Lecture Seven Enlightenment & Daniel Defoe (1660-1731)

English Enlightenment a progressive intellectual movement throughout Western Europe in the 18th century. It was an expression of struggle of the bourgeoisie against feudalism. The enlighteners fought against class inequality, stagnation, prejudices and other survivals of feudalism. They thought the chief means for bettering the society was “enlightenment” or “education” for the people.

The English enlighteners were bourgeois democratic thinkers The English enlighteners were bourgeois democratic thinkers. They were different from those of France, for they appeared not before but after the bourgeois revolution. They set no revolutionary aim before them, and what they strove for was to carry the revolution through to an end.

Enlightenment thinkers were believers in social progress and in the liberating possibilities of rational and scientific knowledge. They were often critical of existing society and were hostile to religion, which they saw as keeping the human mind chained down by superstition.

The phrase was frequently employed by writers of the period itself, convinced that they were emerging from centuries of darkness and ignorance into a new age enlightened by reason, science, and a respect for humanity.

Historical background for the Creation of the novels

18th century saw the rise of the novel which became a dominant form of literature in England because the then philosophers represented by Locke preached concreteness, practicalness and usefulness that exerted a great influence upon the cultural world. In natural science, Newton made marvelous achievements.

The puritans denied the class standards set by the noble class and advocated social democracy, which strongly shook the prevailing traditional values. All this mentioned above laid a good foundation for the rise and development of the novel faithfully reflecting average people’s life. Meanwhile, there were more and more middle class readers, whose secular appreciating tastes, better education and relatively improved economic situations also contributed to the creation of novels.

Daniel Defoe (1660?-1731)  One of the forerunners of the English realistic novel.  Masterpiece: Robinson Crusoe                                     

Daniel Defoe English author Daniel Defoe gained international fame with his 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe produced more than 500 written works in his lifetime.

Defoe is a representative of the early realistic writers with the rebellious spirit against the conventional writings. Realists draw materials from the practical social life instead of myths, historical legends and ancient classic works as the writers before them did.

The heroes and heroines were average lower class people rather than members of aristocratic origins or knights. The forefather of English novels Defoe successfully created a hero Robinson in his masterpiece Robinson Crusoe, who was a typical figure of the new capitalists. Defoe achieved this by giving a detailed description of the hero’s personality and everyday chores.

Biographical Information

Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731), English novelist and journalist, whose work reflects his diverse experiences in many countries and in many walks of life. Besides being a brilliant journalist, novelist, and social thinker, Defoe was a prolific author, producing more than 500 books, pamphlets, and tracts.

Defoe was born in London about 1660, the son of a candle merchant named Foe. Daniel added “De” to his name about 1700. He decided in 1685 to go into business. He became a hosiery merchant, and his business gave him frequent opportunities to travel throughout western Europe.

About his novels Defoe’s first and most famous novel, The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, appeared in 1719, when he was almost 60 years old. The book is commonly known as Robinson Crusoe. A fictional tale of a shipwrecked sailor, it was based on the adventures of a seaman, Alexander Selkirk, who had had the same experience. The novel, full of details about Crusoe’s ingenious attempts to overcome the hardships of the island, has become one of the classics of children’s literature.

Publications

Publications

Questions for discussion What is the general appraisal of Defoe in English literature? Why is Robinson Crusoe listed at the top of modern fiction, does it deserve that place? why or why not? Comment on the style of Robinson Crusoe Cite examples to illustrate :Defoe is a writer, an activist, reformer and pamphleteer. Have you found anything worthwhile in Defoe to you?

The Image of Robinson Crusoe Commentary The Image of Robinson Crusoe In this novel, Defoe created the image of a true empire-builder, a colonizer, and a foreign-trader who has the courage to face hardships, and who has the determination to preserve himself and improve on his livelihood by struggling against nature. Being a bourgeoisie writer, Defoe glorifies the hero and defends the policy of colonialism of British government .

The significance of Robinson Crusoe Robinson Crusoe is one of the protagonists drawn most successfully in English novels. Through his characterization of Crusoe, Defoe depicts him as a hero struggling against nature and human fate with his indomitable will and hand, and eulogizes creative labor, physical and mental, an allusion to the glorification of the bourgeois creativity when it was a rising and more energetic class in the initial stage of his historical development. From an individual laborer to a master and colonizer, Crusoe seems to have gone through various stages of human civilization.

Personalities of Robinson Crusoe He is a representative of the earliest colonists. Bestowed with human virtues such as wisdom, intelligence, optimism, diligence, courage, perseverance, and adventurousness, he bravely fights against the nature and cannibals and even ringleaders in a ship, finally survives the shipwreck and lives long enough to return to his native land. This novel eulogizes the glory of labor, wisdom, courage and the spirit of individualism at the earliest beginning of the bourgeoisie.

Artistic styles the writer focuses his attention on the description of the physical world rather than on exploring the inner world of the hero. The scene is so vividly portrayed that the reader feels as if he is participating. The first person narration makes the novel seem to be real. Simple style and easy language.

Themes The novel can be read in different ways. Most simply, it is a story of sea adventures. To read it politically, we may interpret the story as an artistic projection of colonial expansion. To read it socially, we find the Crusoe’s adventures imply different western cultural values. The novel sings a song of the dignity of labor. It is also a slogan which the bourgeoisie used to justify their accumulation of wealth through diligent work and colonial expansion.

Features of his novels Daniel Defoe is chiefly remembered for his novels. The central idea of his novels is that man is good and noble by nature but may succumb to an evil social environment. The writer wants to make it clear that society is the source of various crimes and vices.

Daniel Defoe’s intention is that the readers should regard his novels as true stories. For this reason, he deliberately avoids all arts, all fine writings, so that the reader should concentrate only on a series of plausible events.

Daniel Defoe’s novels all take the form of memoirs or pretended historical narratives, everything in them giving the impression of reality.