalism of Descartes and instead came to embrace empiricism. As such, it was naturally sceptical of abstract reasoning or any other forms which eschewed these fundamental principles. In the work Dialectic of Enlightenment, Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno see developments of the 20th century as late consequences of the Enlightenment: humans are installed as “Master” of a world being freed from its magic; truth is understood as a system; rationality becomes an instrument and an ideology managed by apparatuses; civilisation turns into the barbarism of fascism; civilizing effects of the Enlightenment turn into their opposite; and exactly this – they claim – corresponds to the problematic structure of the Enlightenment’s way of thinking. Jürgen Habermas, however, disagrees with his teachers’ (Adorno and Horkheimer’s) view of the Enlightenment as a process of decay. He talks about an “incomplete project of modernity” which, in a process of communicative actions, always asks for rational reasons.

Earlier philosophers whose work influenced the Enlightenment included Francis Bacon (1562–1626), René Descartes (1596– 1650), John Locke (1632–1704), Baruch Spinoza(1632– 77), Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) and Sir Isaac Newton (1642– 1727). The major figures of the Enlightenment were, in France; the Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755), Voltaire (1694-1778), Denis Diderot (1713-1784), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), Etienne Bonnot de Condillac (1714-1780), and the Marquis de Condorcet (1743- 1794); in Great Britain, David Hume (1711-76) and Adam Smith (1723-1790); in Germany, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804); and in Italy, Giambattista Vico (1668- 1744), Cesar Beccaria (1734-94) and Francesco Mario Pagano (1748–99). The Americans Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson came to Europe during the period and contributed actively to the scientific and political debate, and the ideals of the Enlightenment were incorporated into the United States Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

The philosophical assumptions of the Enlightenment can be examined in the literary and cultural criticism of certain major thinkers, as they inform various critical trends. It consist the views of language formulated by Locke and Vico; the popularization of Locke’s ideas and their integration with neoclassical and even precursive Romantic notions in the work of Addison; the theories of taste and judgment offered by Hume and Burke; and the analysis of women’s social and educational status undertaken by Mary Wollstonecraft, who effectively extends Enlightenment ideals to the notion of gender.

One of the major empiricist thinkers of the Enlightenment, and the most important philosopher in the formulation of political liberalism, was John Locke (1632-1704), whose most influential works were An Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Two Treatises on Civil Government, both published in 1690. In the Essay Locke denied Descartes’ view that the mind has “innate ideas,” or ideas that it is simply born with. According to him, the mind is initially a tabula rasa or blank slate upon which our experience of the world is written. Locke argues that all our ideas come from experience, either through sensation or through reflection. Locke blamed the misuse or abuse of language for many of our misconceptions about the world, and proposed that language should be made more precise.

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) was a poet and dramatist. He is best known as an essayist, and indeed he contributed much to the development of the essay form, together with his friend and colleague Richard Steele. He authored a series of articles in the periodicals the Tatler (1709–1711) and the Spectator (1711–1714) and Guardian. He wanted to bring philosophical, political, and literary discussion within the reach of the middle classes. Addison was highly influenced by the thoughts of classical writers such as Aristotle and Longinus and  Milton. Like Pope he also attempted to distinguish true and false wit.  According to him, true wit consists in the resemblance and congruity of ideas whereas false wit is based on single letters. Both Steele and Addison tried to cultivate moral values among the people through their essays. Addison's brief critical and theoretical papers, while lucid, are rarely profound or deep. Addison remains significant for the influential cultural work-the work of the public intellectual that he undertook. He read widely in literature and philosophy (both English and French), summarized well what he had discovered, and successfully brought it into the public sphere.

Giambattista Vico (1668-1744) was an Italian philosopher noted for his original insights into the origins and development of language and culture. In his most celebrated work, Scienza nuova (New Science), which he issued in three editions (1725, 1730, 1744), presents the now-famous theory of the three periods of social development, which he termed the ages of the gods, heroes, and men. Among the distinctive features of each period are differences in language and literature as well as in government and law.  He reduces the complexities of culture and society to a "universal history." His vision of historical progress allows for a mutual accommodation of divine and human agencies and according to him, everything changed with history.

David Hume is one of the major figures of the Enlightenment. This Scottish philosopher  developed some of Locke’s empiricist notions toward more radical, skeptical, conclusions. His major philosophical works include A Treatise of Human Nature (1740), An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751) and Political Discourses (1752) etc. His works are generally considered as the manifesto of enlightenment.  Hume argued that we know only ideas, not the external world itself. According to him, external objects can be known only by the “perceptions they occasion,” and we can infer their existence only from “the coherence of our perceptions,” whether they indeed are real or merely “illusions of the senses.” Hume rejected the Aristotelian concept of “substance” as the underlying substratum of reality.  Hume's essay "Of the Standards of Taste," was published in his volume entitled Four Dissertations in 1757. The other three essays were on history of religion, the passions, and tragedy. It is a celebrated literary performance, and it bears suggestively on modern and contemporary debates about standards in criticism, reader-response theory, interpretive communities, and canon formation and it poses grave questions about the standards of aesthetic judgements of taste.

Mary Wollstonecraft wrote one of the first treatises of modern feminism. In her work, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), she advoctes for women's equality and rationality and arguing against the degradation and subjugation of women. Wollstonecraft was particularly concerned with the education of women. She states that the central purpose of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is  “Contending for the rights of woman, my main argument is built on this simple principle, that if 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, or it will be inefficacious with respect to its influence on general practice.” Wollstonecraft had previously written A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790), one of the first polemical responses to Edmund Burke's conservative Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). Mary Wollstonecraft was a cultural and not a litetary critic.  In her essay, which can be considered as one of the founding texts of feminism, she advocated women education as necessary for the development of a nation.

Immanuel Kant is the literary figure who marks the shift from the Enlightenment to Romanticism. He is one among those who have theorised the entire philosophy of Enlightenment.  His Critique of Judgment (1790) ranks with Aristotle's Poetics among our most important philosophical treatises on art. He considers theartistic realm superior to all other realms. This enlightenment age was followed by an opposing intellectual movement known as Romanticism. Romantics including Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats gave prominence to passion and feelings in opposition to the Enlightenment importance to reason. Even though an entirely different movement, Romanticism find its roots in the previous movements.

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