Want of Sense: Self-Education as a Model for Personal Advancement during the Enlightenment

Introduction

During the course of the semester, we have read texts by many intellectual thinkers of the Enlightenment era. Some of them were bred well and instructed through the different systems of education appropriate for their social class and geography. Others were not as lucky, and were left to resort to their own means and inclinations to enhance their intellectual stock. The institutional method has proved for centuries to be at least adequate, but why do we see such an explosion of influential, self-educated people during the eighteenth century? In this paper I will assess the self-education of both Olaudah Equiano and Benjamin Franklin as described in their memoirs. Other intellectual texts concerning the educational process will serve as contrast to the self-inspired model in an effort to elucidate the differences and similarities between the two methodologies.

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano

An orphan of the world, Olaudah Equiano had very little favor for education besides a healthy dollop of curiosity. However, with limited access and next to no resources, Equiano, amid constant travel, managed to largely educate himself. His fervor to understand the world manifests in a couple of areas. The first is through religion. Equiano continuously relies on religious teachings in order to reaffirm his faith in Christianity. In an era in which a large focus of education was for the clergy, this relationship is not unexpected. He frequently mentions receiving books from priests that strengthen his beliefs. Equiano actually becomes so comfortable in this setting that he tries to correct the “mock Christianity” taught to the son of a Musquito Indians Chief on the journey from England to Jamaica. When Equiano learns that the boy was baptized in England and stayed there for a year yet “had not frequented any churches since,” he becomes obsessed to “instruct the Indian prince in the doctrines of Christianity, of which he was entirely ignorant” (Equiano 219).  Luckily, he had brought along with him the primary tool for self-enlightenment: a book, namely the Book of Martyrs by John Foxe.  This woodcut-supplemented book, allows Equiano to share his intellectual stock with the chief’s son. It allows for the two gentlemen to better themselves through the practice of self-education; however, degradation and teasing from his traveling party eventually compelled the boy to stop. (It seems that Locke’s theory from his essay “Some Thoughts Concerning Education” that esteem and disgrace are “the most powerful incentives to the mind” (Kramnick 226) is correct, at least in this moment.)

In his recollection of the customs of his people, Equiano realizes that they bear many similarities with those of the Jews. As it happens, he reads two texts, one by Dr. John Gill, the other by Dr. John Clarke, which both describe and confirm Equiano’s belief in this relationship. In this instance, self-education has provided him with the tools to observe parallels between two cultures, make intelligent deductions about them, and logically back up his claims by referencing outside materials. This internal motivation allows him access to other’s thoughts on the same subjects in order to enhance his position.

Sometimes Equiano doesn’t have the words to describe his situation adequately, and resorts to quoting passages written by others to express his condition. These instances reveal Equiano’s cultural literacy. For instance, while he is still on the African continent and living in slavery, he escapes from one master only to hide in nearby bushes. Terrified and on the verge of capture, Equiano recalls this couplet from John Denham’s Cooper’s Hill to describe his situation: “Ev’ry leaf and ev’ry whip’ring breath / Convey’d a foe, and ev’ry foe a death” (Equiano 65). By quoting Denham, he affirms his self-education by expressing one of its tenant representations: cultural literacy.  

In a somewhat comic and ingenious way, Equiano channels his knowledge of Christopher Columbus’s experiences (which he had most likely read in William Robertson’s The History of America) with native peoples into action. In order to gain the favor and respect of Jamaican Indians, Columbus correctly predicted the moon’s disappearance using his prior knowledge that a lunar eclipse would occur on that day. Equiano adapts from this example to end a particularly heated argument saying, “I pointed up to the heavens. […] I told them God lived there, and that he was angry with them, and they must not quarrel so […] and if they did not leave off, and go away quietly, I would take the book (pointing to the bible), read, and tell God to make them dead” (224). Equiano remarks at the magic of this interaction, that he conceptualized it from his previous knowledge, and executed with remarkable efficiency. This moment of action is a perfect example of how the exercise of self-education affected Equiano’s thought process.

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

In his memoir, Franklin makes constant indication that his education was self-motivated. For example, he recalls a written debate through letters with his friend John Collins, which his father happened to read one day. Franklin relays his father’s comments discussion, that “I had the Advantage of my Antagonist in correct Spelling and pointing,” however “fell far short in elegance of Expression, in Method and in Perspicuity” (Franklin 61).  Keen to his father’s advice, and convinced by reviewing his own writing, Franklin resolved to improve his rhetorical style. He did so in a tried and true fashion: imitation.  Franklin purchased the third volume of The Spectator, a daily English publication that ran from 1711-1712. Impressed by the writing, specifically the rhetorical style, he developed a clever method of recreating the arguments in an effort to teach himself the “Method of arrangement of Thoughts” (Franklin 62).  He achieved this by first blindly drafting the bulk of the essays, then in want of expressing these ideas with greater variety of vocabulary, wrote original poetic verses about each. After sufficient familiarity of the original prose was lost, he reverted the poems back to prose again. This obsessive practice is the manifestation of the kind of internal drive necessary for one to maximize the benefits of self-education. 

In another effort to use knowledge to improve his condition, Franklin purchased Thomas Tryon’s The Way to Health, long Lofe and Happiness, or a Discourse of Tempers, which recommended vegetarianism. After reading it, Franklin says, “I made my self acquainted with Tryon’s Manner of preparing some of his Dishes […] and then propos’d to my Brother, that if he would give me Weekly half the Money he paid for my Board I would board my self. He instantly agreed to it, and I presently found that I could save half what he paid me. This was additional Fund for buying Books” (63). Here Franklin makes direct application of self-education. He purchases an instructional book with a goal in mind: to educate himself in the field of cooking for a “Vegetable Diet” and doing so to save his precious earnings. He accomplishes this at the green age of sixteen. With this position, he sees books as an investment—and in this case, they literally pay off as one.  As one would expect, he uses these gains as principal for more investments—namely, more books.

In the same manner in which Tryon’s book helped Franklin improve his dietary know-how and monetary situation, Franklin describes how another assisted in his recovery from an illness. “In the Evening I found my self very feverish, and went in to Bed.  But having read somewhere that cold Water drank plentifully was good for a Fever, I follow’d the Prescription, sweat plentifully most of the Night, [and] my fever left me” (Franklin 73).  This passage demonstrates another application of self-education—preserving ones well being with (very) basic knowledge of the human immune system.  The knowledge prevented the extension of a fever that, while had traveling on a ship in the eighteenth century, could have easily proved fatal. It seems that Franklin has developed a workable formula to follow: books = knowledge = life stock. And following this formula seems to lead him to good places.   

