Enlightenment 1650 - 1800

The novel was written during the Enlightenment era, a period of scientific awakening,
a time of unprecedented optimism in the potential of knowledge and reason to understand
and change the world. It was believed that the use of reason and science could improve the
human condition.  This period saw the rise of the political pamphlet and essay but the
leading genre of the Enlightenment became the novel. The hero of the novel was the
average man, the middle-class man, with a pragmatic common sense, and literature became
very instructive; writers aimed to educate readers through their stories, criticizing the flaws
of society and individuals. Most of the writers of this time wrote political pamphlets, but the
best came from the pens of Defoe and Swift. The novel writing was influences by travel
literature, biographies, memoirs, diaries.