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Historically, cycle plays were an outgrowth of
the annual holy day of Corpus Christi (Body of
Christ), wherein the Eucharist was paraded
through the church and then shown to onlookers
congregating outside. Through close association
with the Corpus Christi processional, cycle plays
are also called Corpus Christi plays. These dramas
are sometimes also referred to as miracle plays, but
the cycle plays are less religious in tone and dogma.
Miracle plays differ from cycle plays in that they
focus on the lives of, and miracles performed by,
saints. For this reason, they are also known as
“saints’ plays”and “conversion plays.” Miracle plays
may also present miraculous stories of objects be-
coming sacred, such as the transformation of
bread into the holy Eucharist. Although many
scholars consider the term “miracle play” to in-
clude the genre of mystery play, others distinguish
miracle plays from mystery plays by way of their
source material. Whereas mystery plays are based
upon scripture, miracle plays are not. However, the
fact that no extant miracle play exists in the Eng-
lish language that has not been revised to modern
tastes makes this definition of “miracle” difficult.
The drama Mary Magdalene relies upon scriptural
accounts as does The Conversion of St. Paul, for ex-
ample. Moreover, as scholar Alfred W. Pollard sug-
gests, what also confuses the distinction between
the miracle and the mystery play is that the word
miracle was used to describe both miracle and
morality plays as far back as the 12th century.
Examples of plays recognized as miracle
plays—since they resemble miracles more than
any other dramatic form—are The Conversion of
St. Paul, Mary Magdalene, and The Play of the
Sacrament.
Another similar genre was the morality play,
which was a staple of medieval drama that evolved
side-by-side with mystery and miracle plays. Mys-
tery plays mainly dramatized events in biblical his-
tory to highlight themes of salvation. The morality
play, evolving from the medieval sermon, conveyed
a moral truth or lesson using allegorical terms. In
these plays, qualities or concepts were represented
as people, and the characters’ names indicated in
obvious ways the quality they personified. The
early plays dealt with fundamental issues such as
the conflict between good and evil, the fall of man,
and redemption. The purpose of the morality play
was didactic; its object was to instruct the audience
on the application of Christian doctrine to every-
day life and the cultivation of character. Some of
the most well-known morality plays in English are
The Castle of Perseverance (ca. 1405), Mankind, and
EVERYMAN (early 1500s).
The morality plays were not grim tragedies;
rather, many contained comic scenes, which at
times descended into venial or boisterous humor.
Modern scholars frequently dismiss the morality
plays as dull reading, primarily because of their al-
legorical nature and attention to abstract con-
structs. For medieval audiences, however, the plays
had real ethical and moral significance and thus
were popular even into the Renaissance. Near the
end of the 15th century, the morality play evolved
into the moral interlude, which still focused on an
ethical teaching but was likely to be shorter, with a
limited number of characters. After 1500, the in-
creasing tendency to personify devils, include mis-
chief makers, and improvise ribald jokes to amuse
the audience became indications of secularization
of which the Catholic Church did not approve.
Later, the appearance of Reformation thought
caused a complete separation between the moral-
ity play and the church. With their focus on the
struggle between good and evil within the indi-
vidual, some of the later morality plays show a
complex sophistication of theme, layers of mean-
ing, and a depth of characterization that point the
way to the evolution of Elizabethan drama.
Cycle, Miracle, Mystery, and Morality Plays
Cawley,A.C.ed.Everyman and Medieval Miracle
Plays. London: J.M. Dent, 1974.
Happe, Peter. Four Morality Plays. New York: Viking
Press, 1988.
Lesker, G. A. Three Late Medieval Morality Plays. New
York: W.W. Norton, 1984.
cycle, miracle, mystery, and morality plays 67
Lumiansky, R. M., and D. Mills, eds. The Chester Mys-
tery Cycle, vol. 1. Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell and
Brewer, 1974.
Rose, Martial, ed. The Wakefield Mystery Plays: The
Complete Cycle of Thirty-Two Plays. New York:
W.W. Norton, 1994.
Works about Cycle, Miracle, Mystery, and
Morality Plays
Harty, Kevin J. Chester Mystery Cycle: A Casebook.
