sayre2e ch24 integrated_lecture_pp_ts-150665

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Canaletto. London: The Thames and the City of London from Richmond House. Detail. 1747.

44-7/8" × 39-3/8”.


Map: The Growth of London, 1720-1820.


The Great Fire [of London], 1666.


Map: The Spread of the Great Fire from September 2nd to 5th, 1666.

The New London: Toward the Enlightenment

Who were Hobbes and Locke?

• Absolutism versus Liberalism: Thomas Hobbes and John Locke — The new London was, in part, the result of the rational empirical thinking that dominated the Royal Society. Hobbes was convinced that the reasoning upon which Euclid’s geometry was based could be extended to political and social systems. He argued that people are driven by two things –the fear of death at someone else’s hands and the desire for power—and that the government’s role is to check both of these instincts. Locke repudiated Hobbes, arguing that people are perfectly capable of governing themselves. Experiences in our environment fill the “blank slate” of our minds. Thus, if we live in a reasonable society, it should follow that we will grow into reasonable people.

• John Milton’s Paradise Lost — The debate between absolutism and liberalism also informs what is arguable the greatest poem of the English seventeenth century, Paradise Lost by John Milton. The subject of the epic is the Judeo-Christian story of the loss of Paradise by Adam and Eve and their descendents. It is a fair-minded essay on the possibilities of liberty and justice.

• Discussion Question: Compare and contrast the epic vision of Milton in Paradise Lost, with his vast visions of Heaven and Hell, to the socially focused satire of Swift.


Frontispiece to Leviathan. 1651.


Closer Look: Wren's Saint Paul's Cathedral: Western façade.


Closer Look: Wren's Saint Paul's Cathedral: Vertical cross-section or cutaway view.


Closer Look: Wren's Saint Paul's Cathedral: Vertical cross-section or cutaway view of the ground floor.

The English Enlightenment

What is satire, and how did it shape the Enlightenment in England?

• Satire: Enlightenment Wit — In the heart of London, a surging population of immigrants newly arrived from the countryside filled tenements. Beneath the surface of English society could be detected a cauldron of social ferment and moral bankruptcy. Hogarth published a print, Gin Lane, that illustrated life in the gin shops depicting the reality of London at its worst. He did so with a savage wit and broad humor that marks the best of social satire. Jonathan Swift was the most biting satirist of the English Enlightenment. A Modest Proposal proposes that Irish families who could not afford to feed their children breed them to be butchered and served to the English.

• Isaac Newton: The Laws of Physics — Newton demonstrated that the universe was an intelligible system, well-ordered in its operations and guiding principles. Experiments demonstrating the laws of physics became a popular form of entertainment. The English painter Joseph Wright depicts a scientist conducting an experiment before the members of a middle-class household.

• The Industrial Revolution—Members of the Lunar Society included prominent manufacturers, inventors, and naturalists. The group discussed chemistry, medicine, electricity, gases, and any topic that might prove fruitful for industry. These Society members inaugurated the Industrial Revolution a term that describes the radical changes in production and consumption that transformed the world. Josiah Wedgwood’s earthenware factory used molds and mechanically printed decorative patterns on finished china. Advances in textile manufacture could be called the driving force of the Industrial Revolution. The invention of the flying shuttle and the patenting of the water frame increased textile production. The discovery of techniques for producing iron of unprecedented quality in a cost-effective manner was another important development.

• Handel and the English Oratorio—The sense of prosperity and promise created by the Industrial Revolution in England found expression in the music of Handel. An oratorio is a lengthy choral work, usually employing religious subject matter, performed by a narrator, soloists, choruses, and orchestra; this genre made Handel’s reputation. His greatest achievement is the oratorio Messiah.

• Do the narrative elements of the English Oratorio and the English Novel seem more parallel or complementary?


William Hogarth. Gin Lane. 1751.14" × 11-7/8”.


William Hogarth. The Countess’s Levée, or Morning Party, from the series Marriage à la Mode. 1743-45.

27" × 35”.


Joseph Wright. An Experiment on a Bird in the Air-Pump. 1768.6' × 8’.


Transfer-printed Queen’s Ware. ca. 1770.


