IMAGINING OTHER
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How Enlightened was the
Enlightenment?
Week 7: The Arts.
Poems and other quotations:
Social class:
(summary 1.2):
Robert Burns:
A man’s a man for a’ that:
What though on hamely fare we
dine,
Wear hoddin grey, and a’
that;
Gie fools their silks and knaves
their wine,
A man’s a man for a’ that:
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Their tinsel show, and a’
that;
The honest man, tho’ e’er sae
poor,
Is king o’ men for a’ that!
Enlightenment optimism (summary 2.1):
Alexander Pope:
Pope’s proposed epitaph for
Sir Isaac Newton:
Nature and Nature’s laws lay
hid in night:
God said, Let Newton Be! And
all was light
On the harmony of nature (in
the Essay on Man):
‘All nature is but art,
unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which
thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not
understood;
All partial evil, universal
good:
And, spite of pride in erring
reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, whatever
is, is right’
On human nature: (summary 2.2):
‘Two principles in human
nature reign:
Self-love, to urge, and
reason, to restrain’ (O’Hara p 11)
Man and Woman (summary 2.3):
Pope: An Essay on Man:
‘Let us…
Expatiate free o’er all this
scene of Man;
A mighty maze! But not
without a plan;
A Wild, where weeds and
flow’rs promiscuous shoot;
Or Garden, tempting with
forbidden fruit.
…
But vindicate the ways of God
to Men.
I. Say first, of God above, or man below,
What can we reason, but from
what we know?
…
Is the great chain, that
draws all to agree,
And drawn supports, upheld by
God, or thee?
II. Presumptuous Man! The reason wouldst thou find,
Why form’d so weak, so
little, and so blind?
First, if thou canst, the
harder reason guess,
Why form’d no weaker,
blinder, and no less?
Ask of they mother earth, why
oaks are made
Taller or stronger than the
weeds they shade?’
Epistle II. To a Lady…
‘Nothing so true as what you
once let fall,
‘Most Women have no
Characters at all.’
Matter too soft a lasting
mark to bear,
And best distinguish’d by
black, brown, or fair.
‘Come then, the colours and
the ground prepare!
Dip in the Rainbow, trick her
off in Air…’
‘Rufa, whose eye
quick-glancing o’er the Park,
Attracts each light gay
meteor of a Spark,
Agrees as ill with Rufa
studying Locke,
As Sappho’s diamonds with her
dirty smock;
Or Sappho at her toilet’s
greasy task,
With Sappho fragrant at an
ev’ning Mask:
So morning Insects that in
muck begun,
Shine, buzz, and fly-blow in
the setting-sun.’
On the economy, and virtue (summary 2.4):
The Fable of The Bees: or, Private Vices, Public Benefits is a book by Bernard
Mandeville, consisting of the poem The Grumbling Hive: or, Knaves turn’d
Honest and prose discussion of it (1705 - 17140.
[Notes from Wikipedia]
‘A Spacious Hive well stock'd with Bees,
That lived in Luxury and Ease;
And yet as fam'd for Laws and Arms,
As yielding large and early Swarms;
Was counted the great Nursery
Of Sciences and Industry.
No Bees had better Government,
More Fickleness, or less Content.
They were not Slaves to Tyranny,
Nor ruled by wild Democracy;
But Kings, that could not wrong, because
Their Power was circumscrib'd by Laws’.
The 'hive' is corrupt but
prosperous, yet it grumbles about lack of virtue. A higher power decides to
give them what they ask for:
‘But Jove, with Indignation moved,
At last in Anger swore, he'd rid
The bawling Hive of Fraud, and did.
The very Moment it departs,
And Honesty fills all their Hearts;’
This results in a rapid loss of
prosperity, though the newly-virtuous hive does not mind:
‘For many Thousand Bees were lost.
Hard'ned with Toils, and Exercise
They counted Ease it self a Vice;
Which so improved their Temperance;
That, to avoid Extravagance,
They flew into a hollow Tree,
Blest with Content and Honesty’.
‘For the main Design of the Fable, (as it is briefly explain’d in the
Moral) is to shew the Impossibility of enjoying all the most elegant Comforts
of Life that are to be met with in an industrious, wealthy and powerful Nation,
and at the same time be bless’d with all the Virtue and Innocence that can be
wish’d for in a Golden Age; from thence to expose the Unreasonableness and
Folly of those, that desirous of being an opulent and flourishing People, and
wonderfully greedy after all the Benefits they can receive as such, are yet
always murmuring at and exclaiming against those Vices and Inconveniences, that
from the Beginning of the World to this present Day, have been inseparable from
all Kingdoms and States that ever were fam’d for Strength, Riches, and
Politeness, at the same time.’
On nature (summary 2.5):
Pope:
‘True wit is Nature to
Advantage drest,
What oft was thought, but
ne’er so well Exprest,
Something, whose Truth
convinc’d at sight we find,
That gives us back the image
of our Mind.’
Criticisms of enlightenment rationalism (summary 2.7):
James Thomson
(1700 – 1748), in his Seasons,
comments on the limitations of Newtonian Opticks:
‘Here, awful
Form, fronting on the Sun,
thy show’ry prism;
And to the sage-instructed
eye unfold
The various twine of light,
by thee disclos’d
From the white mingling maze.
Not so the boy;
He wondering views the bright
enchantment bend,
Delightful o’er the radiant
fields and runs
To catch the falling glory’.