English writers of the enlightenment

CHAPTER II "ENGLISH WRITERS OF THE ENLIGHTENMENT"
2.1 Jonathan Swift
Swift began his creative activity at the turn of the two centuries, when the extremely diverse experience of English literature of the 17th century. began to be rethought in the light of emerging enlightenment ideas. Swift was a contemporary and partly belonged to the great social movement called the Enlightenment.
Under the influence of the writer-essayist Temple, the foundations of Swift's worldview were formed. In philosophical and religious questions, he shared Montaigne's skepticism in the Anglican interpretation, emphasizing the weakness, limitations and deceptiveness of the human mind; his ethical teaching was reduced to Anglican rationalism with the requirement of strict ordering of feelings, their subordination to common sense. At the heart of his historical ideas was the idea of ​​historical variability⁹.
Swift's journalistic activity in defense of Ireland was accompanied by a creative upsurge, which resulted in the creation of Gulliver's Travels (1721-1725). This work is the highest achievement of the author, prepared by all his previous activities. Gulliver's Travels is one of the most complex, cruel and torturous books of mankind. One might even say one of the most controversial books. In the fourth part of Gulliver's Travels, Swift seems to express his hatred of humanity. To agree that this is the only conclusion from his book is to put him in the camp of the enemies of humanism and progress.
Swift's book is connected by many threads with his modernity. It is teeming with allusions to the topic of the day. In each of the parts of Gulliver's Travels, no matter how far the action takes place, England is directly or indirectly reflected in front of us, English affairs are resolved by analogy or contrast. But the power of Swift's satire lies in the fact that specific facts, characters and situations acquire a universal meaning, turn out to be valid for all times and peoples.
To understand this, we must consider Swift's book in the atmosphere of the time that gave birth to it. 17th century writers could not show humanity the path it was to follow. They did not know such a path and did not believe in its existence, therefore they are only capable of fantastic constructions. This direction and the pessimistic spirit of Swift's satire were a direct legacy of the 17th century.
The main theme of "Gulliver's Travels" is the variability of the external appearance of the world of nature and man, represented by the fantastic and fabulous environment that Gulliver finds himself in during his wanderings. The changing face of fantastic countries emphasizes, in accordance with Swift's intention, the immutability of the inner essence of mores and customs, which is expressed by the same circle of ridiculed vices. Introducing fairy tale motifs in their own artistic function, Swift does not limit himself to it, but expands its significance through parody, on the basis of which the satirical grotesque is built. Parody always presupposes the moment of imitation of a previously known model and thereby draws its source into the sphere of action. The double artistic function of fiction - entertaining and grotesque parody - is developed by Swift in line with the ancient and humanistic tradition through plot parallels, which constitute a special layer of sources in Gulliver's Travels. In accordance with this tradition, the plot is grouped around the scheme of a fictional journey. As for Gulliver, his image is based on the English prose of the 17th century, in which the narratives of travelers of the era of great geographical discoveries are widely represented. From the descriptions of sea voyages, Swift borrowed an adventure flavor that gave the work the illusion of visible reality. This illusion is also increased because in appearance between the midgets and giants, on the one hand, and Gulliver himself and his world, on the other hand, there is an exact ratio of greatness. Quantitative relationships are supported by the qualitative differences that Swift establishes between the mental and moral level of Gulliver, his consciousness and, accordingly, the consciousness of Lilliputians, Brobdingnezhians, Yahoo and Houyhnhnms. The angle of view from which Gulliver sees the next country of his wanderings is precisely established in advance: it is determined by how much its inhabitants are higher or lower than Gulliver in mental or moral terms. The illusion of credibility serves as a camouflage for the irony of the author, who imperceptibly puts masks on Gulliver, depending on the tasks of satire. The fairy-tale plot, combined with the believable adventure flavor of the sea voyage, form the constructive basis of Gulliver's Travels. This includes an autobiographical moment - family stories and Swift's own impressions of an unusual adventure in his early childhood (at the age of one, he was secretly taken away by his nanny from Ireland to England and lived there for almost three years). This is the superficial layer of the narrative that allowed Gulliver's Travels to become a reference book for children's reading. However, the storylines of the plot, being an allegory of generalized satire, combine many semantic elements designed exclusively for an adult reader - allusions, puns, parodies - into a single composition representing Swift's laughter in the widest range - from a joke to "severe indignation". allowed "Gulliver's Travels" to become a reference book for children's reading. However, the storylines of the plot, being an allegory of generalized satire, combine many semantic elements designed exclusively for an adult reader - allusions, puns, parodies - into a single composition representing Swift's laughter in the widest range - from a joke to "severe indignation". allowed "Gulliver's Travels" to become a reference book for children's reading. However, the storylines of the plot, being an allegory of generalized satire, combine many semantic elements designed exclusively for an adult reader - allusions, puns, parodies - into a single composition representing Swift's laughter in the widest range - from a joke to "severe indignation"¹⁰.
