Qarshi davlat universiteti xorijiy tillar fakulteti ingliz tili va adabiyoti kafedrasi

Text of the 5 lecture 
The Enlightenment – its ideals and objectives 
 
In the 18
th
century in England, as in other European countries, there sprang into life a public 
movement known as the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment, on the whole, was an expression of 
struggle of the then progressive class of bourgeoisie against feudalism. The Enlighteners fought 
against class inequality, prejudices and other survivals of feudalism. They attempted to place all 
branched of science at the service of mankind by connecting them with the actual needs and 
requirements of people. The problem of men comes to the fore superseding all other problems in 
literature. The Enlighteners prove that man is born kind and honest and if he becomes depraved, 
it is only due to the influence of corrupted social environment.
Fighting the survivals of feudalism, the enlighteners at the same time were prone to accept 
bourgeois relationships as rightful and reasonable relationships among people. The English 
writers of the time formed two groups. The first – hoped to better the world simply by teaching 
(Defoe). The other – openly protested against the vicious social order (Swift, Fielding, Sheridan, 
Burns).
 
DANIEL DEFOE 
(1660-1731) 
Daniel Defoe (Foe) was born in London in 1660. His father was a well-to-do butcher. Defoe’s 
biography is typical of energetic and enterprising man of that epoch. Hi tried his luck in many 
professions, but failed everywhere because he was more interested in politics than in business.
His first political pamphlet was “The True-Born Englishman” (1701) in which he exposes the 
aristocracy and tyranny of the church. A year later he wrote the pamphlet aimed against the 

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official church. The House of Commons ordered to burn the pamphlet. Defoe was arrested and 
placed in the public square before imprisonment.
He published political and literary magazine “The Review of the Affairs of France and of all 
Europe” (1704-1713) which was written entirely by Defoe himself. The figure of an enlightener 
who stood for the rights of common people rises from the pages of Defoe’s best essays and 
pamphlets published in the magazine. He laid bare the vices of the ruling classes and expressed 
belief in human reason and knowledge.
The year 1719 marked a new period in Defoe’s literary activity. At the age of 60 he published his 
first novel “Robinson Crusoe” – the book on which his fame mainly rests to the present day. The 
development of industry and trade brought to the fore men of a new stamp who had to be 
reflected in the new literature (the story of Alexander Selkirk).
The novel is the first book that glorifies the human creative labor. The image of an enterprising 
Englishman of the 18
th
century was created by Daniel Defoe in this book. Robinson is a toiler but 
a typical bourgeois at the same time. Robinson is the first positive image of a bourgeois in 
literature. He reflects the progressive role of bourgeoisie in the epoch of its flourishing. If now 
we perceive the book as an adventurous novel, people of the 18
th
century perceived it as a work 
of full great social and philosophical sense. This book was one of the forerunners of the English 
18
th
century realistic novel.
His other novels are: “Captain Singleton” (1720), “Moll Flanders” (1722), “Colonel Jack” 
(1722), “Roxana” (1724), “A Journal of the Plague Year” (1722).
The principle problem of the Enlightenment – influence of society on man’s nature – stands in 
the centre of all these novels. The writers and philosophers of the Enlightenment believed that 
man is good and noble by nature but many succumb to the evil environment.
In his novels Defoe also shows with great realism how life and social surrounding spoil people. 
Poverty breeds crime. Thus in “Colonel Jack” Defoe with warmth and sympathy depicts a poor 
boy, who being honest and kind by nature, becomes a thief when he is faced with the alternative 
either to steal or to starve.
Defoe selected secular subject banished allegory, his fictions were easily mistaken for narrations 
of facts.