Writers through the centuries - 18th Century
episode 5
In the 18th century, Europe saw the Age of Enlightenment's apex (1700-1800) that started to be dimmed once the Romanticism ideology moved in.
The Enlightenment came as a sequence to the Renaissance humanism principle. In France, this can be traced starting from Louis XIV’s death and Louis XVI’s execution. In this century, various waves of thought are discussed, most of which will have the individual in the centre. Other demands of the enlightened philosophers scream for rapid change invoking the abolition of the monarchy and religious reformation, secularisation, and the Catholic Church’s removal as an influential institution, often with an anti-clerical and anti-religious sentiment. In the more extremist wing of the Enlightenment philosophers, we find Voltaire or Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and some more moderate, like Immanuel Kant. Kant came to believe that a middle ground reconciles the term between the classical beliefs and the more modern one’s, in a sense that faith and knowledge are not required to separate one from the other. Voltaire came to argue that in his view, knowledge will not permit any faith in anything besides the self’s egocentricity. These ideas will be further developed and perpetuated in centuries to come by philosophers like Friedrich Nietzsche or Karl Marx that along Voltaire will fund the basis for the extremist views. This extremist philosophers put the foundation for the dictatorship, communist views or nazist approach to society.
To these radical philosophical principles in the 18th century and even in the 19th, there will be a counter-view known as literary romanticism.
In 18th century America, some of the secularization ideas began to flourish, used in the more contemporary United States’ future separation. A detachment from the Church of England could only serve in this political goal of separating the US from England.
In Architecture, we see the Rococo (Late Baroque 1730-1760). This style combines asymmetry, sculpted moulding and trompe l’oeil frescoes (art technique using realistic images to create optical illusions depicting objects in 3D dimension). This technique is also known as forced perspective (which make items appear larger or smaller, closer or further away). It came to influence the craftsmen in the production of silverware, glassware, painting, furniture that are now very ornate in the Rococo style.
The Rococo will overlap and eventually be followed by the Galant period (1730-1820), emphasising simplicity and elegance. In fashion, it is now the usage of perfumed handkerchiefs and powdered wigs. Exuberant decorations, abandonment of baroque symmetry and use of flowers in ornamentations, festoons (sculptured flowers).
In music, the 18th century was synonym with the classical period (1740 – 1820), while there were also influences from the Galant music (1720-1780) and Late Baroque (1680-1750).
Late baroque sees the compositions of: Antonio Vivaldi, Frideric Handel or Johann Sebastian Bach.
The Galant music period refers to a similar wave like we see in architecture: a return to simplicity and more song-like melodies with a decrease in polyphony usage. This style was used in his compositions by C.P.E. Bach (one of J.S. Bach’s sons).
Johan Christian Bach (youngest of 11th children’s of J.S.Bach) passed from the Galant styles to the Classical style.
The piano replaces its predecessors as the playing instrument. Also, the violin replaces its predecessors and becomes along with the piano, one of the main instruments. The main musical styles were: sonata, trio and quartet (string quartet), the orchestral symphony. The significant composers for this period are: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven (he composed in both: classical and romantic period, the same goes for F. Schubert), Franz Schubert, Niccolo Paganini.
From the mid-18th century, there is once more a shift in general public mentality on all art levels, including literature. What we know now as the: Industrial revolution started around 1760 and continued till 1840. The change from hand craft to machinery production, the latest iron maniulation techniques, the chemical manufacturing and the extensive usage of a mechanized process, mostly powered by steam engines. This development had also increased rapid population growth and the change in the atmosphere of literature.
This allowed the population for more spare time, which could be used for feeding the brain. The Industrial Revolution did not only just forged more metallic mechanical instruments, but along a century filled with wars maintained a rugged heart on the population that demanded, without knowing, an inner desire for softer literature, and the answer was the romantic literary movement that would emerge.
At the end of the 18th century, Europe was going through some drastic, rapid changes in the period named in France: “The reign of terror”. The reign of terror was a sequence of the French revolution after creating the first French Republic. This period was defined by a massive amount of public executions. As a response to an anti-clerical “enlightened” movement, executions drove mainly by the lawyer: Maximilien Robespierre. Historians still debate the period start and end dates: 1790-1794, generally speaking, in which over 16,000 death sentences have been carried out in this movement, mainly against devout Christians.
Authors born in this century: Horace Walpole, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Walter Scott, Jane Austen, Ernest Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, Jacob Ludwig Karl Grimm, Wilhelm Carl Grimm, James Fenimore Cooper, Mary Shelley, Honore de Balzac.
Most of them will come to create or publish their masterpieces in the 19th century, except: “Castle of Otranto” (Horace Walpole) and Johann Wolfgang Goethe’s works: “The Sorrows of Young Werther” (1775) and “Wilhelm Meister’s apprenticeship” (1795).
Most of these authors were defined in their career by the quotidian. One recurrent influence was the war on Napoleon because these authors belonged to regions like Prussia or Germany. Their positions were tremendously influenced by war development, like E.T.A. Hoffmann or the Grim brothers, who had to move from town to town because of how things unfolded.
Even in Scotland, UK Walter Scott enrolled at some point in the military force prepared for a possible French invasion.
The fairy tale saw a lot more influence and attention during this period and the apparition of a new genre: the Gothic novel. The emergence of the Gothic style in literature can be tracked to Horace Walpole’s or Mary Shelley story.
Jane Austen also tremendously influenced the increasing role women can and will have in literature and set the backbone of a future feminism movement. Without a doubt, Jane Austen can be considered alongside the other authors on this list (and not only) as the titans in the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, which did raise the stake significantly for quality literature.
Nihil sine Deo
