INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN ENLIGHTENMENT
1743 –1836
1. What are the generally accepted dates of the American Enlightenment? Why?
2. What other name does the historical/literary period go by?
3. Characterize the spirit of the age:
Ben Franklin (1706-1790) writes: “The first drudgery of the settling the new
colonies which confines the attention of the people to mere necessaries [sic], is
pretty well over and there are many in every province and circumstance that set
them at ease, and afford leisure to cultivate the finer arts, and improve the
common stock of knowledge.”
Immanuel Kant (German philosopher, 1724-1804) writes: “Mankind’s final
coming of age, the emancipation of the human consciousness from an immature
state of ignorance and error.”
4. Note influences on deism:
Sir Isaac Newton (English physicist and mathematician, 1642-1727) and
Newton’s Newtonian rationalism:
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Universe operating by unchanging laws
Harmonious system of the universe
Benevolent deity
Human kind able to seek harmony corresponding with the harmony of the
universe
 Probable immortality
John Locke (English philosopher, 1632-1704): Recognizing the wonders of
nature leads to knowing God exists.
5. Define deism.
“A deist is one who believes in the existence of God or Supreme Being but denies
revealed religion, basing his or her belief on the light of nature and reason.”
(Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary)
NOTES ON DEISM:
 Transcendent God operating by natural law rather than God’s intervention
 Benevolent God
 God revealed in nature, not in any holy books (Nature is the only universal
religion. Note Thomas Jefferson’s use of “Nature’s God” in Declaration of
Independence.)
 Freedom of the will
 Humans are born “blank slate” (and not in original sin)
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 Humans are naturally altruistic (care for others; the care for others is the
best service for God)
 Ben Franklin: “The most acceptable service to God is doing good to man.”
 All humans are born equal
 Evil is the result of corrupt institutions (and not natural depravity)
 Humans perfected by education
 Distrust of existing religious systems
 Humankind must love truth and the practice of virtue
 Education and science necessary for humankind’s happiness
 Hope for life after death
 Advocated private worship, no public services
 Not organized as a church
 Not a formal institution
 Heavy reliance on reason, science, nature, and freedom
7. Define natural rights. Nature endows all humans with certain unalienable rights;
these rights are universal rights inherent in the nature of people.
8. English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704): “[N]o one ought to harm another in
his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”
9. What types of literature did this time period produce?
10. Note the role of public deliberation and use of argumentative and persuasive
strategies such as Aristotle’s appeals to logos, pathos, and ethos.
11. American deists: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James
Madison, Thomas Paine, Phillip Freneau, George Washington (?)
12. What was the general view of American literary (and other artistic) efforts at this
time? Was the period of 1778 – 1836 in America an artistic “blank space”? Note the
following criticism or American inventiveness:
In the four corners of the globe, who reads an American book? Or who goes to an
American play? Or who looks at an American picture or statue? What does the
world yet owe to American physicians or surgeons? What new substances have
chemists discovered? Or what old ones have they analyzed? What new
constellations have been discovered by the telescopes of Americans? What have
they done in the mathematics? Who drinks out of American glasses Or eats from
American plates? Or wears American coats or gowns? Or sleeps in American
blankets? Finally, under which of the old tyrannical governments of Europe is
every sixth man a slave, whom his fellow creatures may buy and sell and torture?
(English critic Sydney Smith, Edinburgh Review, 1819)
12. One motif of Federalist writers is the search for national identity as well as a
national literary identity (or a national literature). Note the following quotes:
“What is an American?” (St. Jean de Crevecouer, “What Is an American?”)
“I’m changed, and I can’t tell what’s my name, or who I am!” (Washington
Irving, “Rip Van Winkle)
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“Americans must be independent in literature as she is in politics.” (Noah
Webster)
“Americans will walk on our own feet, we will work with our hands, we will
speak our own minds.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar,” 1836)
Royal Tyler writes in his “Prologue” to one of America’s first plays: The Contrast
(1878):
“Exult each patriotic heart!—this night is shewn
A piece, which we may fairly call our own;
Where the proud titles of “My Lord! Your Grace!”
To humble Mr. and Plain Sir give place.
The author pictures not from foreign climes
The fashions, or the follies of the times;
But has confined the subject of his work
To the gay scenes—the circles of New York.
On native themes his Muse displays her pow’rs;
If our the faults, the virtues too are ours.
Why should our thoughts to distant countries roam,
When each refinement may be found at home?”
13. In spite of the search for national identity, the Americans wrote literature that
could best be called “imitative.” Why would you think they imitated European
authors rather than “do their own thing”? Note the following quotes:
The causes, indeed, why the intellectual soil in America is so comparatively
sterile are obvious. We do not cultivate it; nor, while we can resort to foreign
fields, from whence all our wants are so easily and readily supplied, and which
have been cultivated for ages, do we find sufficient inducement to labour [sic] in
our own. (Charles Brockden Brown, “Preface” to The American Review and
Literary Journal, 1801)
A national language is a band of national union. Every engine should be
employed to render the people of this country national; to call their attachments
home to their own country; and to inspire them with pride of the national
character. However, they may boast of Independence, and the freedom of their
government, yet their opinions are not sufficiently independent; an astonishing
respect for the arts and literature of their parent country, and a blind imitation of
its manners, are still prevalent among Americans. (Noah Webster, 1828)
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