18th Century Literature

In many ways the Enlightenment never ended. The secular commitment to rationalism (the idea that human reason is the primary, or the only, path to truth) has persisted, and while it may have manifested itself in seemingly irrational ways, even relativists and postmodernists are rationalists. Relativism, in fact, is one of the best-known offspring of Enlightenment rationalism; moral and religious authority began to devolve from any Divine source and centered on the now-deified human reason, meaning that right and wrong became human constructs, not absolute truths revealed from on high.

We've been wallowing in the muck of meaninglessness ever since. A lot of historians claim the Enlightenment began in the 17th century, but its roots were much deeper—during the Renaissance thinkers began formulating the ideas that would become rationalism, and even further back the Greek philosophers used observation and conjecture (not divine authority) as their basis for acquiring knowledge. It can't be disputed, however, that the 18th century was the flourishing period of Enlightenment thought.

This is the time period in which the modern world began to take shape. It's hard to say who it all started with (Descartes is usually a front-runner for that distinction), but Rousseau became the poster-child of the movement with his theories of man as a "noble savage," best left in his natural condition and ultimately corrupted by civilization, and the corollary (and, as any child can see, completely incompatible) idea that it is the State and Education which can save mankind from his culture-induced wickedness and ignorance.

Lack of knowledge, therefore, was seen as the source of mankind's ills. It was not intelligence that would solve the problem, however, but mere acquisition of information. So a bunch of Frenchmen, intoxicated by this concept, set about compiling a compendium of all knowledge lodged in the collective human consciousness. They called it the Encyclopedia, though they could just as accurately have called it the Internet. Yes, you read that correctly: the intention of the Encyclopedists was to put all of human knowledge in one place.

Who would be influenced by these guys? you may well ask. Pretty much everybody. Human Reason was lifted above Divine Revelation, and the age of godlessness was inaugurated. Literature of the period took a serious turn for the irreverent and/or highly abstruse, though Practicality was everywhere touted as the primary aim of true intellectuals. Satire became a preferred model for intelligent fiction, with men like Voltaire, Henry Fielding, and Tobias Smollett leading the way.

On the political front, fairly well-known works began to surface, among them Thomas Paine's Common Sense, the Constitution of the United States of America, and Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. The world has never recovered. The proposition that man is capable of governing himself at first produced a highly-functional republic in the newly-formed United States, while simultaneously laying the foundation for the current attitude which privileges "democracy" above all else and relegates republicanism to a less-evolved status in our nation's growth.

It wasn't all bad. Brilliance often accompanies shoddy thinking (or antichristian thinking, as the case may be), and while many of the Enlightenment authors were way off-base from a Christian perspective, their books and poems and essays make great reading. Voltaire wrought a lot of damage on the West's intellectual tradition, but it's pretty hard to argue that Candide is the work of anyone less than a genius. Ben Franklin, Jonathan Swift, Lawrence Sterne, Alexander Pope—mostly off-base, but some of the best writers the world has ever known.

We encourage the study of 18th century literature be approached with caution. The old Christian humanism of the Renaissance was replaced with a new creature called secular humanism, and the effects were chaotic and largely destructive. Still, this is literature that can't be ignored, especially not by any Christian who really wants to understand exactly what's going on in the world these days. It's also pretty fun, and while the Enlightenment philosophy poses clear dangers, it also motivated many writers to show what fine form man is capable of.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.
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Bounty Mutiny
Penguin Classics
by William Bligh & Edward Christian
from Penguin Classics
Historical Non-fiction for 10th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
Candide
by Voltaire
from Penguin Books
for 11th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$17.00
Confessions
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$13.00
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
by Edward Gibbon
from Modern Library
Historical Non-Fiction for 11th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Dover Philosophical Classics
by David Hume
from Dover Publications
for Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
by Daniel Defoe
from Tyndale House
for 10th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
Freedom of the Will
by Jonathan Edwards
from Dover Publications
for 11th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$9.95
Goethe's Faust
by Goethe, Walter Kaufmann (translator)
from Anchor Books
for 10th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$12.95
Gulliver's Travels
by Jonathan Swift
from Oxford University
Satire/Social Commentary for 9th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
Gulliver's Travels
by Jonathan Swift
from Dover Publications
for 7th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$6.00 $4.00 (2 in stock)
History of Rasselas
by Samuel Johnson
from Oxford University
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$8.95
History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia
by Samuel Johnson
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$6.95
History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Penguin Classics
by Edward Gibbon
from Penguin Putnam
Historical Non-Fiction for 11th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
by Olaudah Equiano
from Modern Library
for 10th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$15.00
Life and Diary of David Brainerd
by David Brainerd
from Baker Books
Biography for 10th-Adult
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$17.00
Lord Chesterfield's Letters
by Philip Dormer Stanhope (Lord Chesterfield)
from Oxford University
for 11th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Major Works of William Wordsworth
by William Wordsworth
from Oxford University
for 9th-Adult
in Poetry (Location: POET-GEN)
$18.95
Method of Grace
by George Whitefield
from Curiosmith
for 9th-Adult
in Justification & Sanctification (Location: XTH-JUS)
$1.80 (1 in stock)
Modest Proposal and Other Satirical Works
by Jonathan Swift
from Dover Publications
for 11th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$4.00
Montesquieu: The Spirit of the Laws
by Charles de Montesquieu
from Cambridge University
for 11th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
Mysteries of Udolpho
by Ann Radcliffe
from Oxford University
for 9th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$13.95
On the Social Contract
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
from Dover Publications
Philosophy for 9th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$6.00
Reflections on the Revolution in France
Penguin Classics
by Edmund Burke
from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
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$14.00
Reflections on the Revolution in France
by Edmund Burke
from Oxford University
for 10th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
Rights of Man, Common Sense
by Thomas Paine
from Oxford University
for 10th grade-adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$11.95
Robinson Crusoe
by Daniel Defoe
from Oxford University
for 8th-12th grade
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$7.95
Robinson Crusoe
by Daniel Defoe
from Penguin Putnam
for 10th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$10.00
Robinson Crusoe
by Daniel Defoe
from Dover Publications
for 8th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$11.00
Robinson Crusoe
Wordsworth Classics
by Daniel Defoe
12th edition from Wordsworth Classics
Realistic Adventure Novel for 10th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
Robinson Crusoe
by Daniel Defoe, with an introduction by Virginia Woolf
Reissue from Modern Library
for 8th-12th grade
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$10.00
Second Treatise of Civil Government
by John Locke
from Prometheus Books
for 10th-Adult
in 17th Century Literature (Location: LIT4-17)
$12.99
Second Treatise of Civil Government
by John Locke
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in 17th Century Literature (Location: LIT4-17)
$5.00
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
Dover Thrift
by Jonathan Edwards and Others
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$9.00
Social Contract
Penguin Classics
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
from Penguin Classics
Philosophy/Politics for 10th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$11.00
Swift
by Bruce Arnold
from Unknown Publisher
Biography for 6th-8th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Tristram Shandy
by Laurence Sterne
from Wordsworth Classics
for 10th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$5.99
Vicar of Wakefield
Penguin Classics
by Oliver Goldsmith
from Penguin Classics
Realistic Fiction for 10th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$12.00
Wealth of Nations
Great Minds Series
by Adam Smith
from Prometheus Books
for 12th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$28.95
Wealth of Nations
by Adam Smith, introduction by Robert Reich, notes by Edwin Cannan
from Modern Library
for 10th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
Wealth of Nations Books I - III
from Penguin Classics
for 11th-Adult
in 18th Century Literature (Location: LIT5-18)
$7.00 (1 in stock)