Ends of Enlightenment [Hardcover]

Ends of Enlightenmentexplores three realms of eighteenth-century European innovation that remain active in the twenty-first century: the realist novel, philosophical thought, and the physical sciences, especially human anatomy. The European Enlightenment was a state of being, a personal stance, and an orientation to the world. Ways of probing experience and knowledge in the novel and in the visual arts were interleaved with methods of experimentation in science and philosophy. This book's fresh perspective considers the novel as an art but also as a force in thinking. The critical distance afforded by a view back across the centuries allows Bender to redefine such novelists as Defoe, Fielding, Goldsmith, Godwin, and Laclos by placing them along philosophers and scientists like Newton, Locke, and Hume but also alongside engravings by Hogarth and by anatomist William Hunter. His book probes the kinship among realism, hypothesis, and scientific fact, defining in the process the rhetorical basis of public communication during the Enlightenment. John Bender [is] a compelling critic of eighteenth-century British literature and culture. . . . Since [1987], Bender has published a number of important and groundbreaking essays, ranging widely and often brilliantly over various topics and disciplines. . . . John Bender's splendid and erudite collection of essays demonstrates . . . that one can remember the Enlightenment without longing for its return. Albert Rivero,Times Literary SupplementEnds of Enlightenmentexplores three realms of remarkable innovation in eighteenth-century Europe that remain active in today: the realist novel, philosophical thought, and the physical sciences, especially human anatomy. Bender's evident personal passions and breadth as a humanist of ample curiosity come through clearly. John Bender's writing on enlightenment culture has been a major inspiration for many years. Many of these essays are classics, and all repay close attlc›