Self-Help Self-Education: The Encyclopædia Britannica, or a Dictionary of Arts and Sciences

In the preface to the first edition of Encyclopædia Britannica, the authors state its purpose is “To diffuse the knowledge of Science.” However, they recognize that some readers might approach this material with trepidation, and they immediately address this concern, “What methods, it may be asked, have the compilers employed to accomplish this design?” Equiano and Franklin tackle this crucial idea of the Enlightenment, the source of knowledge, by the numerous citations in their respective memoirs and the authors of the Encyclopædia Britannica make sure to abide by the same standard. They continue, “Not to mention original articles, [the authors] have had recourse to the best books upon almost every subject, extracted the useful parts, and rejected whatever appeared trifling or less interesting.” Acknowledging the source of knowledge is itself an acknowledgement of self-education. Tracing knowledge to its origin is a vital part of self-education, especially to verify its veracity. After the preface, the bulk Encyclopædia Britannica becomes a guide by the self-educated, for the self-educated, which is encapsulated by the their affirmation: “that any man of ordinary parts, may, if he [chooses], learn the principles of Agriculture, of Astronomy, of Botany, of Chemistry, &c. &c. from the Encyclopædia Britannica” (page v, preface).

Self-Uneducation: Society’s Resistance to Learning

While there are those who dedicate their professional lives to the advancement of education, some resist this progression. In his letter to Noah Webster, Franklin describes several common errors he has noticed in current periodicals. These include the spellings and uses of words, conventions of capitalization, and punctuation. Cary Corrigan, in his post “Franklin on Education” laments how the English language has deteriorated into slang and colloquialisms and how Franklin seemed to predict this trend in “improvements backwards.” Is this the natural progression of our relationship to language—a rejection of the formalization of language by previous thinkers? Or has a peculiarly oafish generation taken the helm? In a more contemporary conversation on the importance of clear and intelligent thought, Molly Jaffe, an English major and avid advocate of the exacting and economic expression of the written word, describes an ongoing educational debate she has with her brother, an Economics major who relies on his prediction of future communication to be digital video recording to compensate for his lack of compositional abilities.  Her post “Rethinking Education in a Changing World,” stresses the necessity of good communication skills when seeking an occupation after college. As Franklin posits that not all students need to study Latin, e.g. tradesmen, Jaffe comments that the current education system still isn’t producing the most productive citizens as it could. Is this a recurring trend noticed by scholars of different times, or a fault inherent in the system? I would argue that it’s the fault of the system, as it must be so large to accommodate the expanding population, it cannot work at the ideal level for each participant.

Franklin’s “Idea of the English School”

While the self-education track worked well for the above-mentioned individuals, it cannot be applied as a universal model.  For the general masses that either lack the initial provocation or are otherwise unable to provide for their own instruction, Franklin presents a model in his essay “Idea of the English School.”  While this model does not follow Franklin’s own experiences to the letter, it emulates many crucial aspects of self-education with the intention of instilling a passionate desire for learning in its students. It begins with instruction of English grammar rules and orthography, or spelling, in the first class.  Franklin even proposes incentive to achieve for the students by means of friendly competition, with the monthly winners receiving an interesting book to be used in future learning. In her post “Franklin’s Education,” Rachael Honigfort likens this to Franklin’s first two years of school and, more importantly, his apprenticeship in his brother’s printing house.  Rachael also identifies that the model for Franklin’s fifth class is based directly on his discourse with John Collins, which is discussed in greater detail in the section of this post labeled “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.” This model can be considered Franklin’s adaptation of his experiences in self-education amalgamated and conformed to the confines of a school setting, and though it inherently differs for a truly self-derived plan, it does a good job of reproducing one.

In his post “We Need More Teachers,” Jonathan Braun agrees with Franklin’s plan, but laments at the impossibility to implement it in today’s society due to lack of willing and able teachers—which itself is likely due to their underpaid occupation role. He argues that because teachers’ salaries are so low, and that “the majority of the American population with college degrees viewed college as the means by which a high-paying job could eventually be obtained,” we have arrived at a point in history with a sever lack of willing and able teachers; able enough to teach the material advocated by Franklin’s plan and willing enough to forgo an alternative occupation with a higher salary. His solution: implement Franklin’s plan and increase teachers’ wages, a thoughtful alternative to the “overcrowded, underfunded, and outdated” public school system in place now.   

Concluding Thoughts

After extensive comparison between the two methods of education, through ones own self-prescribed methods or the system’s, I would argue that those who possess the motivation to self-educate should do so.  Chase Kojaian adroitly points out in his post “Silence Dogood on Education,” that Franklin maintains, “people who go through learning institutions just because they can afford it will likely learn little more than how to get through the system if they lack self-motivation.”  As evidenced throughout Franklin’s memoir, motivation is an essential quality to those seeking an education of any kind. It would then follow that any good education is essentially self-education. It is impossible to coerce someone into learning something; at a fundamental level, internal motivation becomes the driving force for any educational ideology.  What separates the two is the rigid framework of academic studies at the institutional level. This framework seems too contrived and counterintuitive to instill a lifelong stimulus for education. For what happens to those who quickly reach the top of the frame—where do they go from there? In his work, The Pursuit of Knowledge Under Difficulties, Joseph Kett writes, “In the eighteenth century the ideal of liberal education was bound intimately to that of self-education, […] collegiate- and self-education were complementary ideals rather than competing alternatives” (Kett 15). This idea, that the two educational models exist as complements to each other, functions nicely after examination of Franklin’s “Idea of the English School.” Departure from the system can be catastrophic for motivation, whereas the self-educated seek always how to better themselves and their lives through knowledge. It seems to me that the union of these methodologies would leave humanity in the best station; that the goal of the system should be to instill fervor for learning, so that its pursuit is never halted.

Works Cited:

Cary Corrigan [Cary Corrigan]. “Franklin on Education.” English 274: Benjamin Franklin and the Enlightenment. Blogspot, 9 November 2011. Vanderbilt University. Web, 13 December 2011.

Encyclopædia Britannica; or, a dictionary of arts and sciences, Vol. 1. Edinburgh, 1771. Eighteenth Century Collections Online. Gale. Vanderbilt University. 14 Dec. 2011
<http://find.galegroup.com.proxy.library.vanderbilt.edu/ecco/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=ECCO&userGroupName=nash87800&tabID=T001&docId=CW3326041467&type=multipage&contentSet=ECCOArticles&version=1.0&docLevel=FASCIMILE>

Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by himself. Ed. Angelo Costanzo. Ontario: Broadview, 2004. Print.

Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. 2^nd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003. Print.

Freeheeler90 [Chase Kojaian]. “Silence Dogood on Education.” English 274: Benjamin Franklin and the Enlightenment. Blogspot, 12 September 2011. Vanderbilt University. Web, 13 December 2011.

