philosopher,was an outspoken and aggressive enemy of every one's garden." injustice such as tyranny,bigotry,cruelty,but especially of religious Voltaire said some memnorable things,for example: intolerance.He was noted for his characteristic wit,satire and "Whatever you do,crush the infamous thing (superstition), critical capacity.His works are an outstanding embodiment of the and love those who love you. principles of the French Enlightenment. "Love truth,but pardon error." Of all his writings,two books must be mentioned here: “Liberty of thought is the life of the soul.” "I disapprove of what you say,but I will defend to the death a.Lettres Anglaise (also circulated as Lettres Philosophiques) your right to say it." (1739) "If God did not exist,it would be necessary to invent him." A product of the author's years of exile in England has been called "the first bomb dropped on the Old Regime".Written in the 3.Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) style of letters to friends in France,the 24 "letters"try to show a Rousseau,the Swiss-born philosopher,author,political theorist contrast between English liberty and toleration and French arbitrary and composer,ranks as one of the greatest figures of the French government,and call for political,religious and philosophic freedom; Enlightenement.His writings had a great influence on the leaders of for the betterment of earthly life;for employing the method of Sir the French Revolution as well as the Romantic generation. Francis Bacon,Locke and Newton;and for exploiting the intellect He glorified human nature and attacked social inequality.His toward social progress. most famous words are:"Man is born free,and everywhere he is in chains."He favoured a theory of social contract as the key to human b.Candide (1758) freedom. It is the most famous of Voltaire's novels.It is a satire on the Major Works: previous adventure novels of the age,an attack upon the claims of unlimited optimism.It is the story of a naive and innocent young a.The Origin of Human Inequality (1755) man who becomes gradually disillusioned.Young Candide was In it Rousseau argues that the social order of civilized society brought up in the castle of a baron together with the latter's son and introduces inequality and unhappiness.This social order rests upon daughter.The family teacher was always telling him that the world private property.Man's greatest ills are not nautral but made by man they lived in was the best of all possible worlds.But he was turned himself;the remedy lies also within man's power. out of the castle for falling in love with the baron's daughter. Through misfortunes and hardships in this world,Candide became b.The New Heloise (1761) disillusioned.He realized that the secret of happiness is to"cultivate A novel attempted to portray the sufferings and tragedy that 240 241 衣疑泽深财每缘宾漏
foolish education and arbitrary social conventions work among and remain...free." sensitive creatures. 4.Denis Diderot(1713-1784) c.Emile,or On Education (1762) Diderot,the 18th century French philosopher and man of It undertook the task of constructing an education and social letters,is best known as the editor of the Encyclopedie.He made order that would enable men to be natural and free. many contributions in the fields of philosophy and ethics,dramatic and aesthetic theory,literary criticism,diction,scientific speculation d.The Social Contract (1762) and politics. It was his most important work.It proposed a society able to Major Works: cultivate the individual's moral stature without injuring his freedom. Rousseau believed that a social contract was established when each a.Philosophical Thoughts (1746) individual gave his rights to a general will-as an equal participant It was concerned with the question'of the relationship between in the political life.Then he was as free after this contract as he had nature and religion.He viewed life as self-sufficient and held that been in the state of nature.He sacrificed his natural freedom for a virtue could be sustained without religious beliefs. civil freedom.The book ended with a claim for social democracy. b.Letters on the Blind (1749) e.The Confessions (1764-1770) It showed Diderot's turning to atheism.Religion became a It is famous as a literary expression of a writer's rememberance central theme in his writings. of things past,more revealing through its signs of passion than through its recording of the facts of his experience. c.Encyclopedie(1751） As a social philosopher,Rousseau said many things that It was published in 17 volumes of text and 11 volumes of contribute to the history of ideas: engravings. "The thirst after happiness is never extinguished in the heart of man.” d.Elements of Physiology (1774-1780) "Nature made men happy and good,but society makes him evil In this book he developed his materialist philosophy and fore- and miserable..” shad-owed the doctrine of evolution as later proposed by Charles "The problem is to find a form of association which will defend Darwin. and protect...the person and goods of each associate and in which each,while uniting himself with all,may still obey himself alone, 242 243
e.Rameau's Nephew (1761-1774) turns up.The youth drops one and picks up another,pursuing In the guise of a dialogue between Diderot and a hanger-on of all and clinging to none:my ideas are my trollops. society,exposes the follies and vices,not merely of the time,but of If the weather is too cold or rainy,I take shelter in the human nature itself. Regency Cafe,where I entertain myself by watching chess being His most famous quotations are: played.Paris is the world centre,and this cafe is the Paris The aim of the Encyclopedie was "to assemble the centre,for the finest skill at this game.It is there that one sees knowledge scattered over the face of the earth;to explain its the clash of the profound Legal,the subtle Philidor,the staunch general plan to the men with whom we love...so that we may Mayot;that one sees the most surprising strokes and that one not die without having desearved well of the human race." hears the stupidest remarks.For although one may be a wit and The work was intended "to change the general way of a great chess player,like Legal,one may also be a great chess thinking and to bring about a revolution in men's minds. player and a fool,like Foubert and Mayot. If you impose silence on me about religion and One day I was there after dinner,looking hard,saying government,I shall have nothing to talk about." little,and listening the least amount possible,when I was "The first step toward philosophy is incredulity." accosted by one of the oddest characters in this country,where The following paragraphs are selected from the very God has not stinted us.The fellow is a compound of elevation beginning of his book Rameau's Nephew: and abjectness,of good sense and