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The Enlightenment 1660 - 1798

The Enlightenment 1660 - 1798. The Rational Search for Understanding. The Enlightenment 1660 - 1798. Birth of Great Britain – Act of Union (1707) joins Scotland to England and Wales. Confirms Britain as a world power.

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The Enlightenment 1660 - 1798

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  1. The Enlightenment1660 - 1798 The Rational Search for Understanding

  2. The Enlightenment1660 - 1798 • Birth of Great Britain – Act of Union (1707) joins Scotland to England and Wales. Confirms Britain as a world power. • Unprecedented wealth – caused a wider economic gulf between classes. • Regret for what had been lost vs. eagerness for what had been gained.

  3. The Enlightenment1660 - 1798 • Age of Reason – Less concerned with sensory experience or faith. • Charles II took a genuine interest in new ideas. • Supported arts and sciences. • Chartered the Royal Society in 1660. • Unprecedented effort to formulate the first principles of psychology, philosophy, literary criticism, economics, natural history, etc. • New inventions – microscope and telescope. • Changed view of nature. • Led to changes in thought and morals too.

  4. The Enlightenment1660 - 1798 • New advances in science: • Encouraged a challenge to traditional wisdom and learning. • Free thinking and skepticism. • “If a king could be executed, what authority was safe?” • Challenge to the status quo.

  5. The Enlightenment1660 - 1798 • Fenced enclosures of land caused demise of traditional family life. • Impoverished masses congregated in cities: • Agrarian society declines • Factories flourish

  6. The Enlightenment1660 - 1798 • Continued growth of cities: • Encouraged people of all classes to mingle. • Helped establish a standard of shared good manners. • People came to trust civilization (Hobbes): • “Man is inherently evil.” • Need to give up freedoms so order can be maintained.

  7. The Enlightenment1660 - 1798 • Optimistic view of human nature (minimizing original sin) • Doctrine of Natural Goodness (Rousseau): • “Man is naturally good.” • “He finds his highest happiness by being good to others.” • “Civilization corrupts us.” • “Noble Savage” – live in a state of nature to retain childlike innocence and virtue.

  8. The Enlightenment1660 - 1798 • Readers more concerned with an understanding of: • Themselves (un-heroic people trying to cope with practical problems). • The world around them • Relations with one another (e.g. spouses) • “Our business is not to know all things, but those which concern our conduct.” -John Locke

  9. The Enlightenment1660 - 1798 • Prose dominates the age • Until the 1740s, poetry sets the standards of literature. • New kinds of prose took the initiative • Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary (1755)

  10. The Enlightenment1660 - 1798 • Writing • Became less ornate. • Love sonnets replaced by satire. • New audience – the middle class (50% literate): • Read for pleasure. • Wanted to read about people like themselves. • Rise of the periodical and the novel (Robinson Crusoe) and decline of the tragedy.

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