Jonathan Braun [Jonathan Braun]. “We Need More Teachers.” English 274: Benjamin Franklin and the Enlightenment. Blogspot, 9 November 2011. Vanderbilt University. Web, 13 December 2011.

Kett, Joseph F. The Pursuit of Knowledge Under Difficulties: from self-improvement to adult education 1750-1990. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994. Google eBook.

Kramnick, Isaac, ed. The Portable Enlightenment Reader. New York: The Penguin Group, 1995. Print.  

molly jaffe [Molly Jaffe]. “Rethinking Education in a Changing World.” English 274: Benjamin Franklin and the Enlightenment. Blogspot, 7 November 2011. Vanderbilt University. Web, 13 December 2011.

Rachael H [Rachael Honigfort]. “Franklin’s Education.” English 274: Benjamin Franklin and the Enlightenment. Blogspot, 30 November 2011. Vanderbilt University. Web, 13 December 2011.

Works Referenced, but not Cited:

Franklin, Benjamin. “All These Improvements Backwards.” Letter, Philadelphia: 26 December 1789.

Franklin, Benjamin and Hall, D. “Idea of the English School.” Essay, Philadelphia: 1751. 

Print Consumes All Forms of Communication

Introduction: Print takes over
Rachel’s post on the publication of theEncyclopedia Britannicacalls attention to both the rapid accretion of information in the 18th century and the almost obsessive determination to print and distribute that new knowledge. The first edition of the Encyclopedia, published after 1771, formed three volumes (eventually sold as a set) and grouped information by topic, rather than alphabetically. The second edition was begun only six years after the first (1777), and yet formed ten volumes upon its completion. The authors were literally pulling large sections of text directly from the publications of contemporary thinkers, including Ben Franklin, and directly reprinting them for distribution. After reading through Ben Franklin’s writings on his numerous experiments, I think the authors of an Encyclopedia musthave been overwhelmed by an incredible influx of new ideas. For some reason their plight brings to mind this video clip—no time to rewrite or edit, just print it, quickly, before more ideas roll in!
This fascination with recording and distributing ideas during the Enlightenment led to new enthusiasm for the medium of print in general. People were no longer content to leave the printed word to academia; the quantity and variety of books and newspapers greatly increased. As printbegan to gain ascendency as the preeminent mode of communication, it was not content to stick to its original genus. In the way the Internet has begun to consume and incorporate traditional media-sharing vehicles, the 18th century witnessed a vast expansion in the nature of print. The medium began to “gobble up”(Cervantes) the aesthetics of other forms of communication like letters, speeches and dialogs. For example, the Encyclopedia Britannica took Franklin’s ideas, many of which were originally put forth in the form of letters to other scientists, and turned them into printed material. In this final blog post, I chose to explore the different ways in which many of the printed materials we have read as a class seek to embody or even masquerade as other types of communication.

Letters: Written to one, read by all
Over the course of the semester, we have read a large number of printed materials meant for mass distribution that are disguised asletters. The prominence of letters rose during the 18th century due to the spectacular development of the postal system and an upsurge in general literacy (Bragg, 2007). It is no surprise then, that the medium of print soon assumed this method of communication as an alternative written format in the quest to spread ideas.
The transformation of letters into printed material clearly altered the function and message of this time-honored form of communication. Letters, in their most traditional sense, are inherently personal. When ideas are placed in the context of a letter, it is customarily understood that the reader is gaining a privileged view of the psychology of the author (Bragg, 2007). There is an informality and frankness to letters not present in formal essays and declarations. In contrast, when letters are printed in a newspaper or novelthe reader is aware from the beginning that the ideas within are intended for a mass audience. Yet many of the printed letters of the Enlightenment are able to maintain the candid nature of a more personal message. In this sense, printed letters fulfilled a purpose that other, official modes of print could not.
The most notable offender in print’s absorption of the epistolary format is obviously Ben Franklin himself. As a newspaperman and master of voice, Franklin both authored and printed numerous letters meant for mass circulation. He understood that even when obviously fictitious, the lack of ceremony the characterized printed letters held mass appeal. In this vein, many of his letters are obviously ironically humorous in content and tone. His letter on “Rules for the New-England Courant” puts forth a host of rules for a newspaper that are comically impossible to implement. The rules include avoiding the tendency to cast judgment on the religious, the influential, and actually just the whole country in general. It is signed, “Your hearty Friends and Well-wishers.” Clearly, Franklin’s readership would have understood that the letter was written as a sarcastic response to criticism. If Ben’s readers were are anything like the public today, who prefer fake news to real news, they probably would have favored this form of response to a formal essay addressing grievances against the New-England Courant. Though perhaps the printed letter is not personal in a literal sense, the inside joke that Franklin shares with his audience actually makes the reader feel quite privileged—thus keeping with the historical character of the epistolary format.
The Silence Dogood letters serve a different function for Franklin:allowing him to interact with his readers as a “voice of the people” and merge with the public discourse (Warner, 117). The transparently fictional nature of Dogood’s name, rather than detracting from the social observations in the letters, adds anonymityand honesty. Regardless of whether or not readers thought 16-year-old Franklin was a middle-aged woman, they knew whoever was writing the letters was publically anonymous. That measure of secrecy seems to create an aura of integrity around ‘her’ observations, because they are not self-serving. Additionally, this persona allows Silence to eavesdrop around Boston and stay intimately connected to current opinion. In fact, Jess’s post from September 12 points out that readers grew so attached to Dogood that when she disappeared the Courant’s readerhip actively sought her out. Dogood is an on the ball, no-nonsense observer—a role Franklin would play his entire life—and though the letters are public, she seems more like a shrewd neighbor who lets you in on her estimations than an official critic. The epistolary format allows Franklin to pull this off while endeavoring to correct the foolishness he saw all around him.
In a post on September 13, Alex Tapper wondered if Franklin’s assumption of a persona constituted a breach of honesty because he is effectively lying about his identity. I do agree that the tactic is a bit devious, for by assuming the persona of a stranger, cultural critics like Franklin could strengthen their influence by making it seem as though they came from a neutral source, while also avoiding public criticism (Callaway, 35). However, taking on a pseudonym and writing in the form of a letter also reinforces Franklin’s argument, because it implies a sort of personalization and reliability of content. If Franklin had put his own name on the letters, there is no doubt that they would not have been published in the first place, but they also would have attracted more attention to the history of the author than then the commentary. These types of letters were common in the early 18th century (Bragg, 2007) and I think the audience would have expected and even looked forward to some layer of fiction, as long as the letters were apt and clever.

