Both the Great Awakening and the Enlightenment were eighteenth-century movements. They were both influential throughout the British Atlantic, including Great Britain's North American colonies. They both featured an emphasis on the individual, including a movement toward individual and universal rights. But in many ways the similarities end there. The Great Awakening, in fact, has been interpreted as a reaction to the Enlightenment. The Awakening was a series of religious revivals in the British Atlantic world. It emphasized emotion, pathos, and an individual and direct relationship with God. It also rejected what was seen as the cold rationalism of the Enlightenment, especially as it was expressed in the mechanistic religious philosophy known as Deism. The Enlightenment was ultimately a secular movement, and while its adherents varied widely in their religious beliefs, they generally eschewed what they called religious "enthusiasm," a term that meant something like "fanaticism" today. The rationalism and scientific worldview that characterized the mainstream of Enlightenment thought were very much at odds with the Great Awakening.
Does anybody know the etymology of the phrase "sweet dreams"? I tried googling but did not find anything satisfying. Is this a relatively new phrase of the modern world or has this been in use for some time? I think it's the latter one. Answer The OED has the interjection as "a farewell to someone going to bed" from the 20th century: 1908 Sears Roebuck Catal. 198/1 Tenor Solos..Good Bye, Sweet Dreams, Good Bye. But it goes back until at least the 19th and possibly 18th centuries. John Wolcot, writing under the pseudonym of Peter Pindar, used it in his poem "Orson and Ellen; A Legendary Tale" published in 1801: Also from 1801 in The infernal Quixote (Page 287) by Charles Lucas: In the March 1776 of The Universal Magazine was published "The Serenade. A Pastoral Tale. From the German of Gesner" , where the shepherd Daphnis watches over his beloved as she sleeps and sings: The same tale appears in 1776's as Idyl XI, " Daphnis ...
Comments
Post a Comment