The disclosure of the most important social contradictions in the novel is carried out in a generalized image of the state, penetrating all four parts of the work. England and - wider Europe appears before us in several dimensions, in different plans. So, the tiny inhabitants of Lilliputia, the ugly inhabitants of Laputa and the disgusting Yahoos from the country of the Houyhnhnms are fantastically and satirically transformed Europeans, the embodiment of the incurable vices of society. Comparing and playing with creatures of different sizes gives the author the opportunity to show a person from an unusual point of view and reveal new aspects of his nature. If you look at a person through the eyes of midgets, he will seem huge, if through the eyes of giants, he will seem small. Everything depends on the point of view. Everything that claims to be absolute is compared with the insignificant and small. However, despite the small size of the Lilliputians, they have their cities, manners, customs, state, emperor, court, ministers. And, what is especially important, they had ancient wise regulations, which are gradually superseded by modern mores. Swift uses a materialized metaphor to show the servility and dexterity required to make a career in the Lilliputian court. It is necessary to train from childhood to dance on a tightrope. You must also show your dexterity in jumping over the stick held by the emperor, or crawling under it. The statement of power and greatness sounds comically from the lips of the Lilliputians and suggests the relativity of any power. The struggle of the two parties that exist at court - the party of high and low heels - serves to divert people's attention from the pressing issues of life. The party struggle is complemented by the depiction of religious strife. They are shown in the form of a struggle between blunt-pointed and pointed-pointed. Because of which end to break the egg, fanatics go to their deaths. Swift speaks here against religious bigotry and religious prejudice.
The intrigue that began against Gulliver is the first digression into the field of human nature, as it manifests itself in the field of politics. Gulliver not only protected the state from enemy invasion, but also saved the palace from fire, which the Lilliputians could not understand and appreciate. For inexplicable reasons, hatred for Gulliver is growing and something terrible is brewing behind his back. But if Gulliver's enemies offer to kill him, then a friend offers a humane measure - gouge out his eyes. He believes that this will satisfy justice and delight the whole world with his gentleness¹¹.
Swift's irony here reveals the squalor of good deeds that a friend is capable of, who does not break with the vile logic of the ruling order. The troublesome vanity of intrigue acquires the character of an empty and insignificant game among the Lilliputians. Lilliputians are vile, but their small stature symbolizes the pettiness and insignificance of their deeds - human deeds in general.
In the second part of the novel - the journey to Brobdingnag - everything turns upside down. The inhabitants of the country are giants. Swift continues to play with the size difference. Gulliver falls into the position of a midget. He himself looks like an insignificant creature, an animal, an insect. On the other hand, Gulliver's small stature and, accordingly, a different sight of his eyes give him the opportunity to see what big people do not see, for example, the unattractive sides of the human body up close¹².
The giants are shown in two ways. These are creatures of mighty dimensions, gross material beings, not ennobled by spirituality. Their great growth is combined with mental limitations, unpretentiousness and rudeness. But this does not exhaust the characteristics of the giants. The king and queen are big people, big not only physically, but also morally and intellectually.
