Chapter Sixteen The Eighteen Century: From Rococo to Revolution

Age of Diversity Unqualified optimism, extreme discontent Conscious engagement with social issues Revolutionaries and conservatives Enlightened despots  Welfare of citizenry  Duty and responsibility

The Late Eighteenth Century: Time of Revolution Technological improvements Increased literacy, circulation of ideas Governmental abuses  Louis XV: “Après moi le déluge” The Reign of Terror  Maximilien Robespierre ( )  Essentiality of constitutional government

Literature in the Eighteenth Century Intellectual Developments Systematic examination of society  Pessimistic views vs. Optimistic views Renewed interest in Classical culture  Translations, themes, forms, references English Augustan movement  Imitated Roman Augustan poets  Return to order after English Civil War  A desire to see divine order in the world

Literature in the Eighteenth Century Alexander Pope ( ) Augustan poet Nature of human experience Rococo satire  Tinged with personal hostility Christian + Humanist teachings  Revelation of human folly  Reverence for order, reason

The Late Eighteenth Century: Time of Revolution American Revolution  Inspired revolution in France Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence  Optimistic view  Political and social freedom  Equality and justice  Universality of man and nature

The Feminist Revolution Mary Wollstonecraft ( ) “Vindication of the Rights of Women” Similar sentiments to French declaration of rights of man and American declaration of independence, both of which excluded women First statement of women’s inherent rights  Women not subservient objects for men, but free, rational beings possessed of strength and dignity and deserving of respect

Literature in the Eighteenth Century Rational Humanism: The Encyclopedists Encyclopédie  Denis Diderot ( )  System for the classification of knowledge  Compendium of human rationality  Freedom of conscience and belief

Bust of Denis Diderot by Jean Antoine Houdon

Literature in the Eighteenth Century Rational Humanism: The Encyclopedists Charles-Louis Montesquieu ( )  Distribution of governmental power Jean-Jacques Rousseau ( )  Humans=good, society=bad  The “noble savage”  Contempt for superficial, artificial  Belief in human equality

The critical satirists: Voltaire and Swift

Literature in the Eighteenth Century Voltaire ( ) A man engagé Importance of freedom of thought “Ecrasez l’infame”  Fanaticism and persecution Natural religion, morality Candide (1759)  Folly of unreasonable optimism  Cruelty and stupidity of the human race

Literature in the Eighteenth Century Jonathan Swift ( ) Hatred for human race “Savage indignation”  Animals capable of reason Gulliver’s Travels  Satire of human behavior A Modest Proposal  “Man’s inhumanity to man”  Inevitability of human suffering

Gottfried von Leibnitz aka Pangloss Best of all possible worlds Theory of Monads