Question

We started the unit by reading an excerpt from Samuel Pepys’ diary about the great fire of London. Identify one characteristic of the Enlightenment period that you see specifically in Pepys’ diary. Use this characteristic to help explain why a diary entry would be a fitting form of writing during this literary period. Please use evidence from Samuel Pepys’ diary to prove your ideas.
Could someone help walk me through this? I think I know the characteristics of the Enlightenment period but I just don't see how they coincide with Pepys' diary.

Answer 1

One characteristic of Enlightenment that is seen in this excerpt is that people should be guided by the reason and not irrational fears, however serious they may seem to be. The protagonist/author of the diary seems to be the only cool-headed person in this terrible situation. Everybody else is freaking out, running about and screaming. He notices multiple times that nobody is making any effort to actually quench the fire. He is the one who goes to warn the king and suggests that houses should be pulled down. There is one very interesting remark about Lord Mayor, who is in a panic just like everyone else: "To the King's message he cried, like a fainting woman..." Misogyny aside, this comment shows the speaker's manly, reasonable, commendable attitude. He is an active person who does something to undo the damage, and not just a passive observer or a coward who runs away in panic.

A diary entry was a fitting form during the Enlightenment period because that was the first time that the words and opinions of a more or less ordinary person were deemed important. A diary has this risk of being a subjective collection of personal impressions. But Pepys' diary pretends to be highly objective because its author sees himself as a reasonable man, important in his own right, competent enough to keep a diary and record some important things that happen around him, to other ordinary people.