Contents introduction Chapter I. The Age of Enlightenment

CONTENTS
Introduction……………………………………………………………………….3
Chapter I. The Age of Enlightenment……………………………………………5
1.1. Main trends in the literature of the Enlightenment…………………………….5
1.2. Enlightenment English Literature……………………………………………...8
Chapter II. English Enlightenment……………………………………………..11
2.1. A heated debate among scholars on the existence of English enlightenment..........................................................................................................11
2.2. The Process of Human Enlightening…………………………………………19
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………..22
References………………………………………………………………………..24


Introduction
The eighteenth century is one of the most interesting periods in the history of world culture and literature. This is the age of enlightenment, the age of reason, the age of courage, the period before the French bourgeois revolution. In the last decade of this century, a new great trend in European culture and literature - Romanticism - has emerged.
The time boundaries between the cultural and historical periods of the 17th-18th centuries are marked by about two major events in European history - the “Glorious Revolution” in England (the coup d’état of 1688-1689 and the British) and the French bourgeois revolution of 1789-1794. But as modern researchers of the Enlightenment, these boundaries are very conditional, and many of the events that prepared for the emergence of 18th-century culture and literature took place in the 15th century, a new era. it does not deteriorate sharply from its predecessor, on the contrary, it gradually matures in its depth, as evidenced by the existence of very diverse - historical-political, economic, ideological and other factors. In general, the cultural and historical space of Europe is a century in which the decline of absolutism, the decline of the feudal system or its individual elements, the crisis of European consciousness in general, and at the same time the strengthening of civil society in various European countries.
Although this period is called the “era of enlightenment” and it dominates the most diverse spheres of life, it is not the only period that has defined the shape of the century. Enlightenment itself, however, was not directed in a single line to the French Revolution, and there were many events within its boundaries that were not related to its preparation.
The appreciation of reason as the central concept of social, scientific, and cultural life should not be directly related to the growing historical role of the "third power," the bourgeoisie, but should be universal.
“Enlightenment is the voluntary liberation of a person from a minority ... Dare to use your mind! - this is the motto of enlightenment "(I. Kant) The modern researcher M. Foucault writes that enlightenment was not only a collective movement, but also a courageous action of a person who decided to live independently and responsibly. The basic ideas of enlightenment, on the other hand, are determined not by a narrow class, but by a universal direction. Enlightenment in different European countries involved people from different walks of life. The main ideas of enlightenment are: belief in the human mind aimed at ensuring the progress of mankind (the idea of ​​development originated in the 18th century, before that there was only the concept of "Golden Age, bright past"); protection of scientific and technical knowledge, religious and moral tolerance, protection of human and civil rights, rejection of dogmatically metaphysical systems that cannot be tested empirically, criticism of superstitions, and establishment of deism as a form of enlightenment religion (God Earth and man, but then he does not interfere in the affairs of the people), class struggles and the struggle against oppression. Thus, not only politics, but also all spheres of social life, culture and science became the subject of enlightenment. The Enlightenment itself did not represent a single movement, in which controversy arose (a dispute between Voltaire and Rousseau in the French Enlightenment) and it underwent a complex evolution.