Literary Movement Reading Challenge 2015 – March: Enlightenment (1700 – 1800)

The Age of Enlightenment was a cultural movement of intellectuals beginning in late 17th-century Europe emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition. Its purpose was to reform society using reason, to challenge ideas grounded in tradition and faith, and to advance knowledge through the scientific method. Enlightenment thinkers opposed superstition and intolerance. Enlightenment in literature explored themes of social upheaval, reversals of personal status, political satire, geographical exploration and the comparison between the supposed natural state of man and the supposed civilized state of man. The Enlightenment was, at its center, a celebration of ideas – ideas about what the human mind was capable of, and what could be achieved through deliberate action and scientific methodology. [Source]

Some of the Enlightenment authors:

(you may pick other authors outside this list)

Daniel Defoe

Voltaire

Denis Diderot

Jonathan Swift

Goethe

Samuel Richardson

Olivia Goldsmith

Henry Fielding

You can submit your review posts on Enlightenment books in the linky below (linky will be opened on March 15^th, 2015)