London: Taylor and Francis, 1992.
Kolve, V. A. The Play Called Corpus Christi. Palo Alto,
Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1966.
Mills, David. Recycling the Cycle: The City of Chester
and Its Whitsun Plays, vol. 4. Toronto, Ontario:
University of Toronto Press, 1998.
Pollard, Alfred W., ed. English Miracle Plays, Morali-
ties and Interludes: Specimens of the Pre-Eliza-
bethan Drama. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1978.
68 cycle, miracle, mystery, and morality plays
69
D
Defoe, Daniel (1660–1731) novelist, poet,
journalist, nonfiction writer
Daniel Defoe was born in London to James Foe, a
merchant, and his wife, Alice. He was raised with a
strongly Puritanical leaning and sent to Dissent-
ing schools. In 1684 he married Mary Tuffley and
established himself as a merchant in London.
Defoe retained his early religious principles and in
1685 joined the duke of Monmouth’s unsuccessful
rebellion against the Catholic king, James II. In
1692 he declared bankruptcy after having been
previously imprisoned for debt.
Sometime in the 1680s, Defoe began writing
political pamphlets, which critics continue to at-
tempt to identify, as he published hundreds of
works anonymously. One of the earlier works is An
Essay on Projects (1697), about social improve-
ment. Defoe achieved a major success with the
poem The True-Born Englishman (1701), a satire of
narrow-minded national pride.
Defoe increasingly became interested in creat-
ing narrative personae. The Shortest Way with Dis-
senters (1702) demonstrated the dangers of irony.
The pamphlet ironically presents the voice of a re-
ligious zealot advocating extreme treatment of dis-
senters: “Now, let us Crucifie the Thieves. Let her
Foundations be establish’d upon the Destruction
of her Enemies: The Doors of Mercy being always
open to the returning Part of the deluded People:
let the Obstinate be rul’d with the Rod of Iron.” His
plan backfired, however; the pamphlet was de-
clared libelous, and Defoe was jailed once again.
While in prison, Defoe struck a bargain with
an important member of Parliament, Robert
Harley, agreeing to write political propaganda for
his freedom. He received £200 a year to work as a
government agent, producing a journal, The Re-
view, from 1704 to 1713. He changed his name
from “Foe” to “Defoe” in 1703, and in 1713 was
jailed yet again for a satirical pamphlet.
The turning point in Defoe’s career came in
1719, when he published Robinson Crusoe. With
this work, Defoe transformed himself from a pro-
lific hack writer into one of the earliest and most
important English novelists. Over the next five
years, he wrote a rapid succession of novels mod-
eled on this successful formula: first-person, realis-
tic, episodic narratives of remarkable individuals.
Robinson Crusoe tells the story of a man stranded
on an island, Moll Flanders (1722) was a thief, and
Roxana (1724) a prostitute. Other works purported
to be first-person accounts of major historical
events, such as Memoirs of a Cavalier (1720), set
during the English Civil War, and Journal of the
Plague Year (1722), a remarkable reconstruction
of life in London during an outbreak of the plague.
One of Defoe’s last important works was Tour
thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724–27),
an economic survey of England and Scotland. Al-
though he wrote in a wide range of genres, Defoe is
best remembered as a novelist.
Critics have argued whether Defoe was the first
English novelist, but they tend to agree that his
works were important in developing the standard
of realism in the novel. In The Rise of the Novel, Ian
Watt praises Moll Flanders for its “formal realism”
while noting its literary defects: “Defoe’s prose is
not in the ordinary sense well-written, but it is re-
markably effective in keeping us close to the con-
sciousness of Moll Flanders as she struggles to
make her recollection clear....”
Critics also have noted the exploration of themes
of identity and subjectivity in many of Defoe’s
works. Colonel Jack (1722), for example, tells a story
of the rise of a street urchin from thief to gentleman.
J. R. Hammond calls it “remarkable for its insight
into the mind of a child.” Critic Hans Turley praises
Captain Singleton (1720) as “the most important of
[Defoe’s] pirate works and particularly significant in
a history of the novel that emphasizes psychologi-
cal realism and domestic subjectivity.”
