(1660-1700 / 1715-1760)

“Les Lumieres”, “Aufklärung”

reason

targets: religion, aristocracy

deism, religious tolerance

progress

empiricism

encyclopedia

rise of the bourgeoisie

“les philosophes”

Candide

(1759)

Satire

Satire is the literary art of
diminishing a subject by making it
ridiculous and evoking toward it
attitudes of amusement, contempt,
indignation or scorn

Two types of characters in fiction

 “a flat character” = a type, two-(or one-)dimensional, built around a single idea or quality, presented in outline, without much individualizing detail; can be described in a single phrase or sentence

“a round character” = complex in temperament and motivation; three-dimensional; represented with subtle particularity; capable of surprising us; difficult to describe

(from M.H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms; following E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel)
 

“Bildungsroman”

- German term for “educational novel” or “novel of formation”
- subject is the development of the protagonist’s mind and character, as s/he passes from childhood through varied experiences—and usually through a spiritual crisis—into maturity and the recognition of his/her identity and role in the world.
- began with Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship (1795-96) and includes Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain and Somerset-Maugham’s Of Human Bondage

(M. H. Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms)
 

“Picaresque Novel”

- Spanish “picaro” = rogue
- genre emerged in sixteenth-century Spain
- the protagonist is a rascal who lives by his or her wits through a long succession of adventures; tries to “beat the system”—whichever system s/he encounters
- picaresque fiction is realistic in manner, episodic in structure, and usually satiric in aim
- examples include Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders
 

“Utopia”

- term invented by Thomas More
- an intended confusion between Greek “eu-topos” (a good place) and Greek “ou-topos” (“no place”)
- this implies that the good place is nowhere to be found
- a long tradition of “utopian” literature