THE INFLUENCE OF THE ENGLISH ENLIGHTENMENT PHILOSOPHY ON THE FORMATION OF 19TH-CENTURY AMERICAN LITERARY THOUGHT

The Enlightenment is the fourth period of English literature, one of the periods that, with its great discoveries and innovations, has taken its rightful place among the peaks of literature. This article studies the adoption and transformation of the ideals of the English Enlightenment in early American literature. It provides information on how philosophical concepts such as reason, empiricism, natural rights, individualism, and moral progress, originally expressed by English Enlightenment thinkers, were adapted and reinterpreted by early American writers.