Question

1. What are two ideas about the emergence of individualism during this period known as the Enlightenment that you found interesting and relevant?

2. Describe the role reason held in relation to deism during the Enlightenment.

3. What's a connection between reason and the growing case for the education of women during the Enlightenment?

1. How funny was Tartuffe for you, and what's the purpose of such satire?

2. Cleante understands and speaks wisely, with self-control and moderation, and Elmire and Dorine concretely insist that other characters rationally face the reality before them. Please find a passage in Tartuffe which helps you discuss and illustrate such understanding and insistence.

3. As noted at top of this forum, examining all beliefs, including one’s own, is a practice students and scholars must develop. What about your own beliefs may have been challenged by your reading of Tartuffe? How might that help you connect, as effective readers must, the personal and the social, during the Enlightenment and in our own time, when reading literature?

Answer 1

What I found particularly interesting about the emergence of individualism during the Enlightenment was its simultaneous emphasis. During this period, many came to believe that individual humans are capable of great accomplishments, which gradually replaced the more communal, group oriented society and mentality of the Middle Ages. Another interesting aspect of individualism during the Enlightenment was the secularization and bureaucratization of the social and political structures. The Enlightenment put an end to the dominance of the Church and monarchy so as to free the masses from ignorance, and foster autonomy in thought and action.

Please post the other questions separately as we are supposed to answer just one question or four sub parts of the same question.