Eighteenth-Century Literature and Enlightenment Ideas
Eighteenth-Century Literature
Eighteenth Century
In literary terms, there are significant variations that were used as vehicles for new ideas. In the eighteenth century almost all literature became literature of ideas, especially the genres of fiction, which served social discussions and philosophical debate. We found three key trends:
Key Trends of the Eighteenth Century
- Dissemination and systematization of knowledge: Knowledge was collected and organized on a global basis; the Encyclopédie made this information accessible and became essential to the French Enlightenment. Figures such as Diderot, Voltaire, and D’Alembert prominently incorporated scientific and technical illustrations. Their work engaged with some of the major problems of power and society.
- Utility and social transformation: Authors focused on the usefulness of knowledge and the transformation of key aspects of society, in contrast with the primarily philosophical and religious concerns of the previous era. In works addressing On Crimes and Punishments and similar themes, writers highlighted the tension between punishment and crime and attempted to eliminate torture as a legal practice. Jovellanos wrote reports on public order and entertainment that portray forms of amusement among Spanish youth, who frequented taverns. The image of Spain in eighteenth-century Europe was often bleak and negative—an idea the Spanish Enlightenment sought to dismantle.
- Legal and social analysis: Montesquieu encouraged legal and social analysis in his work The Spirit of the Laws, and is often regarded as a precursor to modern sociology.
“Written for social criticism of the moment,” many works had to contend with resistance inherited from the previous period. We find figures like Benito Feijóo, who wrote short pieces and reflected a Baroque resistance while enjoying strong support from the Bourbon court.
Now there is a culture of discussion and reasoned debate: people talked about issues and argued about them, opening new paths toward the modern. In fiction we find a didactic intent so that fiction is charged with the literature of ideas. Genres were subject to certain rules of expression; we can mention three variants:
Genre Variants in Eighteenth-Century Fiction
- Nouvelle philosophique: A philosophical short story or novel. Characters face situations that prompt philosophical reflection on humanity and their relationships with others. Examples include Candide by Voltaire and Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, both of which use satire to present various elements of the contemporary world.
- Entretiens (Dialogues): Dialogue or conversation works were revived. Many works recover a conversational language that had been constrained by the humanists; the tone becomes looser and closer to spoken discussion. Some are more orderly, serving as supplements to narrative, as in Diderot’s pieces where a sailor’s story is framed as a conversation between a priest and another speaker discussing the state of nature and how contact with settlers can degenerate. Other dialogues, such as Le Neveu de Rameau (Rameau’s Nephew), are much less orderly in topic and form.
- Literature in letters (Epistolary Fiction): Fiction written in epistolary form has a tradition from the late Middle Ages, continued into the modern age and becoming a typical model of literature of ideas. Montesquieu’s Persian Letters provides the model. After hundreds of works following this template, one example cited is the Moroccan Letters of Gallows. The model is organized around a few correspondents who exchange letters; these characters are often constructed as individuals from exotic or distant places who encounter the West, highlight problems, criticize society, and contribute elements of romance. This model would be inherited by nineteenth-century fiction.
Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos is written as a novel in letters, with a tightly woven plot of intrigue.