The Enlightenment era emphasizes rationalism – careful thinking, reasoning. It aspires to apply rational order and thought to society and the extensions of it.
It naturally follows that when you reason too much, you become skeptical of many things. Also you can become too rational and incompatible with people around you (smiles). But, that doesn’t mean we should not engage our grey matter!
To digress a little, I found out that this has been the bane of mature men who missed getting married in their young adult age. They become too rational, too careful because they left what they should do in their 20s till they are 40 something or 50! Then, getting married becomes a chore – every family member has to join hands in finding a suitable bride ‘from a good family; well behaved’ – (laughs).
A major noticeable feature of too much reasoning is lack of emotion. Keep that in mind as we proceed.
During this age of Enlightenment, men of great thought arose; men who shunned feelings and emotions – men who were too wise – as we say in Nigerian parlance, ‘over sabi people.’ So, this age in literary activity, saw the rise of ‘I too know people.’
These men shunned the unseen, the imagined, the felt – apparitions and ghosts had no place during this period; that the virgin Mary fell pregnant by the power of the Holy Spirit, was a story the literati, the informed of this age, the writers, did not want to hear. They needed empirical evidences.
Given the above scenario, science which comes with proofs, evidences was the welcomed. So, the Enlightenment Age was the age of rationalism or reason based on scientific evidences. There was skepticism, and the belief in deism. This is an age when those who believe in God and those who do not believe flowed.
Those who believed in God shunned the walk of faith – apparitions, superstitions, supernaturalism, etc. Yes, God created the universe, but, He is not running it, they argued. That is deism.
This period was a time of Revolutionary Activity – the French Revolution, The American Revolution, etc. It was a period that medieval logic, semantics and epistemology were revived. Enlightenment Philosophers like David Hume, John Locke and Thomas Hobbes wrote about the nature of humans and about political philosophy, stirring up thoughts and actions.
The cognoscenti have reasoned that this actually is the genesis of modern society – where people are not led by feelings, but are guided to decision-making after careful thoughts.
In Literature at this time, neoclassicism was the rage, especially in France where this intellectual movement began. It is a style of art that uses classical models from ancient literature.
The rise of the novel as a literary genre began at this time also, with Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, and other novels he rolled out. And in America, Benjamin Franklin espoused the enlightenment ideas in his book, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.
Foremost English poet, Alexander Pope, who wrote The Rape of the Lock, The Dunciad, An Essay on Criticism, and his translation of Homer, was the grandmaster of adopting classical forms from ancient literature.
If you are not careful, you might miss the point. By adopting or appropriating classical forms of structure, unity, clarity and restraint from the ancients in their writing, they shunned supernatural occurrences.
The literary writers of this age chose heroes or central figures with no supernatural powers. Enlightenment heroes reasoned things out and perform actions based on rational activities, with no supernatural occurrences.
This plays out in John Milton’s epic poems Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained – there are no supernatural influences on Adam or Eve when the Tempter tempts them, Milton portrays. Neither is Jesus under any influence when He defeats Satan. Both the former and the latter act rationally. They make decisions in the epic poems after rational thought.
Also, in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, we meet a rational being in Lemuel Gulliver.
If you remember, in classical antiquities, heroes are men of great achievements, but they are empowered or influenced by the gods. But, in neoclassicism, rational man performs great acts with no supernatural interventions.
The writers of this age are promoting individuality, humanism, deism – O, yes! God exists, but He does not interfere in the activities of both men and the world!
Structure, Unity (you know, unity of action, time and place; including purpose), Clarity and Restraint are the aesthetic ideals of classicism but Renaissance writers added their own flavour of high sounding and overflowing language (especially writers of the University Wits).
The fierce rationalism of the Enlightenment age is also attuned with the ideals of classicism especially in the areas of superiority of balance and rationality over impulse and emotion. It aims at order, shunning ambiguity, imagination and must have resolution – no open-ended conclusion, but must have wholeness with no extraneous elements.
However, Enlightenment differs in the area of supernaturalism.
Personally, I think that as the years sped by, great writers sieve through qualities or features they met on ground, picking the good and dumping the unnecessary. I remember that particularly, the works of the writers known as the University Wits are marked by excesses in language use and expression marked by loud and disorderly style. However, William Shakespeare coming after them declares that ‘Brevity is the soul of wit.’
France was a super power in the late 17th century, especially in culture and politics. And Literature was not left out.
Literature waxed strong in France during this era with the entrance of such great literary giants like Jean Baptiste Poquelin (French playwright, actor and poet) known best by his pen and stage name Moliere.
Moliere wrote Le Misanthrope which is a satire attacking ‘the frivolous pursuits and petty cruelties of high society’. Moliere is also well-known for his comic dramas: The Miser, The Pretentious Young Ladies, The Bourgeois Gentleman, The Forced Marriage, etc. He wrote satires, farces, tragic-comedies, comedy-ballets, etc. and is regarded as the greatest of all French playwrights, even today!
In England, such great poets as Alexander Pope and John Milton were writing at this time. Milton’s famous poem Paradise Lost which is considered a masterpiece and the greatest epic poem in English, narrates how the Devil (Satan) wheedles Adam and Eve to cause their fall in the Garden of Eden. Also the sequel Paradise Regained tells the story of how the old Serpent fails in his attempt to bring Jesus down.
In the novel genre, great things were also happening at this age. Although ancient and medieval writers made some mark in writing long prose, the great works of dramatists and poets overshadowed them.
The novel has formative years before the period that it rose above poetry and drama to become the leading form of western literature. In fact, from the 19th century to the present can be called the age of the novel.
Formative age novel writing flourished in Spanish, French, English and German. The novelists of the formative years are:
- Spanish poet, novelist, playwright, soldier and accountant Miguel de Cervantes who wrote the world’s most famous novel, Don Quixote (translated into over 140 languages and dialects. It comes second to the Bible in translation and reading!). Cervantes is the greatest of all Spanish writers and the world’s preeminent novelist.
- English novelist, dramatist and magistrate, Henry Fielding. He is well known for his picturesque novel Tom Jones. He is also famous for his plays such as The Modern Husband, The Author’s Farce, Tragedy of Tragedies, etc. Mr Fielding founded London’s first Police Force called The Bow Street Runners as a magistrate.
- Irish Jonathan Swift is one of the formative age writers of the novel. He is famous for his well known novel, Gulliver’s Travels. Swift was the Dean of St Patrick Cathedral Dublin and a satirist.
To be continued …
