The age of reason4/11/2023 And poets were still thought of as artists-in fact, being an artist was an even bigger deal in the eighteenth century than it had been in the previous two centuries. Poetry was still thought of as a moral force (or, if misused, as an immoral force). You could still do all the things in poetry you could do in any kind of language, and there were still love poems, and lyric poems, and narrative poems. Poetry was still thought of as elevated language. This is perhaps the biggest change in poetry from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment. If we lived in this era, we’d expect to reason not only about poems but also in poems. This is not at all surprising in the Enlightenment, which was officially sexist and, more importantly for our concerns, devoted to the idea that reason is the primary means through which humanity will lead itself out of error and into truth. So he will condescend to give her the means by which she can better understand what is going on in the poem. Once again, we see here how important it is for the poet that his poem not be “open for interpretation.” He’s afraid the lady might not understand his great work properly. As we will see however, we will need to understand more than reason to understand the poetry of the era.Ĭommenting on one of his poems to the young woman who inspired it, Alexander Pope-the premier English poet of the eighteenth century-wrote: “I know how disagreeable it is to make use of hard words before a lady but ’tis so much the concern of a poet to have his works understood, and particularly by your sex, that you must give me leave to explain two or three difficult terms” (italics added). It is the age of the philosophy of John Locke and the science of Isaac Newton. Advancing the project of the Renaissance, it was a time that yearned to use logic or reason to raise history out of the darkness of superstition and establish a verifiable knowledge of the world. ↑ "In the childhood of the world," according to the first (French) version and the strict translation of the final sentence is: "Deism was the religion of Adam, supposing him not an imaginary being but none the less must it be left to all men to follow, as is their right, the religion and worship they prefer."- Editor.The period that coincides roughly with the Eighteenth century is known by various names: The Enlightenment, The Neo-Classical Age, The Augustan Age, and The Age of Reason. ![]() Adam, if ever there was such a man, was created a Deist but in the mean time, let every man follow, as he has a right to do, the religion and worship he prefers. All believe in a God, The things in which they disagree are the redundancies annexed to that belief and therefore, if ever an universal religion should prevail, it will not be believing any thing new, but in getting rid of redundancies, and believing as man believed at first. It is certain that, in one point, all nations of the earth and all religions agree. I content myself with believing, even to positive conviction, that the power that gave me existence is able to continue it, in any form and manner he pleases, either with or without this body and it appears more probable to me that I shall continue to exist hereafter than that I should have had existence, as I now have, before that existence began. I trouble not myself about the manner of future existence. ![]() That seeing as we daily do the goodness of God to all men, it is an example calling upon all men to practise the same towards each other and, consequently, that every thing of persecution and revenge between man and man, and every thing of cruelty to animals, is a violation of moral duty. Thirdly, That the moral duty of man consists in imitating the moral goodness and beneficence of God manifested in the creation towards all his creatures. It proclaimeth his power, it demonstrates his wisdom, it manifests his goodness and beneficence. Secondly, That the Creation we behold is the real and ever existing word of God, in which we cannot be deceived. These reasons, among many others, are the want of an universal language the mutability of language the errors to which translations are subject, the possibility of totally suppressing such a word the probability of altering it, or of fabricating the whole, and imposing it upon the world. Having now extended the subject to a greater length than I first intended, I shall bring it to a close by abstracting a summary from the whole.įirst, That the idea or belief of a word of God existing in print, or in writing, or in speech, is inconsistent in itself for the reasons already assigned. 245577 The Age of Reason - Recapitulation Thomas Paine
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