Printed Dialogue: An outsider’s perspective
In addition to printed letters, we have also read several snippets of fictional dialogue this year. At its core, dialogue is the communication of information between people—when printed material is presented as a dialogue it significantlycomplicates that simple communication. The act of printing a dialogue deliberately extends the exchange of ideas beyond the immediate speakers to include an unknown readership. This intentional inclusion of an audience through the act of printing makes a dialogue intrinsically self-conscious, because it is necessarily printed to inform or instruct others.
Obviously, the dialogueswe read in this course are far different than the ancient philosophical dialogues of Plato, Cicero, and Lucian and they are much less formal than the popular dialogues of the Renaissance period (Heitsch and Vallee, xiv). The dialogues we have looked at are informal and are integrated into larger pieces of writing. They do notself-consciously seek to enlighten us by driving towards some obvious and predetermined conclusion. However, despite being written in a more casual tone than the instructional, theoretical writings of earlier periods, even the dialogues we’ve read seem to entail a certain level of pedagogy.
One of the first dialogues we looked at this semester was between Crusoe and Friday in Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. In this dialogue, Crusoe educated Friday on the existence of God and the devil while Friday peppers him with questions about their relative strength. Friday wonders why God, if stronger than the devil, has not yet killed the devil. At first, Crusoe falters and pretends he does not heat the question, but then he eventually responds that God will eventually cast the devil down into a fiery pit, but not kill him. Friday seems satisfied with this half-answer, but Crusoe sends him away in order to pray for help in Friday’s religious instruction.
This conversation is complicated further by the fact that Robinson Crusoe is an epistolary novel and the dialogue is consequentlycontrived on two different levels. First, because the dialogue is in print, we are aware that it is fictional and designed by Defoe in order to enlighten us in some way. Second, because Crusoe ‘writes’ the novel after he has returned to England, the dialogue has necessarily been reconstructed from the character’s memory, edited, and presented as accurate. The knowledge the reader takes away from reading the dialogue is what Defoe wants us to believe that Crusoe wants us to take away from it. The passage of information between two people has been turned into something intended to provoke self-exploration in a third party (us). It seems that Crusoe’s commitment to God is real, but Defoe renders him unable to satisfactorily answer Friday’s questions, implying that Crusoe’s commitment to God is somehow less genuine than he would have us think.
Another printed dialogue we read this year was between a virtuous almoner and a rather sexually liberal Tahitian man named Oruo. In Denis Diderot’s Supplement to the Voyage of Bougainville, which was printed in 1772, we are presented with a dialogue praising the naturalness of sexual pleasure. Orou is endowed with “a tender heart and an innocent soul unacquainted with either mistrust or remorse,” and accordingly, asks the Almoner to knock up his last virgin daughter (Diderot, 267). The almoner, ever the gentleman, replies that morality and religion prevent such an act. This dialogue is more formal than Defoe’s, and ends on a relatively conclusive note as Orou convincingly explains the absurdity of religious establishments and laws.
Though both dialogues involve the presentation of a unexpected perspective on accepted English custom, Diderot’s goal in printing this dialogue is much more obvious than Defoe’s decision to include Friday’s direct questioning of Crusoe in his novel. Diderot was known to disagree with established moral customs and the extended speech of Orou does not even affect to mimic conversational tone. Perhaps Diderot chose this form of printed expression, rather than an essay on the absurdity of organized religion, because through Orou he can force his audience to assume an outsider’s perspective on their own traditions. This form of print is more interestingthan one more article bashing the establishment.
I think it safe to argue that every printed dialogue we have read this year is employed to assert an outsider’s perspective on common English assumptions—a common theme in Enlightenment writing. I do not have the space here to address the many dialogues that take place in Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels but as anyone familiar with the text can attest, many of them serve a similar purpose. Franklin also used this medium to express and outsider’s point of view to English readers in his Conversation on Slavery. Evidently, as this medium of verbal communication was absorbed into print, it gave authors an outlet not only to hold imaginary debates with their readers, but also to offer up the worldview of another without fear of pretention or judgment.

Speech: The reader as a bystander
As print assumed the look and feel of dialogue, it also took on another form of oratory: public speaking. Printed text that seeks to impersonate rhetoric holds very different implications for the reader than the reprinting of speeches that were actually spoken in real life. This method of print allows writers to express their thoughts eloquently but anonymously. By printing their words in a speech spoken by a character, writers can distribute their ideas in a way that is similar to printed letters or dialogues while avoiding the necessary trappings that come with pretending you do not have an audience. Unlike the personal nature of letters and dialogues, speeches are meant to convince or explain a set of ideas to previously identified addressees. Printed, fictional rhetoric must necessarily have the same aim. This means that the author can un-self-consciously address the reader as their judge and jury, without attaching their name and prejudices to the speech.
However, when printing a fictional speechthe author is given a significant advantage over actual rhetoric in that they can create a public reaction to the speech before it has even begun. This semester we read the Speech of Miss Polly Baker, written anonymously by Franklin in 1747 in London’s General Advertiser. Miss Baker’s speech defending her fifth bastard pregnancy to a court in Connecticut is given a short forward, which sets the stage for our interpretations. Franklin prefaces the discourse by letting the audience know that the speech they are about to read is so persuasive that not only were the charges against Miss Baker dropped, but indeed one of the judges asked to marry Polly the next day. From the start, the audience is expecting to be won over.It is the 18th century equivalent of watching a video on Youtube with a really compelling title like “YOU’RE GOING TO LAUGH SO HARD,” rather than being asked to evaluate the humor of said video while you watch it.
Using Miss Baker’s voice, Franklin is able to effectively argue for the abolition of laws against pregnancy out of wedlock. Rather than writing a dissertation on the unjust nature of these laws, Franklin translates speech into print and can argue the case from the perspective of a woman most compellingly afflicted by them. However, because the speech is a work of fiction, the woman Franklin creates is beautifully spoken, economically astute, and persuasive—oh, and she also happens to have five illegitimate but charming children. El Leon does a great job of describing Franklin’s more general use of storytelling to make a point in his post from September 14.
Miss Baker’s entire speech overturns popular opinion about the laws, and ends with the statement that if anything, a statue should be erected in her honor. As Scott Singer discusses in his post from September 15, the speech is an example of how,“for the first time, it seems, the Enlightenment is giving not just a voice, but a powerful, influential voice, to the common man, and through the explosion of mediation during this era, Polly's exploits surely made their way beyond the scope of [the publication].” Obviously, Franklin’s use of the medium of speech is inherently more effective when translated into print material. He is able to use his gifts—rhetoric and writing abilities—and strengthen them by putting them in the hands of a character that can emotionally sway her audience.

