The Enlightenment
World Literature
The Enlightenment’s Impact on the Modern World The Enlightenment, Age of Reason, began in the late 17th and 18th century. This was a period in Europe and America when mankind was emerging from centuries of ignorance into a new age enlightened by reason, science, and respect for humanity. This period promoted scientific thought, skeptics, and intellectual interchange: dismissing superstition, intolerance, and for some, religion. Western Europe, Germany, France, and Great Britain, and the American Colonies generally influenced the age of reason. Following the Renaissance, science and rationality was the forefront of this age. The enlightenment came as a wave throughout Europe, drastically changing the culture. The literature of time reflected this idea. Authors such as Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau were torchbearers of this time, writing Enlightenment literature and philosophy. The Enlightenment was the forefront for modern literature and changed the way people viewed and interacted with the world, without it society today would not be the same. The ideas of the Enlightenment have had a long-term major impact on the culture, politics, and governments of the Western worlds. English philosopher John Locke’s principles of religious tolerance, the separation of church and state, and the social contract, for instance, greatly influenced the Founding Fathers of the United States as they planned their new country. Locke’s idea of a social contract, which Rousseau in particular developed, was also of great importance in France both before and after the French Revolution. Democratic institutions were in existence to some degree in England, Switzerland, and the United Province of the Netherlands when Rousseau elaborated his social contract. Many of the ideas that the philosophers developed are intrinsic to modern democratic society, and they were often developed with the intent of creating such a society. It is important to note that
The Enlightenment’s Impact on the Modern World The Enlightenment, Age of Reason, began in the late 17th and 18th century. This was a period in Europe and America when mankind was emerging from centuries of ignorance into a new age enlightened by reason, science, and respect for humanity. This period promoted scientific thought, skeptics, and intellectual interchange: dismissing superstition, intolerance, and for some, religion. Western Europe, Germany, France, and Great Britain, and the American Colonies generally influenced the age of reason. Following the Renaissance, science and rationality was the forefront of this age. The enlightenment came as a wave throughout Europe, drastically changing the culture. The literature of time reflected this idea. Authors such as Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau were torchbearers of this time, writing Enlightenment literature and philosophy. The Enlightenment was the forefront for modern literature and changed the way people viewed and interacted with the world, without it society today would not be the same. The ideas of the Enlightenment have had a long-term major impact on the culture, politics, and governments of the Western worlds. English philosopher John Locke’s principles of religious tolerance, the separation of church and state, and the social contract, for instance, greatly influenced the Founding Fathers of the United States as they planned their new country. Locke’s idea of a social contract, which Rousseau in particular developed, was also of great importance in France both before and after the French Revolution. Democratic institutions were in existence to some degree in England, Switzerland, and the United Province of the Netherlands when Rousseau elaborated his social contract. Many of the ideas that the philosophers developed are intrinsic to modern democratic society, and they were often developed with the intent of creating such a society. It is important to note that