Age Of Reason Essay Research Paper Four

Age Of Reason Essay, Research Paper

Four Authors Views on Reason

Certain Individuals that lived in the period of time know as the Age of Reason discovered many knew inventions and advancements to improve the quality of life. When experimented with, these advantages brought forth knew ideas to extraordinary people who forever changed the way we look at life. Although many people found these discoveries to bring a great revival to mankind, others rejected these new improvements and felt as if they were defying god. These years were full of discoveries, conflicts, and new visions that of the world. The age of reason brought on many changes to religious, political, scientific, and literary aspects of the eighteenth century.

This essay will review the writings and attitudes on reason of four different authors Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Moliere, Jean Racine, Johnathan Swift and Alexander Pope. The writings that will be discussed are Moliere’s Tartuffe, Racine’s Pheadra, Swift’s Gulliver s Travels, and Pope’s Essay on Man. Moliere s and Racine s works declare that reason is capable of solving all our problems and is capable of keeping our lives and institutions of our world in order. However, Swift and Pope are not nearly so adamant. Their works contain passages that express serious doubts that reason is able to solve many of the problems that people may face in the world today.

Jean-Baptitste Poquelin Moliere s Tartuffe, is undoubtedly a satirical comedy. In Moliere s description of a satire, he was very direct as to the function. The function is to correct men s vices, using satire to ridicule them and expose them to public laughter. Although this satire is making fun of many things in the church and organized religion, it is not the only objective Moliere had in mind. Tartuffe has many themes that reoccur through out the play. One of the main ideas and attitudes during the Age of Reason was, reason must always control passion. Due to this attitude, one theme that constantly appears through the play, is the battle between reason and passion.

In Act II, Scene 4, one of the major conflicts between reason and passion is played out. Valere confronts Mariane with the rumors he has heard about her marrying Tartuffe. Throughout this entire confrontation, they are letting their passions stop them from getting what they truly want, which is each other. Finally, Dorine brings about the reason that is needed in their situation. In lines 69-71, Dorine states, If you ask me, both of you are as mad as mad can be. Do stop this nonsense, now. I ve only let you squabble so long to see where it would get you ( ) Their passion is so strong that Valere and Mariane are blind to what the other is wanting. In this situation, Dorine plays the raisoneur, which is the person who tends to be reasonable throughout the play.

Jean Racine, infused the high style of neoclassicism with the tension of human passion. Often set in ancient times, his plays combine the Greek concept of inexorable fate with a 17th-century metaphysics and an acute sense of human nature, and exemplify a poetic diction at the same time soberly restrained and powerfully evocative. Racine’s tightly structured dramas of obsessive and destructive love, particularly in women, remain among the masterpieces of world drama.

According to Racine, passion is a very strong emotional feeling that will drive someone to use up everything, including their power, family, wealth, reputation and even commit suicide. In Phaedra, Phaedra is so much in love with her stepson Hippolytus that she can not eat or sleep. In fact, she was going insane due to her passion for him and actually wants to kill herself because of it. Her maid says to her,

What frightful evil does your heart intend? You their by wrong the

gods who authored you; betray the spouse to whom your faith is due;

betray your children by the same stroke, and thrust their neck beneath

a heavy York. Yes, on the day their mother s life is done, proud hope

will stir in someone else s son-foe, the foe of all your lineage, whom an

Amazon once carried in her womb; Hippolytus .. (Racine 168).

Still she did not want to live without Hippolytus and went to confront him with her feelings for him. Just as Phaedra was ready to reveal her true feeling she learns that he is in love with someone else. This made her feel very jealous and ashamed so she decided to keep it quiet. Meanwhile her maid was filling Phadrea s husbands ear with tales of his son approaching his wife in an inappropriate manner. He eventually punished his son by sending him to his wrongful death. Phaedra felt so bad she confessed the truth to her husband and restored Hippolytus good name as she tarnished her own. In the end she ends up killing herself.

Johnathan Swift is considered one of the greatest masters of English prose and one of the most impassioned satirists of human nature. He wrote many pamphlets, prose, and letters about the corrupt ways of the political party leaders of his time. Many consider him to be a political satirist, although he wrote on other things as well. His work many times was also used in double. Gulliver’s Travels would be a prime example, having been written as an allegory against the hypocrisy of society, and it also ended up serving as a child’s favorite.

Swift, like Pope believed