Recently, critics have begun to value Roxana,
Defoe’s last novel, as perhaps his masterpiece. The
book was intended to be a “woman’s novel,” imita-
tive of the popular courtship novels of Eliza Hay-
wood and Penelope Aubin.
Defoe’s first reputation, however, rests on
Robinson Crusoe, in which critics have found fertile
ground for exploring issues of race and colonial-
ism in the early 18th century.
Other Works by Daniel Defoe
A General History of Pyrates. Edited by Manuel
Schonhorn. New York: Dover, 1999.
Memoirs of an English Officer and Two Other Short
Novels. London: Victor Gollancz, 1970.
The Shortest Way With the Dissenters and Other Pam-
phlets. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1927.
The Travel and Historical Writings of Daniel Defoe.
Edited by W. R. Owens and P. N. Furbank. Lon-
don: Pickering and Chatto, 2002.
Works about Daniel Defoe
Lund, Roger, ed. Critical Essays on Daniel Defoe. New
York: G.K. Hall, 1997.
Novak, Maximilian E. Daniel Defoe: Master of Fic-
tions: His Life and Ideas. Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2001.
West, Richard. Daniel Defoe: The Life and Strange,
Surprising Adventures. New York: Carroll and
Graf, 1998.
De-Ka-Nah-Wi-Da and Hiawatha
(late 1300s)
Current knowledge of this traditional story of the
Iroquois is based on writings made in the 19th
century. In De-Ka-Nah-Wi-Da and Hiawatha, as
told by Glen Welker, a young mother learns in a
dream that she will give birth to a son who will
bring peace. This child, De-Ka-Nah-Wi-Da, grows
to manhood and helps Chief Hiawatha bring peace
to warring tribes.
In some stories, Hiawatha was originally known
as Ta-ren-ya-wa-gon, the Great Upholder of the
Heavens, a spirit or god who chose to become a
mortal. In other stories, he was the chief of his
people, a man who De-Ka-Nah-Wi-Da met as he
was attempting to spread peace among all the peo-
ples of the land. According to legend, De-Ka-Nah-
Wi-Da gave this chief the name Hiawatha, as well
as the task of teaching peace and balance.
For many years, the Iroquois and other tribes
prospered under Hiawatha’s influence.This prosper-
ity was threatened, however, when new, fierce, unciv-
ilized tribes invaded the lands.When the Onondaga,
Mohawk, Oneida, Cayuga, and Seneca turned to Hi-
awatha for counsel, Hiawatha told them:
You five tribes must be like the five fingers of a
warrior’s hand joined in gripping the war club.
Unite as one, and then your enemies will recoil
70 De-Ka-Nah-Wi-Da and Hiawatha
before you back into the northern wastes from
whence they came.
When the tribes united, Hiawatha gave them a
common name—Ako-no-shu-ne, the Iroquois.
Based on Iroquois oral tradition, the story of De-
Ka-Nah-Wi-Da and Hiawatha has been told and
retold and continues to the present day, garnering
widespread interest in the history, customs, and
stories of the Iroquois people.
An English Version of Hiawatha
Huffstetler, Edward W. Myths of the World: Tales of
Native America. New York: MetroBooks, 1996.
Della Casa, Giovanni (1503–1556) poet,
scholar, cleric
Giovanni Della Casa took his name from his birth-
place, La Casa, in the Italian region of Tuscany. He
grew up in Mugello and, while studying at various
universities, composed a number of light lyric
poems, some rather licentious. He became a priest
in 1537 and was named archbishop of Benevento
in 1544. Though he hoped to become a cardinal
like his mentor Pietro
BEMBO, Della Casa was in-
stead sent to Venice as the papal nuncio.
Between 1547 and 1549 Della Casa wrote a
series of weighty orations or Political Discourses,
in which he lamented the dangers facing Italy.
Despite the triumphs of art and learning that
characterized Italy during the High
RENAISSANCE,
Della Casa and his peers felt threatened by the
ideals of the Protestant Reformation. As part of
the Counter-Reformation to preserve the
Catholic Church, Della Casa introduced Venice
to the Inquisition, a board of clerics committed
to suppressing what they viewed as heretical
ideals. Though an author himself, Della Casa
helped found the papal index of forbidden
books.
