Age Of Reason

UNIVERSITY OF PANAMÁ
CENTRO REGIONAL UNIVERSITARIO LOS SANTOS
ENGLISH SCHOOL

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DATE:
April 27th, 2012.

INTRODUCTION

The age of reason was a full-of-changes period in which the concepts and beliefs of many persons changed; it was a period full of tragedies and discoveries, characterized by its purpose, to reform society and advance knowledge. Itpromoted science and intellectual interchange and opposed superstition, intolerance and abuses in church and state.
Despite the confidence in and enthusiasm for human reason in the Enlightenment – it is sometimes called “the Age of Reason” – the rise of empiricism, both in the practice of science and in the theory of knowledge, is characteristic of the period. The enthusiasm for reason in theEnlightenment is not for the faculty of reason as an independent source of knowledge (at least not primarily), which is actually put on the defensive in the period, but rather for the human cognitive faculties generally.
In the next pages, important information about the age of reason, also known as the age of enlightment will be presented. This research focuses mainly in the impacts of such period inthe literary aspects of the English language.

AGE OF REASON
1750-1800
The Age of Reason (Enlightenment) in England was a widespread intellectual and literary movement that took place in Europe and England. The movement was shaped by the idea of rationalism (reliance on reason as the best guide for belief and action). The age encouraged intellectual freedom as well as freedom from prejudice,religious beliefs, and politics. Unlike the Enlightenment in Europe, the Age of Reason in England gave equal credit to experience and reason while in the process of regarding the human condition. Because of that, it is therefore less "rational" than various versions of the Enlightenment in France and other countries. Moreover, numerous writers in England, however, were averse toward therationalist ideals of social advancement and human "perfectibility".
To the very least, people at the time, especially in Europe, were more interested in character, ethics, self-understanding, comprehension of their society, and knowledge of one another. One of the works of John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), was a verbally expressed image of the society during that period. One of thequotes indicated that, "our business here is not to know all things, but those which concern our conduct." Last but not least, it was an era that heralded the scientific method. Great upheavals in history occur when circumstances are ripe. The American Revolution was such an upheaval, and the groundwork for it had been laid by European writers and thinkers as well as by the English king andParliament. The eighteenth century is often characterized as the Enlightenment, or the Age of Reason.
Spurred by the work of many seventeenth-century thinkers—such as scientists Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton, philosophers Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and political theorist John Locke—the writers and thinkers of the Enlightenment valued reason over faith. Unlike the Puritans, they had littleinterest in the hereafter, believing instead in the power of reason and science to further human progress. They spoke of a social contract that forms the basis of government. Above all, they believed that people are by nature good, not evil. A perfect society seemed to them to be more than just an idle dream.
The American statesmen of the Revolutionary period were themselves figures of theEnlightenment. No history of the period would be complete without mention of the ideas and writings of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson. These Americans not only expressed the ideas of the Age of Reason but also helped to put them spectacularly into practice.

Main Genres/Styles

Political pamphlets.
The increased consumption of reading materials of all sorts was one of the key...