English 524A
Enlightenment and Revolution in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World

This course will explore the influence of enlightenment thought on the political revolutions that shook the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Atlantic world. Enlightenment thinkers like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and David Hume have been credited with the invention of human rights and with inspiring the American Declaration of Independence and the French Revolution?s ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity. However, the Enlightenment has also been criticized as a form of cultural imperialism that aimed to spread Western European beliefs and values across the globe, and that excluded women, the lower classes, and non-European peoples from its concept of humanity.

By pairing British and American writers, we will examine how revolutionary writers in the Atlantic world not only borrowed from, transformed, or in some cases, rejected, enlightenment thought, but also responded to each other. For instance, Thomas Paine?s Rights of Man and Mary Wollstonecraft?s Vindication of the Rights of Woman argued that the lower classes and women were capable of rational self-government and thus deserving of political rights and liberties. In contrast, Edmund Burke?s Reflections on the Revolution in France and Alexander Hamilton and James Madison?s The Federalist argued for the hierarchical restriction of such rights and liberties, and arguably of the spread of knowledge, in order to preserve social harmony.

Additional pairings, including William Godwin?s Caleb Williams and Charles Brockden Brown?s Wieland, J. Hector St. John de Cr?vecoeur?s Letters from an American Farmer and Helena Maria Williams Letters Written in France, and the poetry of William Wordsworth, Felicia Hemans, Philip Freneau, and Joel Barlow, will enable us to explore the advantages and limitations of using an Atlantic-world rather than nation-specific framework to study eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature. While the majority of the course will focus on Atlantic-world responses to the American and French Revolutions, we will also turn very briefly to the Haitian Revolution of 1791 and the United Irishmen?s Rebellion of 1798. Course requirements will include a presentation, several short responses, and a 10-12 page final paper. No prior knowledge of eighteenth or nineteenth-century literature is required for this course.