|
American Literature 1700-1820 A new way of seeing the basic nature of the world - The eighteenth century (1700s) in America is known as the Age of Enlightenment. In this period, a whole new way of seeing the basic nature of the world (including God) emerged. In this new view both kings and the aristocracy – the entrenched ruling class – lost their authority to rule.
-
- Likewise, the Christian church – that is, the Catholic church and all other Christian denominations (Protestants) – lost much of its power over people’s lives.
-
- At the same time, modern science began to emerge, with its emphasis on empirical thinking (seeing is believing) and rational deduction. In this new atmosphere things like the spectral evidence of the Salem Witch Trials would have been laughed out of the courtroom.
Superstition yields to science - In the place of the old religious dogmas, there sprang up religious rationalists. In the place of the aristocracy and its notions of a permanent ruling class (based in part on primogeniture) there arose political philosophers. And in the place of superstition came scientists.
- This was like a one-two-three punch (head, guts, head) to the ideological framework that power structures (governing systems) had been using all over the place since the Middle Ages.
- Dogma: Stance pronounced by an 'authority' as the definitive word on a subject to be accepted without question, often unsupported by corroborating facts or in defiance of evidence to the contrary. It is often imposed by an institution (such as a church, corporation or family) into a set of inflexible rules.
Jefferson objected to the idea of entrenched powers - Thomas Jefferson (along with Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, John Adams, Thomas Paine and some of the other major Bad Dudes who formed our country) objected to the idea of entrenched powers, like the English monarchy and the aristocracy which supported it, including the governors – loyal to the King of England – who ran the colonies.
So what caused this new revolution in thought? - Some of the radical ideas of these new men were rooted in the classical worlds of Rome and Greece, which almost all of them had studied since youth.
- John Locke, an English philosopher, took the ideas of the Roman Senator Cicero, and brought them to his modern audience. Locke’s biggest contributions were the ideas of “natural rights” and the “social contract.”
All people are inherently equal and free - Locke argued that all people are inherently equal and free and that legitimate governments were not based on divine hierarchies where God appointed Kings, but came from agreements among men where they surrendered only some freedoms to protect their natural right to “life, liberty, and property.”
- The people do this by forming a social contract in which they consent to give up a certain amount of power to a government dedicated to maintaining the well-being of the whole.
The people legitimize the government (and not the other way around) - The people also give up one right, the right to judge and punish other persons, which is permitted in the state of nature, but left to the legal system for humans.
- Citizens began to see themselves on the same level as their leaders, subject to the same shortcomings and certainly subject to criticism if so deserved.
- Source http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/John+Locke
The Age of Reason Rejected… - Medieval authoritarianism, which was still a big influence in the New World. The Puritanistic ideas of predestination needed to be overcome.
- The leaders of the Age of Reason rejected the idea that the world was a mystery, and subject to a wrathful God’s every whim.
- They rejected unquestioning faith in miracles, holy books, and the divinity of priests.
Age of Reason accepted: - That God exists and created and governs the universe.
- That God gave humans the ability to reason.
- The belief that the universe operated by a rational formula that can be understood by any intelligent person, an idea proposed by Sir Isaac Newton (whose work from 1687 is the basis for the entire science of Physics. The dude was wicked smart).
- The idea that order can be found everywhere in the natural world; and they found it not in religion but in the new science.
What happened to the Church? - Deism was the new religious movement that was a faith without church or churchmen. It was validated by mathematics, scientific observation, and logic instead of divine revelation. Jefferson and Franklin, among others, were deists.
- Deism holds that reason and observation of the natural world, without the need for organized religion, can determine that the universe is the product of an all-powerful creator. You don’t need a priest or a church to tell you what’s right.
- The dominating idea of Hell faded and the gentler God of natural philosophy replaced the wrathful God of the Puritans.
The God-given power: Reason - God had made it possible for all people at all times to discover natural laws through God-given power—REASON (the opposite of the Puritan belief in a mysterious, capricious God)
- Man can deduce the existence of a supreme being from the fact that the universe exists rather than because of what the Bible says.
- They also believed in perfectibility of every individual through the use of reason
- “Benjamin Franklin Drawing
- Down Electricity from the Sky”
- (Benjamin West, ca. 1816)
“I Just Believe in Science, Okay!?” - “Know then thyself, presume not God to scan/The proper study of mankind is man.” (Alexander Pope)
- What does that mean?
Common Beliefs - 1. Faith in natural goodness - a human is born without taint or sin; the concept of tabula rasa or blank slate.
- 2. Perfectibility of a human being - it is possible to improve situations of birth, economy, society, and religion.
- 3. The sovereignty of reason – God and His laws can be deduced by the thinking individual, without the need for a church
- 4. Universal benevolence - the attitude of helping everyone.
- 5. Outdated social institutions cause unsociable behavior - religious, social, economic, and political institutions which have not modernized force individuals into unacceptable behavior.
The writers of this period had -
- 1. A searching inquiry in all aspects of the world around.
- 2. Interest in the classical thought of Greece and Rome
- 3. Interest in Nature and natural rights
- 4. Interest in science and scientific experiments.
- 5. Optimism - experiments in utopian communities
- 6. A sense of a person's duty to succeed.
- 7. A constant search of the self – with emphasis on individualism in: a. personal religion; b. study of the Bible for personal interpretation.
Neo-Classicism - What would be the best way for writers in this era to articulate their views?
- What is the function of their writing, and how does it differ from the function of Puritan writing?
- Are there similarities?
- Rhetoric
- Today this term means “the art of speaking or writing effectively (especially persuasive speaking or writing).” In Franklin’s time the term meant the same thing, but more precisely it stood for “the study of principles and rules of composition formulated by critics of ancient times.”
- Logic
- A system of rules used to express reasoning
- Reason
- If one is “rational,” then he has the ability “to reason.” What does it mean to reason? Reasoning is a type of thinking used to seek a truth through cause and effect and through drawing conclusions.
- Socratic Method
- A technique in which a debater does not argue directly but instead asks a series of questions, with the result that the opponent comes either to the desired knowledge by answering the questions or to a deeper awareness of the limits of his knowledge.
Those Greeks Had It Right… - These writers saw the literature of the ancient Greeks and Romans as the ideal to which all must aspire.
- They emulated these classical styles and traditions
- They showed restraint rather than emotion
- Used dignified, refined and decorous language
- Thou hast a house on high erect,
- Framed by that mighty Architect,
- With glory richly furnished,
- Stands permanent though this be fled.
- It’s purchased and paid for too
- By Him who hath enough to do.
- A price so vast as is unknown
- Yet by His gift is made thine own;
- There’s wealth enough, I need no more,
- Farewell, my pelf, farewell my store.
- The world no longer let me love,
- My hope and treasure lies above.
- (Bradstreet, 1666)
- While virtue warms the generous breast,
- There heaven-born freedom shall reside,
- Nor shall the voice of war molest,
- Nor Europe’s all-aspiring pride –
- There Reason shall new laws devise,
- And order from confusion rise.
- Forsaking kings and regal state,
- With all their pomp and fancied bliss,
- The traveler [admits], convinced though late,
- No realm so free, so blessed as this –
- The east is half to slaves consigned,
- Where kings and priests enchain the mind.
- (“On the Religion of Nature,” Philip Freneau, 1785)
Order and Virtue - We should organize our lives into an ordered sequence of reasoned and virtuous thoughts and behaviors
- Aim is “human perfection”
- How would the Puritans have felt about the concept of humans perfecting themselves for themselves and by themselves?
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