The theme of England is introduced here differently than in the first part. The central place is occupied by Gulliver's conversations with the king. Gulliver acts like an average Englishman, with all his prejudices and unconscious cruelty. He wants to elevate his fatherland, portrays the political system as ideal, highlights everything that, in his opinion, can decorate this state. In response to this, the king - a man endowed with natural common sense, remarked how insignificant human greatness is if such tiny insects can aspire to it. Swift expressed this idea by comparing the Lilliputians with Gulliver, and he repeats it by comparing Gulliver with the giants. The sober, sensible character of the king of giants seems very attractive to Swift. Swift positively assesses the social system of giants. Politics is not raised to the level of science. The king of giants is an opponent of state secrets, intrigues and sophistication. He believes that a man who has grown one grain is worth more than all politicians¹³.
The third part of the book philosophically interprets the question of the relationship between science and life. Swift's art lies in the fact that he is able to express the most abstract and abstract things concretely and visually. Laputa Island soars in the sky. It is inhabited by noble people, representatives of the aristocracy. These people are deep in thought. Everything here is subordinated to science, abstract and speculative. The island is not just inhabited by scientists. He is a miracle of science, which is cut off from the people. Science is the property of the upper classes. The capital of the state itself and most of the villages are located on the land where the subjects live. When the inhabitants of one city rebelled, the flying island crushed the rebellion. The miracle of science is used against the people. All this is not just Swift's invention. He expressed in a witty and visual form the real contradiction of the old society - the separation of the people from culture and science. The inhabitants of the island of Laputa went into abstract spheres and were indifferent to real life, where ignorance and poverty flourished. On the ground, the Academy of searchlights was created, which is a society of half-knowers who are trying to make humanity happy with their naive discoveries. They demonstrate an inexhaustible supply of stupidity. Searchlights want to change everything just to change. None of their projects have been completed. They destroyed the old but did not create the new. Therefore, the country is in desolation and ruins. Swift develops a very deep thought here. He ridicules people who are obsessed with the mania to change everything, blind commitment to the new and the desire to destroy the old at any cost, people who stop halfway and do not complete their undertakings, who are busy with meaningless projects, not arising from the requirements of life and, moreover, absolutely unrealizable. It is necessary to remake what is really bad, what life requires, and remake based on real grounds and real possibilities. Among the projectors there are people striving to improve society and correct its vices, for example, to find smart ministers, to stop the dissension of parties. Swift speaks of this with undisguised irony, viewing these attempts as equally hopeless and unfeasible projects¹⁴.
The third part also deals with the question of the development of mankind - its historical and biological development, the movement of history, life and death. Getting to the island of Globdobdrib - the island of sorcerers and wizards, the whole history of mankind passes before Gulliver. This is where Swift's historical concept comes into play. He has a deep respect for antiquity and its heroes. This respect develops into a kind of classicism. Comparison of ancient and modern history is necessary for Swift in order to show the degradation and decline of mankind. Oppression, bribery, perfidy, betrayal - that's what accompanied the birth of a new civilized society. The concept of human development, which Swift expounds, emphasizes, first of all, the contradictions of this development, the final decline of the human race. It opposes the optimistic concept of the Enlightenment,
The third part of the novel ends with a visit to the eastern countries. The absurdity and cruelty of court life appears in it in especially frank forms. A special group of people in this country are the struldbrugs, or immortals. The description of these people, as it were, echoes the resurrection of the dead, which took place on the island of sorcerers and wizards. Longevity is the dream of every person. Gulliver was delighted with this idea. He believes that eternal life can give a person experience and wisdom, that the wealth of life experience that the immortal accumulates will prevent the decline and degeneration of mankind. But everything happens the other way around¹⁵.
Man cannot hope for eternal youth. And the strulbrugs turn out to be eternal old men. They are deprived of natural feelings and hardly understand the language of the new generation. Greedy and greedy, they want to seize power, and since they are not capable of governing, they can only lead the state to death. This chapter tells about the biological and social degradation of man and the impotence of science to find recipes for his salvation.
