The Age of Enlightenment

The 18th century is called the Age of Enlightenment in European history: learning left narrow circles and spread to the wider public. The Enlighteners believed in human reason and the power of science, criticised feudal order and absolutism, and their slogan was “science and progress”. The best known were the French thinkers Voltaire, Charles Montesquieu (the idea of the “separation of powers”), Jean-Jacques Rousseau (“The Social Contract” — rule by the people) and Denis Diderot (an editor of the Encyclopédie), and the Briton Adam Smith (economist, “The Wealth of Nations”, 1776). In literature Daniel Defoe in “Robinson Crusoe” portrayed the hard-working individual, Jonathan Swift in “Gulliver’s Travels” portrayed the flaws of society, and the German poet Goethe wrote the drama “Faust”. In music Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven made their names; Beethoven’s “Eroica” symphony (No. 3) was first meant to be dedicated to Bonaparte, but when Napoleon became emperor he abandoned that idea. Enlightenment ideas provided the intellectual basis for the American War of Independence and the French Revolution.