Conclusion: From encyclopedia to wikipedia
Print’s ability to assume these different modes of communication added variety to Enlightenment texts and challenged authors like Ben Franklin to transform every form of interaction into comprehensible, distributable print media. I believe the boom of print mirrors the rise of the Internet in recent decades as the primary mode of human interaction and idea sharing. During the 18th century, print was means not only to share knowledge with a large audience, but also to collect and categorize information. Today, we use the Internet for the same purposes and it has also managed to “gobble up” all other forms of communication: video, telephone, radio, letters, dialogues, dictionaries and almost every other mode of human communication have been reinvented by the Internet. We have adapted to these new hybrid forms much the way Enlightenment readers did, by engaging with the new content and eventually, making our own. I believe the “publish” button on our class blog is a tribute to this idea. The Internet has found a way to transform the format of personal diary into a public forum, much the way print transformed private letters into public declarations. We are like the publishers of the Encyclopedia Britannica, gathering and synthesizing information as fast as we can before some new idea comes to distract us.


Sources

Alex Tapper. “An Exercise in, and Persuasion!” English 274: Benjamin Franklin and the Age of Enlightenment. Blogger, Sept. 13, 2011.

Bragg, Melvin. “Episolary Literature.” In Our Time. BBC. March 15, 2007. Radio.
Click here to listen

Calaway, Jared. “Benjamin Franklin and TransgenderalPseudonymity,” Constructing the Past: Vol. 3: 2002: Iss. 1, Article 5.http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/constructing/vol3/iss1/5

Cervantes, Gaberiel. Via email. Dec. 12, 2011.

Diderot, Denis. “Enjoyment and Tahiti”. The Portable Enlightenment Reader, 1st ed. Isaac Kramnick. New York: Penguin, 1995. 265-274.

El Leon. “Proper Law and Order.” English 274: Benjamin Franklin and the Age of Enlightenment. Blogger, Sept. 14, 2011.

Heitsch, Dorothea and Vallee, Jean-Francios. “Printed Voices: The Renaissance Cutlure of Dialogue”. Canada: University of Toronto Press Inc., 2004. x-xvi.

Jess Wisiackas. “The Value of Anonymity.” English 274: Benjamin Franklin and the Age of Enlightenment. Blogger, Sept. 12, 2011.

Scott Singer. “A Man’s World.” English 274: Benjamin Franklin and the Age of Enlightenment. Blogger, Sept. 15, 2011.

Rachel H. “Encyclopedia Brittanica.” English 274: Benjamin Franklin and the Age of Enlightenment. Blogger, Nov. 29, 2011.

Warner, Michael. “Franklin and the Letters of the Republic.” Representations, No. 16 (Autumn, 1986), pp. 110-130.

Conservatism in the English Enlightenment as Seen Through Travel

Conservatism of the English Enlightenment as Seen Through Travel

The Age of Enlightenment refers to a period of time during the 17^th and 18^th centuries in Europe where religious dogma, universal beliefs, and societal constraints that had reigned over the continent for hundreds of years were suddenly and relentlessly attacked and questioned. In particular, the Enlightenment marks the first time that open dissent, and even mockery of the world’s most powerful institutions took place regularly, and, with some exceptions, without serious repercussions. In this new atmosphere of personal liberty, and radical change, the travel narrative emerged as one of the most frequent, and effective tools by which Enlightenment ideals, particularly the practice of national critique, spread around the globe. Works such as Robinson Crusoe, and Gulliver’s Travels are unique for their criticisms of the Old World by virtue of exploring the New World. In these travel narratives, universal ideals held by Europeans of the age were examined against the backdrop of the savage, exotic cultures—fictional or otherwise—observed within the works. Though it is a common belief that the Enlightenment constituted one, unified movement in European history, when one closely examines the content of these travel narratives, particularly those written by Englishmen, it becomes clear that, unlike the radical change espoused by continental thinkers such as Diderot and Montaigne, the English Enlightenment was deeply rooted in conservative values. Whereas the French and the Dutch were willing to tear down deeply held universal beliefs in the pursuit of knowledge and freedom, the English found themselves deeply averse to such an upheaval, and although many progressive aspirations are presented to audiences through English travel narratives, these liberal attitudes are clearly anchored to a deep commitment to underlying conservative principles. As such, at many moments in English Enlightenment literature, we as readers often find ourselves at the very apex of change, put in a position to embrace radical new beliefs by just taking a leap of faith toward them, only to be forcefully brought back from the edge of transformation. This severe aversion to radical change is something that, I believe, is inexorably linked to the English identity, and through an examination of the theme of Enlightenment travel, we can explore this conservative facet of the English Enlightenment, which differentiates it from its continental kin.

Before we can explore the travel narrative to see what exactly it is that sets the English Enlightenment apart from the French or Dutch Enlightenment, we need to understand the purpose of the travel narrative itself, and exactly what kinds of universal principles were presented in them which the English were so wary to discard. As readers, and scholars of the Enlightenment more broadly, we would expect to find travel narratives filled with stories of exotic cultures, living without the constraints of organized religion, or autocratic rule. Our instincts would lead us to believe that the people living through this era of radical progressive change—that is to say those being “Enlightened”—would leave their homelands with their own preconceived notions and deeply held beliefs, but through their travels, and their observations of different ways of existence, they would, in some way, be able to incorporate this new way of being into their own lives. At a moment in history when the most deeply entrenched tenets of European society are being violently thrust into skepticism, it would make sense for European travelers to draw parallels to their own nations, and to even change their own identities. And, in many cases, this does indeed occur. However, this pattern, found most frequently in French and even early American writings, is simply not present in most English travel narratives. In fact, there is a huge variety of ways in which the English use the theme of travel, whether to satirize the crown, as is the case in Gulliver’s Travels, or to tout the civility of English society, like in Robinson Crusoe. However, what remains the same throughout the gamut of English Enlightenment writings, and in particular, travel narratives, is the conspicuous reversion to English ideals just at the moment in which, it seems anyway, radical change is possible.