Thomas Farnolls Pritchard. Iron Bridge, Coalbrookdale, England. 1779.

Architectural Simulation: Cast-Iron Construction

MyArtsLabChapter 24 – The Rise of the Enlightenment in England

http://www.learn.columbia.edu/ha/html/ancient_athens_parthExSw.htm

http://www.learn.columbia.edu/ha/related_sites/acropolis_360_public/html/1_5/1.3_01.html

Active Listening Guide: Handel: Messiah, "Hallelujah"


Literacy and the New Print Culture

What gave rise to the novel?

• The Tattler and The Spectator — The Tattler mixed news and personal reflections and soon became popular in coffeehouses and breakfast tables throughout London. Addison and Steele invented a new literary form, the journalistic essay, a form perfectly suited to an age dedicated to the observation of daily life, and drawing from life’s experiences. The Spectator left almost no aspect of their culture unexamined. They instructed their readership in good manners, surveyed the opportunities that London offered the prudent shopper, and described the goings-on at the Royal Exchange, and reviewed the cities various entertainments.

• The Rise of the English Novel — What the novel claimed to be, and what appealed to its ever-growing audience, was a realistic portrayal of contemporary life. The novel endorsed a set of ethics and a morality that were practical, not idealized. One of the first great novels written in English is Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe which he presents as an autobiography. The theme of the power of the average person to survive and flourish is what assured the novel’s popularity.

• The Rise of the English Novel (continued)— The epistolary novel is made up of a series of letters and was devised by Samuel Richardson. Henry Fielding wrote a parody of Richardson’s high moral tone and his greatest success was The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling. Jane Austen’s novels track, with uncanny precision, distinctions of class, rank, and social standing that mark her times. The English novel, and the state of the society reflected in it, was of special concern to Samuel Johnson. His most important contribution to English letters is his Dictionary of the English Language.

• Discussion Question: Who read the first English novels? Why did they interest this audience?


Frontispiece, The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner... by Daniel Defoe. 1719.


Sir Joshua Reynolds. Portrait of Samuel Johnson. 1756-57.50-1/4" × 40”.

Exploration in the Enlightenment

What was the purpose of Captain Cook’s voyage to the Pacific Ocean?

• Cook’s Encounters in the South Pacific — New Zealand was inhabited by the Maori. The Maori imported the practice of tattooing from the Polynesian islands to the north. Tattooing is an aspect of complex sacred and ritual traditions found throughout the Pacific Islands. Cook arrived on Easter Island where he found the remains of an abandoned civilization, most particularly the monumental heads with torsos known as moai. In Melanesia, Cook encountered an extremely hostile and fearless native population. Cook claimed Australia for the British crown in 1770. Aboriginal rock art represents the longest continuously practiced artistic tradition anywhere in the world. Cook turned the natives of Hawaii against him who clubbed and stabbed him to death in 1779.

• Cook in the North Pacific — Cook journeyed to the Aleutian Chain in an effort to find a “Northwest Passage” connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.


Map: The Islands of the South Pacific.


Sydney Parkinson. Portrait of a Maori (later engraved and published as Plate XVI in Parkinson's Journal). 1769.

15-1/2" × 11-5/8”.

Video: End of Easter Island



Thin moai at Rano Raraku, Easter Island. ca. 1000-1600 CE.


New Guinea, Asmat. Bis poles. Irian Jaya, Faretsj River, Omadesep village, Asmat people. Mid-twentieth century.

Height: 18’.


Australia, Arnhem. Mimis and kangaroo ("x-ray style"). Oenpelli, Arnhem Land, Australia. Before 7000 BCE and after 1788.


Hawaii. Kukailimoku. ca. 1790-1810.Height: 77”.


John Webber, draftsman, and William Sharp, engraver. A Man of Oonalashka. From the atlas volume of James Cook’s A Voyage to the

Pacific Ocean (London, 1784). ca. April 1778.


Johann Zoffany. Continuity & Change: Dido Elizabeth Belle Lindsay and Lady Elizabeth Murray. 1779-81.

35-1/2" X 28-1/4”.

sayre2e ch24 integrated_lecture_pp_ts-150665

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