What was the
Enlightenment?
(a.k.a. Neoclassical Period)
It began with a rejection of…
•dogma
•superstition
•traditional
religion
•factionalism
•(in some cases) monarchy
•disorder
The 1600s had a different ideology
-one steeped in supernatural politics.
Alchemy, Angelology, Demonology, Divine Right of Kings
What was the Enlightenment attitude?
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
A desire for rationality, logic, consistency.
A rejection of emotionalism.
A preference for evidence over faith
Increased interest in science, mathematics, geometry…
An admiration for Greece and Rome and an abhorrence
for everything medieval.
(6) A preference for the artificial over the natural,
technology over wilderness.
How did that translate socially?
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
A preference for stability and harmony.
A belief that nature should be controlled.
A preference for civilized, polite discussion of
ideas. Conclusions reached by intelligent debate-not force.
A preference for a rigid social hierarchy and
aristocracy.
An embrace of monotheistic Deism rather than
traditional Trinitarian doctrines.
How did it translate aesthetically?
(1) A desire for geometric shapes and orderly
repetition in mathematical patterns.
(2) A disdain of “messiness” and “chaos” in art and
clothing and hairstyles as being unharmonious.
(3) Greco-Roman architecture (Neoclassical)
(4) Endless Heroic Couplets!
(5) Satire as a means of social critique.
Enlightenment
gardens.
Here, the “messiness” of the natural world must bow
before pure geometry. In such a garden, the chaos
of nature is tamed to match the orderly design of
human intellect.
Straight lines and 90 degree corners could
warm the heart of an Enlightenment thinker.
Thus, hedge-mazes appear across Europe.
Even the untidiness of natural hair disturbs Enlightenment society. Thus, the
tradition of the perfectly coiffed wig appears in the age of Washington and
Jefferson and Marie Antoinette. Powdered porcelain make-up and other
cosmetics become fashionable and artificial “beauty” patches (bits of black
cloth with adhesive) are used to create artificial moles or freckles (or to hide
natural ones.) It is an age of absolute artifice.
The Enlightenment is so devoted to GrecoRoman logic and philosophy that it is also
referred to as the “Neoclassic Period.”
A similar trend appears in their architecture,
plays, and literature. . . .
Take a look at the Arch of Emperor
Constantine, built c. 312-315 CE.
Then look at the French Arc de Triomph du
Carrousel. Note any similarities?
Top Left:
the Parthenon of the
Acropolis, built
c. 447-438 BCE.
Bottom left:
Ragensberg Replica,
Planned in the 1790s
And built 1830 CE.
We also see it in their
obsessive and
rigorous attitudes to
standardizing language:
The French Academy
Of Language
Samuel Johnson working
on his dictionary of 1755.
How do these tendencies affect the literature?
In poetry: heroic couplets and “perfect”
metrical patterns and a return to classical GrecoRoman epics, as in Pope’s The Rape of the Lock.
In both poetry and prose, a focus on satire.
Satire: (noun )
1.the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in
exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc.
2.a literary composition, in verse or prose, in which
human folly and vice are held up to scorn, derision, or
ridicule.
3.a literary genre comprising such compositions.