The Radicalism of the French Enlightenment

In order to properly frame this Conservative underpinning that I believe had a profound effect on the English Enlightenment, it is prudent to explore the writings of French and American writers, and in some rare circumstances, even British works, so there is a point of comparison. The more radical elements of the Enlightenment, especially with regards to the transformative potential of travel, can be observed outside the realm of mainstream British thought. Three examples in particular, paint a revealing picture of the distinctly uncommon circumstances often associated with this belief in travel as a means of changing universal values. What is so striking about all three of them is how far outside of mainstream English thought they all lie. In the first case, we will explore the writings of legendary French Enlightenment scholar, Michel de Montaigne, and in particular, his work on cannibalism. In his essay “Of Cannibals” Montaigne, gives an account of the cannibalism in the West Indies that suggests it is not as barbarous as we might believe, and he goes so far as to say that it is actually a less savage practice than many European torture and execution methods. He writes:

I am not sorry that we should here take notice of the Barbarous Horror of so Cruel an Action, but that seeing so clearly their Faults, we should be so blind to our own: For I conceive there is more Barbarity in eating a man Alive, than when he is dead…as we have not only read, but lately seen; not amongst inveterate and mortal Enemies, but Neighbors, and fellow Citizens, and which is worse, under colour of Piety and Religion. [1]

This cultural relativism being espoused by Montaigne seems to be at complete odds with the universalism championed by the English, and as such, it is no surprise that we as Americans, being descendent from the Anglo-Saxon tradition, seem to find Montaigne’s approach extreme. Brett Kaup illustrates this point nicely in his blog post from September 29^th, in which he writes:

However, what struck me as interesting is that some of the writers (especially Montaigne) had views on cannibalism that certainly would not be accepted in our current society. Today cannibalism is beyond illegal, it is seen as morally wrong and unforgivable. Thus, for Montaigne to write about cannibalism as if it is something that friends experience together and enjoy is greatly different from our current perceptions of cannibalism.[2]

Montaigne and his contemporaries such as Denis Diderot, represent the more radical end of the spectrum of Enlightenment thought, and to so blatantly question issues such as cannibalism and, in Diderot’s essay on Tahiti, sex, in light of New World cultures is indicative of the radicalism inherent to the French Enlightenment. Even more than this, though, it is distinctly non-British of them to do so.

Though the views of Montaigne and Diderot are, by French standards, not particularly extreme, it is the history and the social conservatism deeply ingrained in the English identity that makes the French embrace of radicalism so very repulsive to mainstream English Enlightenment thought. This aversion to liberalism and radicalism, it should be noted, does not mean that English scholars were burying their heads in the sand in any way. According to Jonathan Israel, in his review of the Encycopedia of the Enlightenment, the conservatism of the English Enlightenment did not mean that English scholars were any less educated or curious than their Continental counterparts, but rather, they were more conservative in their interpretations and applications of Enlightenment ideals:

As the eighteenth century wore on, the British, in contradistinction especially to the French materialist Enlightenment, tended to distance itself gradually from the emancipatory, egalitarian, and republican dimensions of Enlightenment thought or, as with Tom Paine, repudiated its more forthright democrats and libertarians. As a result, British culture and thought, well before the outbreak of the American War of Independence, came to be associated with socially conservative attitudes and strident insistence on English-style limited monarchy, aristocracy, racial hierarchy, and empire. As Roy Porter justly and repeatedly remarked, agreeing with John Pocock, the "Enlightenment took on something of a conservative quality in England." Hence, the fact that Edmund Burke, for instance, became an ardent supporter of aristocracy, and enemy of revolutionary egalitarianism, by no means implies he was any less steeped in Locke, Hume, Hutcheson, and Adam Smith than most other Enlightenment ideologues.[3]

While the French inched closer and closer to a bloody revolution, the English fiercely fought to preserve their kingdom, and in this struggle to protect their national integrity against threats both foreign and domestic, the conservative tradition took its shape.

English Conservatism in Unexpected Places

Though it is obvious when one reads Diderot or Montaigne that the French enthusiastically bought in to the possibility and profitability of radical change, there are in fact several instances in English writings where it seems that Britons see the possibility of change offered by travel to different lands, and leap at the chance to pursue it. However, what marks these works as outside the mainstream of English conservatism is the circumstances in which this belief is espoused. In the first example, we look to The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. This classic example of an Enlightenment travel narrative follows the true story of Equiano, an African slave, as he is brought in to English society, and is faced with the possibility of radical change. Although he is African by birth, Equiano takes a great liking to English society, and in particular, Christianity. As the narrative progresses, Equiano finds himself becoming more and more like a European, and less like an African. He writes:

From the various scenes I had beheld on ship-board, I soon grew a stranger to terror of every kind, and was, in that respect at least, almost an Englishman. I have often reflected with surprise that I never felt half the alarm at any of the numerous dangers I have been in, that I was filled with at the first fight of the Europeans, and at every act of theirs, even the most trifling, when I first came among them, and for some time afterwards. That fear, however, which was the effect of my ignorance, wore away as I began to know them. I could now speak English tolerably well, and I perfectly understood every thing that was said. I now not only felt myself quite easy with these new countrymen, but relished their society and manners. I no longer looked upon them as spirits, but as men superior to us; and therefore I had the stronger desire to resemble them; to imbibe their spirit, and imitate their manners; I therefore embraced every occasion of improvement; and every new thing that I observed I treasured up in my memory.[4]

Equiano’s description of immersion into a culture different than his own, and the subsequent adoption of the identity inherent to this new culture, is something not often found in English literature from this time. However, when we consider the unusual context of this transformation, it actually makes a great deal of sense. The English, in their travel narratives, are extremely reluctant to abandon their English values in favor of something different, however in Equiano’s case, he is abandoning his native culture in favor of a British identity.

In some ways, ironically, Equiano’s travel narrative is quite similar to the English travel narrative because of its differences. As Rachael points out in her post from December 1^st, “One thing that is different in Equiano’s Interesting Narrative is that life on a ship is described in detail as one of the distinct cultures that Equiano lives in, whereas ships in Gulliver’s Travels were simply used to get Gulliver to and from the different societies he ends up in, as well as to give the reader an exciting ship crash scene in between his more important adventures.”[5] Whereas English travelers sailed on their ships with the values and universal maxims of the English identity already deeply entrenched within them, it is actually on the ship that Equiano’s transformation takes place. Though Equiano comes into contact with other cultures via his travels, he is always surrounded by Englishmen, and in the process of adopting the English culture, he often finds himself similarly rejecting radical change, and as such, Equiano’s transformation to an Englishman begins long before he ever sets foot on British soil.

Colonial Conservatism

Equiano’s account is, obviously, from someone far outside the English mainstream, but there is another example, which comes from the English establishment itself, in which travel is represented as a viable means of radical transformation. However, like the narrative of Equiano, this example is also steeped in extraordinary circumstances that warrant further analysis. In 1741, Benjamin Franklin wrote and published a letter to the editor of the Pennsylvania Gazette entitled “Rattle-Snakes for Felons.” In this scathing letter, Franklin decries the English practice of transportation of criminals to the colonies as an affront to the sovereignty of the colonies, and a slap in the face to the colonists. According to Franklin, the “Government at home” had decided that the colonial Assemblies could not make any law preventing the importation of convicts from England because “Such Laws are against the Publick Utility, as they tend to prevent the IMPROVEMENT and WELL PEOPLING of the Colonies.”[6] Franklin’s response is absolutely dripping with sarcasm, as he mockingly thanks England for, “such tender parental Concern in our Mother Country for the Welfare of her Children”[7] What is interesting about this incident, however, is the attitude adopted by the Crown with regards to convicts.

