Classicism Otherwise known as the Age of Reason

Classicism (Otherwise known as the Age of Reason or the Enlightenment) Junior English

Enlightenment The eighteenth century in America is known as the Age of Enlightenment It was a period where new people emerged: scientists, religious rationalists, and political philosophers

Enlightenment It was “a time of worldly men, cool towards organized religion and critical government” (307).

Classical Ideas The ideas of these new men were rooted in the Renaissance, in the classical worlds of Rome and Greece, and in the Protestant Reformation that destroyed the unified Christiandom

Age of Reason was…Rejected Medieval authoritarianism was still a big influence Puritanistic ideas of predestination needed to be overcome The idea that the world was a mystery, and subject to a wrathful God’s every whim was still strong There was still unquestioning faith in miracles, holy books, and the divinity of priests

John Locke He argued that governments were not based on divine hierarchies where God appointed Kings Governments were the result of agreements among men where they surrendered some freedoms to protect their natural right to life, liberty, and property

Age of Reason Accepted The belief that the universe operated by a rational formula that can be understood by any intelligent person, an idea proposed through the work of Sir Isaac Newton

Age of Reason… Accepted! The idea that order can be found everywhere in the natural world They found it not in religion but in the new science This was the beginning of modern science! Example: Cotton Mather

What happened to God? God was no longer found by reading the Bible Found in nature, “the perfect expression of God’s omnipotent goodness” (308). The dominating idea of Hell faded and the gentler God of natural philosophy replaced the wrathful God of the Puritans

Deism was the new religious movement that was a faith without church or churchmen It was validated by mathematics, scientific observation, and logic instead of revelation

Deism Believers maintained that a deistic God appeared and designed the universe according to scientific laws God then retreated from direct intervention in human affairs as opposed to theistic all-present God of the Puritans. What is God compared to? Hint: Sir Isaac Newton

Original Sin The Calvanistic concept that held that man was innately evil, came under increasing attack The new belief was that the mind of a newborn was a tabla rasa, a blank sheet Neither good nor bad Experience (life) determined the end result

Progress became a dominant concept of the age, and it converged with Christian sentiments, from which evolved movements for social betterment (sympathy for the Indian, the slave, and the oppressed)

Literature “With the rise of humanitarianism, of environmentalism, of faith in human goodness and the dignity of man, there came increasing demands for human liberties. ” This was an age of pamphlets since most literature was intended to serve a practical or political purpose. The Crisis—Thomas Paine Poor Richard’s Almanac and Autobiography –Ben Franklin

America was an Empire of reason where man found not his salvation in churches, but in rebellion Thomas Paine cried out for the rights of man (and woman) and Thomas Jefferson demanded “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. ”

Works Cited Mc. Michael, George. “The Literature of Reason and Revolution”. The Anthology of American Literature vol. 1 sixth edition, Ed. “Self-Made Americans”. Elements of Literature, Fifth Course: Literature of the United States with Literature of the Americas (2000). Holt Rinehart and Winston, New York.