"Gulliver's Travels" captured the period when bourgeois relations were thoroughly strengthened in all spheres of public life, and Swift's novel, by its construction, conveys their relative immobility. The circumstances in this satirical work have only one direction of development, which is expressed in the expansion and deepening of the sphere of evil. Life, all living things seem to be devoid of movement: under the deep cover of this inviolability, the tragedy of the lonely Gulliver is growing. But the social relations themselves, the structure of society, have frozen dead. It is no coincidence that Gulliver did not notice any changes for the better in his native country over the years of his wanderings. Time stopped. Or, to be more precise: time moves in a direction hostile to man. A tragic time that did not portend genuine and tangible progress.
Swift's novel "Gulliver's Travels" is on the main highway of literary development. Its outstanding significance is determined primarily by the formulation and solution of the most complex and important socio-philosophical problems that worried European society in the 18th century, as well as in later times. The role of Swift's satire is so great that not only Swift's contemporaries W. Gay, J. Arbuthnot, but also the largest English writers of other generations somehow took the lessons of the author of Gulliver's Travels and were under his influence.
2.2 Daniel Defoe
The harsh school of life that Defoe went through, his vigorous versatile activity, and the richest journalistic experience prepared the birth of Defoe the novelist. The writer was 59 years old when he published his first and most remarkable novel, which glorified his name for centuries. It was The Life and Strange, Wonderful Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Sailor of York, as Described by Himself (1719).
Defoe's book appeared on the crest of a powerful wave of travel literature that swept England at that time - true and fictional reports of circumnavigations, memoirs, diaries, travel notes of successful merchants and famous sailors. However, no matter how diverse and numerous the sources of "Robinson Crusoe" were, both in form and in content, the novel was a deeply innovative phenomenon. Having creatively assimilated the experience of his predecessors, relying on his own journalistic experience, Defoe created an original work of art that organically combined an adventurous beginning with an imaginary documentary, the traditions of the memoir genre with the features of a philosophical parable.
The idea of ​​"Robinson Crusoe" was prompted by Defoe by a real incident: in 1704, the Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk, having quarreled with the captain of the ship, landed on an unfamiliar shore with a small supply of provisions and weapons, and for more than four years led a hermit life on the island of Juan Fernandez in the Pacific Ocean until he was picked up by a passing ship under the command of Woodes Rogers. Defoe could get acquainted with the history of Selkirk from the book by Rogers "Sailing around the world" (1712) and from Steele's essay in the magazine "The Englishman" (1713).
This story served the writer as a starting point for a detailed artistic narrative, imbued with the poetry of travel and adventure, and at the same time containing a deep socio-philosophical meaning. Having forced his hero to live twenty-eight years away from civilization, Defoe carried out an enlightening experiment on "human nature", subjected it to a kind of test, sought to clarify for himself and his readers the decisive factors for human survival in this emergency.
In the island episode of the novel, this heroic chronicle of Robinson's "works and days", the author poeticized the history of man's centuries-old struggle for existence, glorified the indestructible power of his thought, knowing and conquering nature, glorified the element of free creative labor. Labor and hard work of thought help the hero not only to survive, but also not to run wild, not to fall into madness, to preserve his human appearance. It is the work and creative activity of the mind that, according to the writer, form the basis for the transformation of the world and the spiritual elevation of man.
Defoe embodied in the novel a typical enlightenment concept of the history of human society. The life of his hero on the island in a generalized, schematic form repeats the path of mankind from barbarism to civilization: first, Robinson is a hunter and fisherman, then a cattle breeder, farmer, artisan, slave owner. Later, with the advent of other people on the island, he becomes the founder of a colony arranged in the spirit of Locke's "social contract"¹⁶.
At the same time, it is important to emphasize that Defoe's hero, from the very beginning of his stay on the island, is not a "natural", but a civilized person, not the starting point of history, but the product of a long historical development, an individual, only temporarily placed in a "natural state": he armed with the labor skills and experience of his people and successfully uses the equipment, tools and other material values ​​found on the wrecked ship. Cut off from society by the will of circumstances, does Robinson never for a moment cease to feel like a particle of it, remains a social being and considers his loneliness as the gravest? from the trials that fell to his lot¹⁷.
