Enlightenment and the Arts
I. Enlightenment and the arts in general
A. Remember what we said was central to people in the Enlightenment?
[rationality; thought; figure things out]
B. So what would you expect to find in the arts? What kinds of things would be valued? How expressed in the arts?
[again want to have order, rationality; putting away of emotionalism; particular emphasis on rules that need to follow]
C. Somewhat different dates that we’re talking about: in art, later part of 1700s; in music 1730-1810; in literature, longer period—can think of it from Restoration of the monarchy in England in 1660 to French Revolution in 1789
D. Name for this period in the arts: Neoclassical in art/literature; Classical in music
1. What do you think of when you hear classical? What is reference?
[reference to classical Greece and Rome—and that’s what these artists were enamored with; thought that was greatest time of all, and wanted to figure out way to get back to it]
2. Music not NEO because no musical examples from that period, so had to kind of guess what it was likely like
E. Spend a little time with art and music just to get you a little sense of how the arts relate to each other; less time there, though, because will have separate lectures on them; more on lit to get you set up for your reading of Tartuffe
II. Neoclassical/Classical art and music
A.
Jacques-Louis David premier Neoclassical artist; show here
Oath of the Horatii
(http://mirror.tvd.be/cjackson/jdavid/p-8horatii.htm)
1. What kinds of structural devices/ways things are organized do you see here?
[see straight lines (not curves of Baroque); statuesque figures; even background is regular—move from Baroque and Rococo with high emotion and dramatic colors, etc.]
2. great emphasis on order, rationality, structure
B.
Musical example: Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik;
listen to a minute or so
1. What elements to do you hear in here that seem to fit with classical characteristics?
[have what’s called “Balanced phrasing”; regular rhythm; see emphasis on orderliness]
2.
Listen again to opening; hear way is one phrase perfectly
balanced by next one
III. Neoclassical literature--Some characteristics of the Neoclassical Period
A. Purpose of literature: both teach and delight (from Horace)
1. All lit does this to some extent, but Neoclassical writers put special emphasis on making sure was moral purpose in what was written; see that reflected in Tartuffe, that there’s a point to it
B. Represent “Nature”:
1. Not primarily meaning what we’d talk about nature as outdoors; if rep. that do it in very stylized ways (like pastoral)
2. Rather, use idea of nature to get at most basic truth; that’s what is goal of literature
3. “Nature is truth in the sense that it includes the enduring general truths that have been, are, and will be true for everyone in all times everywhere” (Norton anth. 1774-5).
C. Orderliness/decorum praised
1. Downplay emotions (reaction against Baroque mindset and its parallels in late Renaissance); not uncommon to take a role—doesn’t have to be your “true” feelings
2. One way emphasize order is by following rules; same impulse as what scientists discovering; feeling that need to methodize writing (talk more about rules for drama when we talk about drama)
3. Show Pope quote: how does this sound like you’d expect a neoclassical author to sound?
[Pope Essay on Criticism: “Those rules of old discovered, not devised / Are Nature still, but nature methodized.”]
4. Get at Nature by following rules, not by being wildly inventive
5. Follow genre conventions (for tragedy, comedy, satire, pastoral, etc.)—some particular type of writing that ‘s already been established/accepted
6. Even see it in common poetic form of the time: heroic couplets (a rhyming pair of lines
D. Wit and clever use of language valued
1. This is the “pleasing” part of literature; not that trying to invent wholly new thing, but that do it with clever words and interesting connections—but always tempered by decorum
2. Again, Alexander Pope in Essay on Criticism has very famous line here:
“True wit is Nature to advantage dressed,
What oft was thought but ne’er so well expressed;
Something whose truth convinced at sight we find,
That gives us back the image of our mind.” (II. 297-300)
3. Note way that emphasis on how it is expressed; not that have everything new but rather that have what we already knew—just needed to hear in a better way
4. Poet as “craftsman”
E. Emphasis on humans in society as topic
1. Interested in people and social interactions
2. Pope again: “Know then thyself, presume not God to scan; / The proper study of mankind is man.”
3. Emphasis on practical reason; big time for people like Benjamin Franklin and his aphorisms—all those common sense things that we should all do (like: “early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise”)
IV. Some genres; first start off with drama
A. Unities; goes back to Aristotle's Poetics. Unity of action, time, and place.
1. Action--action
that is complete and whole, with beginning, middle and end, with causal
pattern. For Aristotle this meant the
focus would be on one character (thus no sub plot; no mixture of comedy and
tragedy). Contrast with Renaissance;
though Renaissance writers sometimes followed classical models, they weren't
hung up on rules. So 18th century
writers criticized Shakespeare since he often used subplots (see Tempest
with Caliban, Stephano, Trinculo subplot)
2. Time--sometimes interpreted as 24
hours, sometimes as 12 hours. Tempest
is one of the few plays by Shakespeare that does follow unity of time but some
of his plays take place over more than decade.
Thus Shakespeare devalued; and in fact, some of his plays were rewritten
by 18th c/ writers to make them follow rules.
3. Place--this
wasn't specifically mentioned by Aristotle but was an extension of his theories. Again Shakespeare devalued since some of his
plays take place in more than one setting.
For instance, The Winter’s Tale split in half, separated by 16
years and in two very different places.
B. English and French writers follow unities scrupulously; doesn't necessarily make for good plays.
V. Satire
A. Can certainly have in different genres; common in poetry, prose, and drama; we’ll look at in drama and prose
B. Basic definition: holding up human folly for examination/ridicule and hoping through wit and laughter to bring about correction; not so much about tearingdown as to inspire rebuilding.
C. Also see satire in prose with Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels; have story that works on two levels: Lemuel Gulliver traveling around to different places, and is entertaining story about all the different things he sees on his trips; but also is other level with clear critique/satire of what he saw in England at the time
1. Anth. p. 287—satire of Royal Society of London; often pretty gross—p. 288
2. Anth. p. 295-6—satire on reasonableness of people; Gulliver is identified with out of control Yahoos while the rational ones there are the horses, the Houyhnhmms
VI. The novel
A. During this same time that the novel developed, too
1. In some ways, novel fits into neoclassical; a number did have clear moral sense in them; for instance, Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740), one of earliest novels began as a collection of letters to serve as models for how to write proper letters—but grew into much more than that
2. Not uncommon to have authors using classical forms; for instance, Henry Fielding in his novels often playfully uses techniques from Homer’s poems (like catalogs, Homeric epithets/descriptions)
B. But also important ways that this form goes against usual assumptions of Neoclassical
1. Much more middle class focus than poetry, both for writers and for readers
2. Novels tended to portray middle class life; not so much with aristocracy
3. Novels often serialized or published in parts, so they were more affordable; also development of circulating libraries for reading public
4. Middle class readers, especially women, had more time on their hands, so novels good entertainment
C. Def. Novel: longer piece of fiction that has developed plot and characters; usually look for some kind of overall coherence or development; taking place in some specific environment—there’s a feeling that we get to know the characters; they become our friends (Note: this definition challenged by some of the changes in novel happening in writing now.)
D. lot of question exactly where it started; some would include Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress; others would see that as too much an allegory without realistic characters
E. The novel becomes the predominant form in the 19th century
VII. Conclusion
A. Neoclassical age time of much concern with following rules, writing correctly, and see this in all of the arts
B. But in this same time that development of what arguably is most important form of lit today: novel