It seems very strange that, despite the conservative attitude of the Brits, they would believe transportation could possibly be an effective way to rehabilitate convicts. However, despite this confusing stance, when we examine it from a practical perspective, it makes a lot more sense. Brett Kaup, in a post from November 3^rd, makes two very interesting points that I think help to understand this issue from the perspective of British conservatism. He wrote:

In my other class, we discussed how this practice was not only used as a practical means by Britain to get rid of prisoners, but was also just another way for the “Mother Country” to establish its power and dominance over its colonies…Yes, it is commonly accepted that other violations committed by Britain truly led to the Declaration of Independence, and to the Revolutionary War (such as the Stamp Act and the Boston Tea Party), but it didn’t help Britain’s case that they were bombarding the American colonies with criminals.[8]

I think the first point Brett makes, that transportation was just a practical way to maintain British dominance in the colonies and solve the problem of excessive crowding in British jails, explains why the Crown is taking an attitude so contrary to what we would expect. In essence, it’s a bullshit excuse to transport criminals. But, more importantly, I think he makes a great point when he says that this practice may have been a contributor to the American Revolution, because I think Brett realizes that Franklin, and all colonists at this point in time, still do consider themselves Englishmen. As such, they have, to a certain degree, anyway, the same conservative values as the English, and they would have seen right through the bullshit excuse of transportation being for “the betterment of the colonies.” In fact, I think that Franklin’s response is a quintessentially British one, and it is indicative of the pervasiveness of this attitude throughout the British Empire. It is worth noting that Edmund Burke is considered the father of English conservatism, but many scholars also argue that John Adams was an equally important figure to the history of conservatism, and although American conservatism was borne out of different circumstances, the roots of his ideology is distinctly English.[9]

Rule Britannia: The Strength of the English Identity

Having now explored, in great detail, the foundations of the Enlightenment, and the role the travel narrative played in non-mainstream Enlightenment literature, it’s finally time to talk about Jolly Ole England. Why is it that the English love their country so much, and why do they refer to the side of the road they drive on as “the proper side?” This unwavering commitment to all things British is somewhat unique in European history, and it is an important factor in understanding Britain’s resistance to radicalism and change. This quintessential “Britishness” which has largely dictated the social trajectory of Great Britain for several hundred years, has deep roots. In her book, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707-1837, Linda Colley explains the origins of “Britishness” and its importance to the English identity. She writes:

In all kinds of ways, Britishness was constructed and contested after 1707 in response to overseas developments. On the one hand, the existence from the 1600s of flourishing colonies in North America and the Caribbean meant that there came into being what David Hanckock calls a ‘British Atlantic community.” As a result, the loss after 1776 of the most populous sector of this transatlantic community, the Thirteen Colonies, provoked both trauma at home and an unavoidable reappraisal of how Britain could be renovated and its rulers re-legitimize themselves…the overwhelming Catholicism of large parts of Continental Europe, and especially France and Spain, provided a newly-invented Britain with a formidable ‘other’ against which it could usefully define itself. The real and imaginary threat represented by the French and…Spanish forms of government, religion, and military power allowed the different Protestant traditions of Scotland, Wales, and England to come together in a common union of self-preservation, anxiety, and defiance.[10]

The common struggle against the Continental powers of France and Spain, and Great Britain’s need to define itself by some sort of “other” for the purpose of unifying the fragmented nations, peoples, and ideologies that make up Great Britain, explain the roots of English conservatism. This attitude came to the forefront of English Enlightenment philosophy as a result of this ingrained Britishness, and pride in being an Englishman. The French and American Revolutions would only serve to strengthen this attitude, as they both represented an existential challenge to the unity of Great Britain, and the credibility of the empire. When one listens to the words of “Rule Britannia” it becomes clear that the British felt, sincerely, that if there was any sign of discontent from within, the nation would surely crumble, and as such, they tried to instill an attitude of English superiority and dominance in every one of their citizens. So long as the British crown rules the world, the British people will remain the greatest people on earth. This deeply rooted conviction that the English way is the only way is key to understanding the type of conservatism observed in English Enlightenment travel narratives.

One of the quintessential travel narratives of the English Enlightenment, and one that I believe demonstrates precisely the sort of English conservatism prevalent in Britain during the Enlightenment, is Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel, Robinson Crusoe. At many points throughout the novel, Crusoe, a man who has been shipwrecked alone on what he believes to be a deserted island, finds himself at the very edge of acceptance of radical change. One of the most prominent examples, and one that serves as a parallel to the French Enlightenment, is Crusoe’s treatment of cannibalism. After discovering that he is in fact not alone on the island, Crusoe soon finds out that the people sharing his tropical home are in fact cannibals. Although he is initially repulsed by the practice, Swift’s character has a moment of revelation in which he employs cultural relativism to justify the practice. In fact, he goes so far as to claim, much like Montaigne does in his essay on Cannibalism, “…these people were not murtherers, in the sense that I had once condemned them in my thoughts, anymore than those Christians were murtherers, who often put to death the prisoners taken in battle, or more frequently, upon many occasions, put whole troops of men to the sword, without giving quarter, though they threw down their arms and surrendered.”[11] Indeed, it seems for a while anyway, that Crusoe is content not to judge these “savages” based on their behavior, as he is in no position to judge a culture that is not his own.

Crusoe goes on to kill several natives and free one of their prisoners whom he takes on as a manservant, teaching him about religion and English culture. It is true that this racial superiority is indeed a tenet of English conservatism in its own right, and it is an important point of departure from the egalitarian views espoused by some Continental Enlightenment thinkers. As is pointed out by Rachael in her post from September 29^th, “The events of the story also support the idea that Europeans are inherently better than natives, because of the way that Friday immediately becomes subservient to Crusoe as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The implication here is that natives should be subservient to white Europeans so they can be civilized.”[12] If Swift had left Crusoe’s interactions with the natives at this point, it still may have contained signs of conservatism, but it would have been tinged with liberal views more typical of the French, such as cultural relativism. However, in typical English fashion, Crusoe is just not quite ready to give up on his Britishness.

There are two important ways in which Swift allows the conservatism of the English Enlightenment to influence the trope of cannibalism. First, Swift subtly creates a parallel between the cannibals and himself in order to show the reader the barbarity of the act as opposed to Crusoe’s civility. Swift endeavors to show his readers how an Englishman would survive on a deserted island, and in typical English fashion, Crusoe creates his own microcosm of society in which he produces bread, cheese, oatmeal, and even fresh meat—essentially, a proper English breakfast. The fact that a man marooned on the other side of the world can take it upon himself to maintain his Englishness, even in his choice of food, is one thing, but then Swift goes a step further, positioning Crusoe’s perseverance, ingenuity, and will to survive in a civilized manner against the backdrop of the native’s cannibalistic practice. Whether you consciously take notice of it or not, the fact is that when Crusoe first lays eyes on the cannibals preparing to eat another human, despite anything he says about reserving judgment, there is an obvious underlying message.

