What is the Enlightenment?

(also called the Neoclassical Period)

It begins with a rejection. . . .

•Of dogma•Of superstition•Of traditional religion•Of factionalism•Of (in some cases) monarchy•Of disorder

The 1600s had a different ideology--one steeped in supernatural politics.

Alchemy, Angelology, Demonology The Great Chain of BeingDivine Right of Kings

The War of the Roses, anyone?

. . .but that led to dire political schisms when a monarch died without a clearheir.

The Renaissance saw many countries become Protestant, shattering the fifteen-hundred-year-old spiritual monopoly of Catholicism.

Renaissance Reformation!

Jan HusIn Eastern Europe

MartinLuther inGermany

Henry VIII inBritain

But that dreaded factionalism lead toreligious wars-- some continuing off-and-on for a century.England, Germany, and Holland became Protestants allies.They fought repeatedly against Catholic France, Spain, andItaly. Later, Protestant groups turned on each other--with Anglican persecutions against Jansenists, Anabaptists, Quakers--and in America, Puritans against Quakers, etc.

. . . And to heresy

trials

And to the auto-da-fé

That is the execution of individuals who dissented from standard scripturalinterpretations--usually by public burning. The practice began in 1215 in medieval Catholicism, but Protestants picked it up in Geneva and London in the mid-1500s. John Calvin oversaw the public burnings of Michael Servetus and other theological dissidents. Martin Luther moved away from toleration ofJews early in his career to increasinganti-semiticism later in his preaching.

And to ever increasing numbers of

witchburnings

Witch trials were actually higher in number duringthe Renaissance reign of King James I than in any decade of the medievalperiod in Britain.

And the Inquisition’s

growth.

The Inquisition received official Church sanction in 1215, but the height of its activity in Spain and France actually peaked in the 1500s and 1600s--i.e, Renaissance times.

Not even Galileo was safe.

The church arrested GalileoFor heretical ideas such as heliocentricism. Threatened with torture, he publicly recanted his science and lived his last days under permanent house arrest.

Western Christian biblical references Psalm 93:1, Psalm 96:10, and Chronicles 16:30 include text stating that "the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved." In the same tradition, Psalm 104:5 says, "[the LORD] set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved." Further, Ecclesiastes 1:5 states that "the sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.” This meant that the Idea the earth spun on its axis or revolved around the sun was incompatible with literalist readingsof scripture--and many medieval and Renaissance church authorities forbade such teachings.

The printing press dazzled the early Renaissance . . .

But the overflow of new ideas was also frightening--leading to national censorship, book burnings, the index librorum prohibitorum, pamphlet wars.

Worn out by 200 years of this bickering, warfare, dissension, and fanaticism, Europe was ready for a change by the late 1600s and early 1700s.

“I said, a change, a change, would do you good.”--Cheryl Crow, “A Change.”

What is the Enlightenment attitude?

(1) A desire for rationality, logic, consistency.(2) A rejection of emotionalism(3) A preference for evidence, not faith(4) Increased interest in science, mathematics, geometry(5) An admiration for Greece and Rome and an abhorrence for everything medieval.(6) A preference for the artificial over the natural,technology over wilderness.

That change was the Enlightenment!

What is the Enlightenment

socially?

(1) A disdain of “messiness” and “chaos” as being unharmonious.

(2) A preference for democracy.(3) A preference for civilized, polite discussion of

ideas. Conclusions reached by intelligent debate--not force.

(4) A desire to create social standards based on reason--not tradition.

(5) An embrace of monotheistic Deism rather than traditional Trinitarian doctrines.

What is the Enlightenment aesthetically?

(1) A desire for geometric shapes, 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(4) Endless Heroic Couplets(5) Satire as a means of social critique

See for instance 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, 90 degree corners, the stuff to 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 Greco-Roman logic and philosophy it is thus also called the “Neoclassic Period.” A similar taste appears in their architecture,their plays and drama. . . .

Take a look at the Arch of EmperorConstantine, built c. 312-315 CE.

Then look at the French Arc de Triomph duCarrousel. Note any similarities?

Top Left:the Parthenon of the Acropolis, built c. 447-438 BCE.

Bottom left:Ragensberg Replica,Planned in the 1790sAnd built 1830 CE.

We also see it in their obsessive andrigorous attitudes to standardizing language:

Samuel Johnson workingon his dictionary of 1755.

The French AcademyOf Language

…and artificial grammar rules based on Latin , or Greek,or even rules of algebra!

Double negatives?Reflexive pronouns?Split infinitives?Standardizing spelling based on etymology?“Incomparables” versus

positives and superlatives?

Shall versus Will?“It is I,” or “It is me”?Count Nouns versus Non-Count Nouns?

How do these tendenciesaffect the Enlightenment’sliterature? In poetry: heroic

couplets and “perfect”metrical patterns and a return to classical Greco-Roman epics. Cf.Pope’s The Rape of the Lock.

In both poetry and prose, a focus on satire--the use of mockery to point out social stupidities.