Literature and Revolution: The French Revolution and Romanticism - Part 1

 Core Text: Cross-currents: The Evolution of Literary Movements

Broad Outline:

·       French Socio-political and religious situations

·       Enlightenment

·       Romanticism

·       Impact of Enlightenment/ Romanticism upon England

Our study focuses on the 18th century France.

Part 1: Refer pages 9 - 15

Background

Late 2nd Century BC:             Roman occupation of parts of France (Julius Caesar)

5th C. AD:                  Germanic Franks establish power in the region. Frankish dominance continues for centuries. Power reaches its heights in the time of Charlemagne, or Charles the Great.

1337 to 1453: The Hundred Years' War was a series of wars waged by the House of Valois and the House of Plantagenet, also known as the House of Anjou, for the French throne, which had become vacant upon the extinction of the senior Capetian line of French kings. The House of Valois claimed the title of King of France, while the Plantagenets claimed the thrones of both France and England. The Plantagenet kings were the 12th-century rulers of the kingdom of England, and had their roots in the French regions of Anjou and Normandy.

The wars ended with a Valois victory in 1453, solidifying the power of the Ancien Régime as a highly centralized absolute monarchy.

16th C.                                    France emerges as a colonial power.

Late 18th C                 monarchy and associated institutions were overthrown in the French Revolution

The French Society in the Eighteenth Century

France under the Ancien Régime (before the French Revolution) divided society into three estates: the First Estate (clergy); the Second Estate (nobility); and the Third Estate (commoners). The king was considered part of no estate.

The third Estate was under the oppression by the first two: nobility and the clergy. Gap between the privileged and the underprivileged; Gap between the upper and lower strata of clergy (p. 10, 11)

Obligations and taxation forced upon the peasant (to the State, Church, Nobility) (p 10, 11)

Extravagance and incompetence of the monarchs (p. 12)

The response was the contradictory currents of thought: the Enlightenment and the Romantic Movement, that converged into a crucial, political event: the French Revolution. The Enlightenment had an impact upon the French Revolution. The French Revolution was a triggering point of the Romantic Movement.

Enlightenment upheld reason, and contended that rational acts and rational thought could ensure happiness. Romanticism was antithetical to this, and held emotion dearer and yet did not weaken the French society’s sure progress towards the French Revolution.

The Enlightenment

The Age of Enlightenment (or simply the Enlightenment or Age of Reason) was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge.

The Enlightenment flourished until about 1790–1800, after which the emphasis on reason gave way to Romanticism's emphasis on emotion and a Counter-Enlightenment gained force.

Although the first major figures of the Enlightenment came from England, the movement truly exploded in France, which became a hotbed of political and intellectual thought in the 1700s.

The roots of this French Enlightenment lay largely in resentment and discontent over the decadence of the French monarchy in the late 1600s. Situations of the French society provoked her people and prepared their minds for an influx of new thoughts. During the reign of the wildly extravagant “Sun King” Louis XIV (reigned 1643–1715), wealthy intellectual elites began to gather regularly in Parisian salons (often hosted by high-society women) and complain about the state of their country. The salons only grew in popularity when Louis XIV died and the far less competent Louis XV took over.

Gradually, complaints in the salons and coffee shops changed from idle whining into constructive political thought. Especially after the works of John Locke became widespread, participants at the salons began to discuss substantive political and social philosophies of the day. Before long, cutting-edge thought in a variety of disciplines worked its way into the salons, and the French Enlightenment was born. It was a time of intellectual dynamism, and this free floating of ideas had the potential to crystallize into a definite form, capable of moving masses into rebellion, which saw its climax in the French Revolution. The trajectory of the Enlightenment shows a movement from a revulsion of corruption towards an affirmation of liberty, equality and fraternity. Thus, it was a movement that aimed at liberating man from ignorance and superstition, and instilling faith in human powers.

Literacy

Complementing and enabling the socially and politically active atmosphere was the dramatically improving literacy rate in France. Beyond just talking about revolutionary ideas, more and more French people, especially in Paris and its surrounds, were reading and writing about them as well. A symbiotic relationship developed as readers anxiously awaited more literature from the philosophes, and in turn the response that the writers received compelled them to write more. The scholarly atmosphere at the time also provided women of French society—albeit still within traditional roles as salon hostesses—with an opportunity to contribute to the conversation.

Key Names in connection with the Enlightenment:

1.         David Hume

2.         Diderot

3.         Johnson (Dr. Samuel Johnson)

4.         Kant (Immanuel Kant)

5.         Locke (John Locke)

6.         Montesquieu

7.         Newton (Issac Newton)

8.         Rousseau

9.         Voltaire

The Philosophes

By the early 1700s, coffee shops, salons, and other social groups were popping up all over Paris, encouraging intellectual discussion regarding the political and philosophical status of the country. Moreover, members of these groups increasingly clamored to read the latest work of leading philosophers. These nontraditional thinkers came to be known as the philosophes, a group that championed personal liberties and the works of Locke and Newton, denounced Christianity, and actively opposed the abusive governments found throughout Europe at the time. As varied as they were, the leading French philosophes generally came from similar schools of thought. They were predominantly writers, journalists, and teachers and were confident that human society could be improved through rational thought.

Philosophes and the Church

A large part of the philosophes’ attacks were focused on the Church and its traditions. In matters of faith, many of the prominent philosophes were deists—they believed in an all-powerful being but likened him to a “cosmic watchmaker” who simply set the universe in autonomous motion and never again tampered with it. Moreover, they disdained organized religion and the Church’s traditional idea of the “chain of being,” which implied a natural hierarchy of existence—God first, then angels, monarchs, aristocrats, and so on.

The philosophes also raised objections against the decadent lifestyles of leading Church representatives, as well as the Church’s persistence in collecting exorbitant taxes and tithes from the commoners to fund outlandish salaries for bishops and other Church officials. What the philosophes found most appalling, however, was the control that the Church held over impressionable commoners by instilling in them a fear of eternal damnation. The philosophes may have had mixed feelings about the common people, but they had very strong feelings against the Church. As a result, they provoked the Church by challenging doctrines such as the existence of miracles and divine revelation, often disproving specific tenets with simple science. The Church, in turn, hated the philosophes and all they stood for.

The English Philosophers: Isaac Newton and John Locke


Understanding Nature’s Laws – (Issac Newton): nature obeys certain fundamental laws, and hence it could be understood and controlled through the grasp of these laws. Those who formed the driving force of the movement firmly believed that human nature could likewise be scientifically studied and improved. This feeling accounts for the characteristic optimism that is associated with Enlightenment.


Value of Human Dignity – (John Locke): Human beings could construct an adequate conception of the universe and extend this systematic understanding to themselves. Thus, they can take charge of their destiny. All our knowledge originates from experience. The mind is a tabula rasa – a blank slate upon which experience makes its imprint.

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