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Historical Background
The Glorious
Revolution of 1688 marked the end of tempestuous events of the 17th century.
Then England entered a period of relatively smooth development. An era of
constitutional monarchy, in which the real political power fell into the
Common House, ushered. This period also witnessed the beginning and
developing of two-party system. Under this system, the Whigs for the greater
part of the 18th century controlled the central state, while the Tories
controlled the local government in country districts. These two parties, in
order to grasp the power of central government and local districts, fought
each other hotly.
Beginning from 1688 and through the 18th century, a number of
parliamentary acts of land enclosures were passed. These acts further
enriched the landlords with their legalized robberies of large areas of
common arable land, but crushed thousands of peasants out of existence and
forced them to leave their countryside and work in factories in the cities,
which was just the new flourishing bourgeoisie need. The plunder of the
colonies, especially of India, and the rapid increase of trade, domestic and
overseas, further facilitated the rapid accumulation of capital. The
accumulation of capital together with the technical inventions in steam
power, iron melting and textile manufacture, brought out the
Industrial
Revolution in England in the second half of 18th century. As a result, the
capitalist system became firmly established in England.
Enlightenment as a progress intellectual movement blew
over the whole Europe (Russia in 19th century) and America in the 18th
century rapidly and profoundly. Traditionally, it is thought that the
movement began after the death of King Roués XIV in France, a country
introduced the great giants to the world:
Montesquieu,
Diderot,
Voltaire and
Rousseau. The great giants adopted the material philosophy from the
scientists
Descartes and
Newton, thus to fight against class inequality,
stagnation, prejudices and other remnants. However, the
Enlightenment in
England differed from other European countries in some way. While the
intellectuals of France were busying in clearing the minds of men for the
coming revolution, the English enlighteners sought for a more enlightenment
society, since England had experienced the bourgeois revolution in the 17th
century and had been in a new political atmosphere. They attempted to sweep
dead thinking and systems out and bring in a new liberal bourgeois ideology.
The biggest task of Enlightenment was to
enlighten or educate the people. That is, they believed in the power of
reason and use “reason” to open people’s “common sense”. That is why the
18th century of England has often been called “The Age of Reason”. In the
Age of Reason, according to the enlighteners, all the authorities, political
or religious or otherwise, could be challenged. All the old social and
governmental forms, traditional concepts were to be assessed by the ruthless
examination and criticism. Reason, to the enlighteners, was the yardstick
for measuring all human activities, social relationship and affairs; was the
eternal truth. Most of the enlightenment intellectuals believed that it is
not the church doctrine or the power of God but human intelligence, the
reason that could solve all of the social problems.
Most of the writers—both major and minor—of the
18th century belonged to the enlightenment. They criticized different
aspects of contemporary England. Among the English writers of the age of
reason, there were chiefly two groups. One group was the more moderate
group, which concluded Pope, Defoe, Addison, Steele and Richardson. The
other group was more radical. They struggled for the more democratic
measures, which included Swift, Fielding, Smollett and Sheridan.
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