World Literature with Mr. Brennan

Unit 4: European Enlightenment Readings: Selections from Pope, Voltaire, Rousseau, Bentham, Equiano, Wollstonecraft, and Swift

Primary Assessment: In a minimum of 1250 words, analyze and evaluate one or more Enlightenment text.

Unit Goals, Key Questions, & Topics for Class Discussion

Readings History of Ideas

Trace the breaks in tradition that the Enlightenment represents, in how we see ourselves, the state, the divine, and the relationships between them. Note the revival and championing of rationalism, in the spirit of ancient Greek philosophy.

Analyze and evaluate the philosophical underpinnings of the Enlightenment, such as natural rights, civilization grown out of the state of nature, society as a social contract with rules and obligations that go both ways between subject and ruler, and the maturation of society vs. religious superstition, intolerance, and the tyranny of kings.

Do close readings of Voltaire’s ironic style, surface pessimism, and careful optimism. How does his comic form work as politics, philosophy, and novel? Compare to Swift’s “modest proposal.”

Utopia: What is the “best of all possible worlds,” in Voltaire, Rousseau, Bentham, Equiano, Wollstonecraft? What do you make of utopian visions and their utilitarian detractors, then, and today?

How does each text construct and expand the “Enlightened” self, in contrast with the “savage” other? Analyze and evaluate the portraits of civilization and barbarism. To what extent are the constructions in these texts reflections of early imperialism, and are they still active in our culture?

Analyze and evaluate the emergence of utilitarianism, and the strong state’s more “humane” and diffuse exercising of power over the individual, in Bentham’s plan for prisons and schools. Contrast to the prior model of the weak state with occasional but fierce power, as observed by Foucault.

What do you make of the arguments for an expanding notion of equal rights, in terms of gender and race, from Wollstonecraft and Equiano? How do they construct their arguments in the environment of 18th century discourse? How have arguments for equality changed in recent times?

What makes a good argument? What are strong and weak efforts to convince? What can you learn from the examples in this unit? What could these writers learn from you?

Kant: What it the Enlightenment?

Leibnitz, The Theodicy

Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary

Voltaire, Candide

Pope, Essay on Man

Rousseau, Emile

Bentham, An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation

Bentham, Panopticon

Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

Swift, A Modest Proposal

Development of liberal democracy, natural rights, social contract theory, utilitarianism Watch for shift from pre-modern irregularity of “super power” monarch to modern reformer spirit, with a more diffuse, regular and “measured” intervention of state in lives of the people … “not to punish less, but to punish better; to punish with an attenuated severity perhaps, but in order to punish with more universality and necessity; to insert the power to punish more deeply into the social body” (Foucault) Transition from weak state that relies on physical terror to strong state that intervenes for mental discipline (Ignatieff) Faith in reason and science overtakes Christianity’s belief in divine revelation in the Hebrew tradition, esp. in the intellectual elite (Kramer) While constructing theory of the free and rational self with inalienable rights, contradictory theory and behavior against “savage” other – a fatal flaw of Enlightenment project? Mania for categorizing in new sciences leads unwittingly to rigid, artificial and stagnant human condition, where human freedom, creativity and caprice are replaced with time tables and taxonomies of the good (Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Foucault)

Unit 4 Vocabulary for the analysis of form. Study these terms to prepare for a coming test and major papers.

Caricature—a depiction in which a character’s characteristics or features are so deliberately exaggerated as to render them absurd. Political cartoons use visual caricature; writers, such as Charles Dickens, create verbal caricature—this can be found both in drawing and in print in The Pickwick Papers.

Hyperbole—overstatement characterized by exaggerated language. “I’m starving!” is usually hyperbole. The “Concord Hymn” by Ralph Waldo Emerson presents a famous hyperbole in the last line of stanza one: “And fired the shot heard ‘round the world.”

Irony—a situation or statement characterized by significant difference between what is expected or understood and what actually happens or is meant. Irony is often humorous, and sometimes sarcastic when it uses words to imply the opposite of what they normally mean. Classical sarcastic irony is Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal.

A form of humor in which the outcome is the opposite of what was expected. “The Ransom of Red Chief” by James Thurber is an example: a young boy is kidnapped, and his behavior is so atrocious that the kidnappers pay the parents to take the boy back.

Parody: a humorous or satirical imitation of a serious piece of literature or writing. Parody makes fun of some familiar style, typically be keeping the style more or less constant while markedly lowering or debasing the subject. Parody can also simply mean to mimic humorously. A parody on Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be” soliloquy would be “To eat a cupcake, or not to eat a cupcake.”

Rhetoric—the art of using language as a means to persuade.

Logos—an appeal based on rational argument. In Aristotle’s analysis of rhetoric, it was one of the three ways to convince the audience of an argument: ethos, logos, and pathos. From logos we get the word “logic.”

Pathos—an appeal based on emotional reaction. In Aristotle’s analysis of rhetoric, it was one of the three ways to convince the audience of an argument: ethos, logos, and pathos. From pathos we get the word “pathetic.”

Ethos—an appeal based on the character of the speaker. In Aristotle’s analysis of rhetoric, it was one of the three ways to convince the audience of an argument: ethos, logos, and pathos. In ancient Greece, ethos referred to the characteristic manner or spirit, either of a community, or individual. This is a word that indicates a certain “attitude” or sense of comportment towards others, and generally associated with questions of character or moral selfhood, where character or moral selfhood disclose a bond with others. From ethos we get the word “ethics.”

Sarcasm—a form of verbal irony in which apparent praise is actually harshly or bitterly critical. For example, if a teacher says to a student who sneaks into class an hour late, “Nice of you to join us today,” the teacher is being sarcastic. Perhaps the best-known sarcasm is Jonathan Swift’s satire, A Modest Proposal. Oscar Wilde is also well known for his sarcastic statements; The Importance of Being Earnest is full of them.

Satire—a literary work that holds up human failings to ridicule and censure. Jonathan Swift and George Orwell both were masters of satire.

Diesm—belief in the existence of a supreme being, specifically of a creator who does not intervene in the universe; accepts the existence of a creator on the basis of reason but rejected belief in a supernatural deity who interacts with humankind.

Meliorism—the belief that the world can be made better by human effort.

Philosophical Optimism—This is a school of philosophy that believes that everything that happens in the world has some point and, in the end, everything happens for the best. For example, in the event of a disaster, the “good end” of what seems to be a tragedy may not be apparent at the moment, but there is good that will come out of the disaster. Voltaire opposes this point-of-view because he thinks it makes people complacent and discourages them from working to make things better in the world.

The Problem of Evil—The presence of evil in this world is something philosophers, theologians, and average people have long grappled with. Philosophers pose this question: “If God is all good and all knowing, how can He allow such terrible, evil things to happen in a world that He has created?”

Divine Providence—Allied with the belief in Philosophical Optimism was a religious notion that there is a divine will that guides our fate; that is, everything that happens to us is God’s will. Related to the question of Divine Providence is the question of Free Will. If our lives are ordained by God, are we responsible for choosing good or evil in our lives? Do we have any control over our lives, or are we simply pawns of fate?

Cause and Effect—This idea is used by philosophers to prove the existence of God. They argue that for every effect there must have been a cause; in tracing this back we eventually reach the “uncaused cause”: God.

Sufficient Reason—In Leibnitz’s philosophy, the sufficient reason is that which justifies the existence of things. Like the uncaused cause, the ultimate sufficient reason is God (Perfection Learning).