lunacy.The ideas of decency and depravity must be strangely scrambled in his head,for he RAMEAU'S NEPHEW shows without ostentation the good qualities that nature has Vertumnis,quotquot sunt,natus iniquis. bestowed upon him,just as he does the bad ones without (Born under all the changeful stars there are.) shame.Apart from this,he is endowed with a strong Horace constitution,a special warmth of imagination,and an unusual Rain or shine,it is my regular habit every day about five to power of lung.If you ever meet him and are not put off by his go and take a walk around the Palais-Royal.I can be seen,all originality,you will either stuff your fingers into your ears or by myself,dreaming on D'Argenson's bench.I discuss with run away.Lord,what lungs! myself questions of politics,love,taste,or philosophy.I let my He has no greater opposite than himself.Sometimes he is mind rove wantonly,give it free rein to follow any idea,wise or thin and wan like a patient in the last stages of consumption; mad,that may come uppermost;I chase it as do our young you could count his teeth through his skin;he looks as if he had libertines along Foy's Walk,when they are on the track of a been days without food or had just come out of a Trappist courtesan whose mien is giddy and face smiling,whose nose monastery.The next month,he is sleek and fat as if he ate 244 245 9两阿科福
regularly at a banker's or had shut himself up in a Bernardine he is like a grain of yeast that ferments and restores to each of us convent.Today his linen is filthy,his clothes torn to rags,he is a part of his native individuality.He shakes and stirs us up, virtually barefoot,and he hangs his head furtively;one is makes us praise or blume,smokes out the truth,discloses the tempted to hail him and toss him a coin.Tomorrow he is worthy and unmasks the rascals.It is then that the sensible man powdered,curled,well dressed;he holds his head high,shows keeps his ears open and sorts out his company. himself off-you would almost take him for a man of quality. I knew my man from quite a while back.He used to He lives from day to day,sad or cheerful according to luck.His frequent a house to which his talent had given him entree. first care on arising in the morning is to ascertain where he will There was an only daughter;he swore to the father and mother dine;after dinner he ponders supper.Night brings its own that he would marry her.They shrugged it off,laughed in his worries-whether to return on foot to the garret where he face,told him he was crazy.But I lived to see it happen.He sleeps unless the landlady has taken back the key from asked me for a little money,which I gave him.He had impatience at receiving no rent);or whether to repair to a somehow made his way into a few good families,where he could suburban tavern and await the dawn over a crust of bread and a always dine provided he would not speak without asking mug of beer.When he hasn't as much as sixpence in his pocket, permission first.He kept quiet and ate with fury.He was as sometimes happens,he falls back on a cab-driving friend of remarkable to see under that restraint.If he had the inclination his,or the coachman of a noble lord,who gives him a to break the treaty and open his mouth,at the first word all the shakedown in a stable,alongside the horses.The next morning guests would shout "Why,Rameau!"Then rage would blaze in he still has bits of his mattress in his hair.If the weather is his eyes and he fell to eating with greater fury still.You wanted mild,he perambulates all night up and down the Cours-la-reine to know his name and now you know it.He is the nephew of or the Champs-Elysees.Daybreak sees him back in town,all the famous musician who delivered us from the plain song of dressed from yesterday for today and from today perhaps for the Lully that we had intoned for over a century,and who wrote so remainder of the week. much visionary gibberish and spocalyptic truth about the theory I have no great esteem for such eccentrics.Some people of music -writings that neither he nor anyone else ever take them on as regular acquaintances or even friends.But for understood.We have from him a number of operas in which one my part it is only once a year that I stop and fall in with them, finds harmony,snatches of song,disconnected ideas,clatter, largely because their character stands out from the rest and flights,triumphal processions,spears,apotheoses, breaks that tedious uniformity which our education,our social murmurings,endless victories,and dance tunes that will last for conventions,and our customary good manners have brought all time.Having eliminated "the Florentine"in public favor,he about.If such a character makes his appearance in some circle, will be eliminated by the Italian virtuosos-as he himself 246 247 了”1
foresaw with grief,rancor,and depression of spirits.For no Shakespeare. one,not even a pretty woman who wakes up to find a pimple on her nose,feels so vexed as an author who threatens to survive c.Dunciad (1728) his own reputation-witness Marivaux and the younger It begins his career as major verse satirist. Crebillon. d.Essay on Man (1733-1734) A philosophical poem gives memorable expression to ideas about Ⅲ.English Literature the nature and man's place in it. Here are some examples of his poems: 1.Alexander Pope(1688-1744) A little learning is a dangerous thing; Pope was the great poet and verse satirist of the 18th century. Drink deep,or taste not the Pierian spring. This so-called "Augustan Age"in English literature produced no There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, greater satirical poetry than that of Alexander Pope,and no other And drinking largely sobers us again. poet in the history of English literature has handled the heroic couplet (An Essay on Criticism) with comparable flexibility and brilliance.Pope became renowned for his translations of Homer and for his biting counterattacks on the Some to conceit alone their taste confine, criticisms of his literary enemies.He represented the rationalistic And glittering thoughts struck out at every line; neoclassical tendency in literature and has often been called the Pleased with a work where nothing's just or fit, spokesman in verse of the Age of Reason. One glaring chaos and wild heap of wit. He wrote many works,but he is chiefly remembered for the following titles: True wit is Nature to advantage dressed, What oft was thought,but ne'er so well expressed; a.Essay on Criticism (1711) Something whose truth convinced at sight we find, It establishes him as a master of didactic poetry. That gives us back the image of our mind. (An Essay on Criticism) b.The Rape of the Lock (1712-1714) It is a mock-heroic epic ridiculing the society of his time. Say first,of God above,or man below, From 1713 to 1726 he translated Homer and edited What can we reason,but from what we know? 248 249