Section Overview |
Belief in progress, along with |
During the 17th and 18th centuries, Europeans applied the methods of the new science—such as empiricism, mathematics, and skepticism—to human affairs. During the Enlightenment, intellectuals such as Rousseau, Voltaire, and Diderot aimed to replace faith in divine revelation with faith in human reason and classical values. In economics and politics, liberal theorists such as John Locke and Adam Smith questioned absolutism and mercantilism by arguing for the authority of natural law and the market. Belief in progress, along with improved social and economic conditions, spurred significant gains in literacy and education as well as the creation of a new culture of the printed word—including novels, newspapers, periodicals, and such reference works as Diderot’s Encyclopédie—for a growing educated audience.
Alongside several movements of religious revival that occurred during the 18th century, European elite culture embraced skepticism, secularism, and atheism for the first time in European history. From the beginning of this period, Protestants and Catholics grudgingly tolerated each other following the religious warfare of the previous two centuries. By 1800, most governments had extended toleration to Christian minorities and in some states even to Jews. Religion was viewed increasingly as a matter of private rather than public concern.
The new rationalism did not sweep all before it; in fact, it coexisted with a revival of sentimentalism and emotionalism. Until about 1750, Baroque art and music glorified religious feeling and drama as well as the grandiose pretensions of absolute monarchs. During the French Revolution, romanticism and nationalism implicitly challenged what some saw as the Enlightenment’s overemphasis on reason. These Counter-Enlightenment views laid the foundations for new cultural and political values in the 19th century. Overall, intellectual and cultural developments reflected a new worldview in which rationalism, skepticism, scientific investigation, and a belief in progress generally dominated. At the same time, other worldviews stemming from religion, nationalism, and romanticism remained influential.
Source: https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/pdf/ap-european-history-course-and-exam-description.pdf
Alongside several movements of religious revival that occurred during the 18th century, European elite culture embraced skepticism, secularism, and atheism for the first time in European history. From the beginning of this period, Protestants and Catholics grudgingly tolerated each other following the religious warfare of the previous two centuries. By 1800, most governments had extended toleration to Christian minorities and in some states even to Jews. Religion was viewed increasingly as a matter of private rather than public concern.
The new rationalism did not sweep all before it; in fact, it coexisted with a revival of sentimentalism and emotionalism. Until about 1750, Baroque art and music glorified religious feeling and drama as well as the grandiose pretensions of absolute monarchs. During the French Revolution, romanticism and nationalism implicitly challenged what some saw as the Enlightenment’s overemphasis on reason. These Counter-Enlightenment views laid the foundations for new cultural and political values in the 19th century. Overall, intellectual and cultural developments reflected a new worldview in which rationalism, skepticism, scientific investigation, and a belief in progress generally dominated. At the same time, other worldviews stemming from religion, nationalism, and romanticism remained influential.
Source: https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/pdf/ap-european-history-course-and-exam-description.pdf
The Social Contract
Enlightenment Philosophes
The satire Candide (1759) epitomizes Enlightenment criticism of humanity's most callous institutions. Voltaire mocks the cruelty of war, the extremism of the brutal Catholic Inquisition, the harsh violence of slavery, the hypocrisy of religious and political leaders, and general indifference to others' suffering. In this illustration, the main character Candide flees from a war-ravaged village.
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- philosophes
- Baruch Spinoza - Ethics (1677)
- Bernard de Fontenelle - Plurality of Worlds (1686)
- John Locke - An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689) and Two Treatises of Government (1689)
- tabula rasa
- Pierre Bayle - Historical and Critical Dictionary (1697)
- skepticism
- Baron de Montesquieu - Persian Letters (1721) and Spirit of the Laws (1748)
- separation of powers
- due process of law
- David Hume - Human Nature (1738–1740)
- Encyclopédie (1751–1772) - Denis Diderot, Jean-Baptiste le Rond D’Alembert, and Louis de Jaucort
- Voltaire - Candide (1759)
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Inequality (1755), Emile, or On Education (1762), and The Social Contract (1762)
- noble savages
- popular sovereignty
- general will of the people
- Cesare Beccaria - On Crimes and Punishments (1764)
- Baron Paul d’Holbach - System of Nature (1770)
- Edward Gibbon - Decline and Fall of Roman Empire (1776–1789)
- Immanuel Kant - Critique of Pure Reason (1781), “What Is Enlightenment?” (1784), and Perpetual Peace (1795)
- Moses Mendelssohn - Jerusalem (1783)
- Jewish emancipation
- Edmund Burke - Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
- Marquis de Condorcet - For the Admission of the Rights of Citizenship for Women (1790) and Progress of the Human Mind (1793)
- Olympe de Gouges - Declaration of the Rights of Woman (1791)
- Mary Wollstonecraft - A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)
Enlightenment Institutions
A gathering in the salon of Madame Geoffrin, 1755
Freemasons, whose members included Voltaire, John Locke, Haydn, Mozart, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin, espoused Enlightenment ideals. This secret society was often misunderstood and persecuted, especially by the Catholic Church.
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Representations of Non-Europeans
Natural Religion
Rococo
Neoclassical Art and Classical Music
- discovery of Heraculeum (1738) and Pompeii (1748)
- Jacques-Louis David - Oath of Horatii (1785), Death of Marat (1793), and Coronation of Napoleon (1806)
- Antonio Canova - Perseus with Head of Medusa (c. 1799) and Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker (1806)
- Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres - Napoleon I Upon His Throne (1806) and Jupiter and Thetis (1813)
- Elgin Marbles
- Arc de Triomphe (1806–1836)
- Baroque music (c. 1600–c. 1750)
- Pachelbel - Canon in D, c. 1680
- J.S. Bach - Brandenburg Concertos, 1721
- Vivaldi - Four Seasons, 1725
- Handel - Messiah, 1742
- Classical music (c. 1750–c. 1820)
- C.P.E. Bach - Symphony in E Minor, 1756
- Salieri - Fair of Venice, 1772
- Mozart - Marriage of Figaro, 1786
- Haydn - Surprise Symphony, 1791
- Romantic music (c. 1804–c. 1910)
- Beethoven - Fifth Symphony, 1808
- Rossini - Barber of Seville, 1816
- von Weber - Der Freischütz, 1821
- Berlioz - Symphonie Fantastique, 1830
18th Century Literature
German Romantic Nationalism
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The Brothers Grimm contributed to early German nationalism by writing down a collection of German fairy tales from the peasant oral tradition.
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