Robinson is a hard worker, but at the same time he is "an exemplary English merchant." His entire mindset is characteristic of the British bourgeois of the early 18th century. He does not disdain either planting or the slave trade and is ready to go to the ends of the world, driven not so much by the restless spirit of quest as by the thirst for enrichment. He is thrifty and practical, diligently accumulating material values. The possessive streak is also manifested in the hero's attitude to nature: he describes the exotically beautiful corner of the earth, into which fate has thrown him, as a zealous owner, compiling a register of his property.
Robinson even builds his relationship with God on the principle of a business contract, in which "good" and "evil", like profit and loss items, balance each other with accounting accuracy. As befits a bourgeois puritan, Defoe's hero willingly turns to the Bible, and in difficult times appeals to God. However, in general, his religiosity is very moderate. The sensualist-practitioner of the Locke school, accustomed to relying in everything on experience and common sense, constantly triumphs in him over the puritan-mystic, who hopes for the goodness of providence.
Interesting in the novel are Robinson's conversations with Friday about religion: the "natural man" Friday, anticipating Voltaire's "Innocent", with his naive questions, easily confounds Robinson, who intended to convert him to Christianity.
Revealing in detail in the novel the relationship between Robinson and Friday saved by him from cannibals, Defoe seeks to emphasize the noble civilizing mission of the English bourgeoisie. In his depiction, Robinson, although he turns the young savage into a humble servant, nevertheless treats him gently and humanely, introduces him to the blessings of spiritual and material culture and finds in him a grateful and capable student. Clearly idealizing the image of Robinson, the author, as it were, teaches a lesson to the European colonizers and slave traders, teaches them humane treatment of the natives, condemns the barbaric methods of conquering wild tribes¹⁸.
Defoe's hero unexpectedly turns out to be a student of the enlightening philosophy of the 18th century: he is a cosmopolitan and grants the Spaniards equal rights with the British in his colony, he professes religious tolerance, respects human dignity even in "savages" and is himself filled with a proud consciousness of personal superiority over all the autocrats of the earth. "Robinson Crusoe" is connected by many threads with the philosophical ideas of John Locke: in essence, the entire "island robinsonade" and the history of the robinson colony in the novel sound like a fictional transcription of Locke's treatises on government. The very theme of the island, which is out of contact with society, was already used by Locke in his philosophical writings two decades before Defoe.
Defoe is also close to Locke's educational ideas about the role of labor in the history of the human race and the formation of an individual. It was not for nothing that Rousseau called Defoe's novel "the most successful treatise on natural education" and gave him the most honorable place in the library of his young hero ("Emile, or On Education", 1762). The ingenuous story of how Robinson built his hut, how he burned the first jug, how he grew bread and tamed goats, how he built and launched a boat, continues to excite the imagination of readers of all ages for almost three centuries. It has not lost its enormous educational value for children and youth to this day.
The exclusivity of the situation in which Defoe put his hero, removing him from the world of money and placing him in the world of work, allowed the author to most clearly highlight in the character of Robinson those qualities that are manifested in free from commercial calculations, universal in nature, creative, creative activities. The pathos of knowledge and conquest of nature, the triumph of free human labor, reason, energy and the will to live give Defoe's book an extraordinary freshness, poetry and persuasiveness, constitute the secret of its charm and the guarantee of its immortality.
The extraordinary success of the novel prompted the author to immediately take up its continuation. Thus appeared The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719), and then Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe, with his Vision of the Angelic World (1720). Both in terms of ideological content and artistic performance, both parts are noticeably inferior to the first. The second book describes the hero's journey to India, China and Siberia. He visits his island, where he completes the establishment of an "ideal" colony. Robinson appears in this part as "an exemplary English merchant". Didactic "Serious Reflections" - typical for literature of the 17th - 18th centuries. an attempt to explain the deep, allegorical content of the previous parts. Robinson sets out in detail here his ethical, religious-philosophical and literary views.
