Age of Reason
aka
Age of Enlightenment
1660-1790
Thomas Paine
Age of Reason
• Reason/Ration
– The rational mind was God’s greatest gift to
humanity, what separated us from and lifted us
above the animals
Age of Reason
• Objectivity
– The state or quality of being true outside an
individual’s feelings, experiences, biases, or
interpretations. The belief that truths are
universal and repeatable. Scientific fact.
Age of Reason
• Science
– Scientific Revolution
• Universities
• Academies and Societies
–
–
–
–
Galileo
Copernicus
Isaac Newton
William Herschel (circulation of blood)
Age of Reason
• Community/Nation
– The individual’s greatest role is to sacrifice
individual goals for the greater good of the
community; you are a cog on a gear of a wheel of
an arm of a part of a section of a machine.
– Extend the idea of community enough and you
have a Nation (and nations were just now being
invented)
Age of Reason
• City/Urban (Industrial)
– End of Enlightenment saw beginning of Industrial
Revolution and end of Cottage Industries
– Great migration from rural to urban
Age of Reason
• Deism
– Why do bad things happen to good people?
– God exists but is dormant
– Argument from Design (nature)
– Cosmos=giant watch
– God=watchmaker
Age of Reason
• Truth (capital T)
– Every question has an answer
– Thomas Jefferson: “We hold these truths to be self
evident, that all men are created equal.”
Age of Reason
• Stylized Language
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
John Freakin’ Donne
Age of Reason
• Nature
– Nature was a thing—one that was at our disposal
– Chop it up, nail it together, build a house
– Chop it up, put it under a slide, study it
– Chop it up, throw it on the grill—dinner!
1790-1837
Caspar David Friedrich
“Wanderer Above the Sea and Fog”
Romanticism
Age of Reason Concept of
Romantic Concept of
• Reason/Ration
• Emotion
Becomes . . .
– Center of Being
moves from Head
to Heart
Romanticism
Age of Reason Concept of
Romantic Concept of
• Objectivity
• Subjectivity
Becomes . . .
– Based on feelings,
experience,
individual
– Perfect example
would be . . .
Romanticism
Ferris Bueller
Cameron experiencing The Subjective Moment
Romanticism
Age of Reason Concept of
Romantic Concept of
• Science
•Imagination
Becomes . . .
– That which we can imagine
far oustrips that which we can
build
Romanticism
Age of Reason Concept of
Romantic Concept of
• Community/
Nation
•Individual/Self
–I matter; I am
Becomes . . .
important
Romanticism
Age of Reason Concept of
Romantic Concept of
• City/Urban Life
• Country/Rural/
Pastoral
Becomes . . .
– Urban living requires
several artifiacal layers
of being; rural living is
more genuine
Romanticism
Age of Reason Concept of
Romantic Concept of
• Deism
• Pantheism
Becomes . . .
– Not ancient Greek concept
– Divinity is everywhere,
especially within us
– Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Transcendentalism, “Divinity
School Address” (1838)
Romanticism
Age of Reason Concept of
• Truth
Becomes . . .
Romantic Concept of
• truth
• truth (small “t”) is
subjective; everyone has
their own truth and
everyone’s truth is valid
• A perfect example is . . .
Romanticism
Ferris Bueller
Cameron again, experiencing his own inner truth
Romanticism
Age of Reason Concept of
Romantic Concept of
• Stylized
Language
• “The common
language of
common men,” per
Becomes . . .
William Wordsworth and
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
(preface to Lyrical Ballads)
Romanticism
Age of Reason Concept of
Romantic Concept of
• Nature
• Nature
– A resource
for our disposal
Becomes . . .
– Organic
– Primal, pure
– Inspiration
– Organic
Romanticism
Additional Concepts
Blank Verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter)
Youth (Child, Innocence)
The Quest, The Journey
William Blake
1757-1827
William Blake
William Blake
Very religious, but believed Bible:
1. Should be read as metaphor
2. Was for a particular time and place
“I must create a system or be enslaved by another man’s”
Felix Culpa/Binary Opposition
Songs of Innocence
Songs of Experience