1. The Age of Enlightenment The Age of Rationalism The Age of Reason
17th and 18th Centuries
The Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Rationalism
The Age of Reason

2. Background Great scientific advances
Worldwide dominance of England, France, and Spain
Rational and scientific systems of thought

3. Rationalism
Basic theory: Men can arrive at truth solely through reason – by rational, logical thinking.
Rationalists believed that the universe and every aspect of man’s experience is ordered in a logical plan that can be discovered through observation and reasoning.

4. Rationalism Voltaire (1694-1778) French intellectual and writer
Wrote Candide
Intervened in cases of injustice and tyranny
Was against bigotry and intolerance

5. Religious Strife
The Thirty Years’ War in Germany ( ) was a struggle between the Catholics and Protestants
The Spanish Inquisition was directed against Moors, Jews, and Protestants
Conflicts over religious tolerance and political liberty resulted in the American and French Revolutions.

6. Pressures for Political Change
Economic pressures: middle class wanted more power and less restriction from monarchs
Lower class was growing in number – the poor were becoming increasingly frustrated in the midst of the nobility’s prosperity and extravagance

7. Pressures for Political change
English civil wars began in 1642; Charles I was beheaded
The American Revolution ( )
The French Revolution ( )

8. Elegance as a Style of Life
Aristocrats enjoyed a life of richness, elegance, taste, and manners
Ladies and gentlemen dressed in silks, wore powdered wigs, and were carried in ornamented sedan chairs through the squalid and noisy streets
France became the center of style and fashion

9. Elegance as a Style of Life
Versailles: King Louis XIV’s palace
Ornate, formal, “overdone” by modern standards
Formal gardens

12. Elegance as a Style of Life
The palaces of kings and estates of noblemen were, of course, showpieces of refinement and luxury, but wealthy merchants also adopted the tastes of court society.
Moliere, a playwright, often ridiculed this type of “upstart” man

13. Literary Trends Many writers found voice in satire
In satire, humankind’s vice, folly, or evil is held up to scorn by means of ridicule and irony in the hopes of bringing about a change
Favorite targets: the pretentiousness, hypocrisy, and materialism of the wealthy bourgeoisie

14. Literary Trends Jean Baptiste Poquelin (1622-1673)
The son of a respectable Parisian bourgeois
Shocked his family by joining the theater
Moliere was his stage name

15. Literary Trends Theater flourished
Writers imitated classical Greek dramas
Moliere’s plays have the classic simplicity and clarity that his age admired

16. Literary Trends
In The Misanthrope, plot is slight, action is limited, and there is no music or pageantry
Costumes were simply fashionable clothes of the time, and the specific location of the setting was unimportant
All the focus of Moliere’s play is on the words and dramatic structures within which the words are spoken