The works of Defoe that followed Robinson Crusoe are exceptionally diverse in their genre nature: here are adventure novels that continue the traditions of the picaresque genre - Moll Flanders (1722), Colonel Jack (1722), Roxanne (1724), and the marine adventure novel "Captain Singleton" (1720), and the diary novel "The Diary of a Plague Year" (1722), and, finally, memoir novels, which are a distant prototype of the historical novel - "Memoirs of a Cavalier" (1720), " Memoirs of an English Officer, Captain George Carlton" (1728)¹⁹.
All Defoe's novels are written in the form of memoirs, diaries or autobiographies. The unusual gift of reincarnation allows the writer to act on behalf of a thief, a prostitute, a pirate. Almost all of his heroes are criminals, almost all of them are orphans and foundlings who do not remember their relationship. Captain Singleton, the head of a pirate gang, was stolen as a child, Moll Flanders was born in Newgate Prison and roams all the dens and slums of England, "Colonel" Jack spends the night in glass-blowing ovens as a homeless boy, begins to steal for a piece of bread, and at the end of the novel becomes a planter -slave owner. Heroes lead a desperate struggle for existence, not shunning any means. Defoe traces their life path from infancy to old age, shows them in collisions with a cruel world, reveals the influence of the environment on their characters and destinies, and comes to the conclusion that²⁰.
Of particular interest among Defoe's crime stories is the novel The Joys and Sorrows of the famous Moll Flanders, who was born in Newgate Prison and during the six decades of her diverse life (not counting childhood) was a kept woman for twelve years, married five times (of which once for his brother), twelve years as a thief, eight years as an exile in Virginia; but in the end she got rich, began to live honestly and died in repentance. Written from her own notes. Before the reader passes a life full of ups and downs, successes and failures. The daughter of a thief, who grew up among criminals, brought up at the expense of the parish, Moll suffered many sorrows and humiliations from an early age. Beautiful, smart, energetic, she stubbornly strives to "break out into the people." The poverty and heartlessness of those around her become the main reason for her moral decline and in the end turn her into a predator, who enthusiastically enters into the struggle of all against all. Gorky gave a remarkable description of the realistic image of Moll in his lectures on the history of Russian literature: “Moll Flanders is depicted as a drunken, angry, rude person who does not believe in anything, deceitful, cunning, but at the same time you clearly see in her all the feelings of a citizen free country ... you see that before you is a person who knows his own worth, a person who perfectly understands the degree of his personal guilt and the guilt of society, which forced her to live by selling her body - in a word, the author does not forget for a moment that before him is the victim of an ugly social order, he condemns her for the fact that Moll did not resist stubbornly enough²¹.
The fate of a lonely woman, making her way upstairs, is also dedicated to Defoe's novel "Roxanne". The heroine of Defoe is an adventurer and courtesan, she rotates in various social circles, wanders around Europe, shines in Paris under Louis XIV and in London salons during the Restoration. At a time when Roxana, having destroyed, as it seems to her, all traces of her dark past, is preparing to retire and live the rest of her days in contentment, she unexpectedly meets her own daughter, once abandoned by her. An enmity flares up between them, and for the sake of profit, the mother becomes an unspoken accomplice in the murder of her daughter. In terms of drama and psychological persuasiveness, "Roxanne" significantly surpasses the previous works of the writer.
Defoe entered the history of literature as the creator of the first remarkable examples of the epic of private life, as the initiator of the educational realistic novel. He was the first to be able to see the hero of his time in the merchant and vagabond, the glorious "sailor from York", to reveal within the framework of a separate destiny the richness and diversity of real life, to give a deeply faithful and impressive portrait of an age possessed by the spirit of entrepreneurship and practical life. Defoe wrote for the widest audience and was truly a folk writer, not only in content, but also in the form of his works. The lively and direct manner of narration, the simple and artless language of Defoe's novels were close and understandable to millions of readers. By the end of the 18th century, Defoe's masterpiece "Robinson Crusoe" went through about 700 editions in England alone and was translated into almost all European languages. Defoe's name has become an integral part of the history of world democratic culture.