Crusoe is living in the same conditions as the natives; in fact one could go as far as to say that he, as a lone survivor, is in much more dire straights than the cannibals, yet he does not resort to the savagery of cannibalism, and through his hard work, he produces much more complex and “civilized” meals than the barbarians eating men on the other side of the island. Adherence to civility, and the English way of life, is in this way shrewdly juxtaposed against radical transformation, and this English perseverance, which has always been a crucial part of the English identity comes through in the novel. As Brett Kaup pointed out in his post from September 22, “In my belief, the tale is one of showing that whether one faces adversity such as a stormy sea, threatening beasts and savages, or solitude on an island, perseverance is always possible.”[13] Or, in the words of an old song, so long as they uphold their English values, “Britons never, never, never shall be slaves.”

More telling than this subtle distinction, though, is Swift’s decision to return to the trope of cannibalism later in the novel, and the way in which Crusoe reacts to the prospect of cannibalism against a fellow European speaks strongly the to conviction of his conservative values. After his manservant Friday tells Crusoe that the cannibals have taken a man with a white beard, he writes:

I was fill’d with Horror at the very naming of the white-bearded Man, and going to the Tree, I saw plainly by my Glass, a white Man who lay upon the Beach of the Sea, with his Hands and his Feet ty’d, with Flags, or Things like Rushes; and that he was an European, and had Cloaths on…I with-held my Passion, though I was indeed enrag’d to the highest Degree.[14]

In the moments following this passage, Crusoe, Friday, and the Spaniard kill 21 natives in retaliation for their intent to butcher the European. Cultural relativism, it seems, finds its limits when it comes to the prospect of a civilized white man being butchered by the savages of the island. At the crucial moment in which it seems Crusoe has accepted radical change in his view of the world, when he first observes the cannibals on the island, Swift’s interpretation of the Enlightenment seems to put him in the same school as Montaigne and Diderot. Yet, what distinguishes them, and marks Swift’s work as distinctly English, is his withdrawal from this fantasy world of egalitarianism and subjectivism, and his return to the universality of English values. Though he may claim that cannibalism is no more savage than the deeds of the Europeans against one another, when the critical moment arrived in which he had to make a decision about attacking a group that outnumbered him ten-to-one, it’s almost as if you could hear Rule Britannia playing in the background as he ruthlessly slaughtered the savage barbarians where they stood.

Conclusion

The conservatism of the English Enlightenment, embodied in the writings of Franklin and Swift amongst others, is something best observed through philosophy and literature. Though it may be subtle to a casual reader of Enlightenment works, when we consider the history surrounding this English attitude, the Britishness of these works stands out as a truly unique facet of the English Enlightenment. It very well may be, as Justin Champion of the University of London contends in his essay about irreligion and the English Enlightenment:

The Enlightenment in England was a conservative and clerical movement with no destabilizing propensities. It was a sensibility that throve within rather than without piety: a programme of religious reform rather than revolution.6 In England after 1660, as a result of the profound social and intellectual inversions of the Revolutionary decades, it is possible to speak with confidence of a society that was riven by competing ideological prescriptions for true religion and government.[15]

But whether you choose to see the English Enlightenment as an inconsequential movement, constrained by the concrete bounds of conservative principles and all-powerful institutions, or as merely a more practical and undisruptive application of radical new ideas, the fact remains that the conservatism of the English Enlightenment, seen through its aversion to radical change in travel narratives from the eighteenth century, has played a defining role in the English identity, and indeed, world history more broadly.

To Thee Belongs the Rural Reign;

Thy Cities shall with commerce shine:

All thine shall be the subject main;

And every shore it circles thine.

“Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves,”

“Britons never will be slaves.”

Works Cited

Montaigne, Mechel de. “Of Cannibals.” Trans. Charles Cotton Essays of Michael Seigneur de Montaigne. 1711. Print

Kaup, Brett. "Cannibalism: Then and Now." Benjamin Franklin and the Age of Enlightenment. N.p., 29 Sep 2011. Web. 15 Dec. 2011

Israel, Jonathan. "Enlightenment! Which Enlightenment?." Journal of the History of Ideas. 67.3 (2006): 531-532. Web. 15 Dec. 2011. .

Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. Title II. Series III. Toronto: Broadview Press Ltd, 1934. 92-93. Print.

Honigfort, Rachael. "Equiano's Travel Narrative." Benjamin Franklin and the Age of Enlightenment . N.p., 1 Dec 2011. Web. 15 Dec. 2011

Franklin, Benjamin. "Rattle-Snakes for Felons."Pennsylvania Gazette [Philadelphia] 9 May 1751, n. pag. Print.

Kaup, Brett. "Rattle-snakes for felons" Benjamin Franklin and the Age of Enlightenment N.p., 3 Nov 2011. Web. Dec 15 2011

Colley, Linda. Britons: Forging the Nation 1707-1837. 2nd ed. Yale University Press, 1992. xv-xvi.

Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. Broadview Edition. Buffalo NY: Broadview Press Ltd, 191, 243.

Honigfort, Rachael. "Expansion Justified." Benjamin Franklin and the Age of Enlightenment . N.p., 29 Sep 2011. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.

Kaup, Brett. "Crusoe's Perseverence." Benjamin Franklin and the Age of Enlightenment . N.p., 22 Sep 2011. Web. 15 Dec. 2011.

Champion, Justin. "May the last king be strangled in the bowels of the last priest’: irreligion and the English Enlightenment, 1649-1789." . Royal Holloway College, University of London, n.d. Web. 15 Dec 2011.

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[1] Montaigne, 398

[2] Kaup, “Cannibalism: Then and Now” 9/29/11

[3] Israel, pp.531-532

[4] Equiano, pp.92-93

[5] Rachael H, “Equiano’s Travel Narrative” 12/1/11

[6] Franklin, Rattle-Snakes, p.3

[7] ibid.

[8] Kaup, 11/3/11

[9] For further reading on the roots of American conservatism, John Adams, and Edmund Burke, see Randall Ripley’s article “Adams, Burke, and Eighteenth Century Conservatism” http://www.jstor.org/stable/2147740

[10] Colley, pp. xv-xvi

[11] Defoe, p.191

[12] Rachael H, “Expansion Justified” 9/29/11

[13] Kaup, “Crusoe’s Perseverance” 9/22/11

[14] Defoe, 243

[15] Champion, pp. ii-iii