When his patron, Pope Paul III, died in 1549,
Della Casa removed to the Venetian countryside
and began composing Galateo, a treatise on man-
ners. Written in the style of Baldessare C
AS-
TIGLIONE’S Courtier, but borrowing the witty flair of
BOCCACCIO
, Galateo prescribed proper behavior for
all levels of society. The work was enormously pop-
ular and widely read from the moment it appeared
in print in 1558, along with Della Casa’s Poems.
The Poems, written in Latin, showed Della
Casa’s reworking of the classic style established
by
PETRARCH. He followed the style of Horace,
Catullus, Virgil, and Propertius to tell his stories
of exile and redemption. Though important in
their own right, the authoritative majesty of
Della Casa’s Poems and the passionate playfulness
of his lyrical songs or canzoniere were far over-
shadowed in popularity by Galateo, for whose
witty advice and clever insights Della Casa is best
remembered.
English Versions of Works by Giovanni
Della Casa
Galateo. Translated by Konrad Eisenbichler and Ken-
neth R. Bartlett. Toronto: Centre for Reformation
and Renaissance Studies, 1986.
Giovanni della Casa’s Poem Book. Edited by John Van
Sickle. Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval and Renais-
sance Texts and Studies, 1999.
Works about Giovanni Della Casa
Berger, Harry. The Absence of Grace: Sprezzatura and
Suspicion in Two Renaissance Courtesy Books. Stan-
ford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2000.
Santosuosso, Antonio. Bibliography of Giovanni Della
Casa: Books, Readers, and Critics. Florence: L.S.
Olschki, 1979.
Derzhavin, Gavriil Romanovich
(1743–1816) poet
Gavriil Romanovich Derzhavin was born into a
poor noble family and spent his early years in
Kazan. He learned to read and write Russian and
German and in 1762 he began military duty in St.
Petersburg, witnessing the palace coup that
brought CATHERINE THE GREAT to the throne. The
Derzhavin, Gavriil Romanovich 71
influence of Russian poets Mikhail LOMONOSOV
and Alexander SUMAROKOV showed in Derzhavin’s
early works, but gradually his poems developed a
more lyrical and distinct style.
Derzhavin participated in the military sup-
pression of the Pugachev revolt (1773–75) and
wrote “Ode on the Death of Bibikov” (1774) in
memory of one of his commanders. In 1776 he
published Odes Translated and Composed Near
Chitalagai Mountain, largely dealing with natural
imagery.
In 1777 Derzhavin transferred to the civil
service and during these years wrote his most
highly-regarded poems.“The Bride” (1778) cele-
brates his marriage to Ekaterina Bastidion. “Ode
to Felitsa” praises Catherine II’s virtues and hu-
morously contrasts them with the vices of her
advisers and of the poet himself. “God,” com-
bines an exaltation of the divine with a celebra-
tion of humanity and the individual. In “The
Waterfall,” commemorating the death of states-
man Grigorii Potemkin, Derzhavin uses the
image of a waterfall to review Potemkin’s life and
achievements.
After his retirement in 1803, Derzhavin pub-
lished Anacreontic Songs (1804), a collection of
109 lyric poems, assembled a four-volume edi-
tion of his writings in 1808, composed his mem-
oirs (1811–12), and helped found the Society of
Lovers of the Russian Word, a group that op-
posed the literary innovations of Nikolai
Karamzin. In his final years, the patriotic
Derzhavin wrote poems mourning Russia’s losses
during the Napoleonic Wars and rejoicing over
France’s defeat.
As a poet, Derzhavin drew inspiration from
current events and writers, as well as from ancient
authors Horace and Anacreon. His odes, satires,
and lyric poems display his gift for visual imagery.
They also reflect Derzhavin’s love of nature, ap-
preciation for the pleasures of life, and concern
with the inevitability of death. Many scholars con-
sider Derzhavin the most important Russian poet
of his time.
An English Version of Works by Gavriil
Romanovich Derzhavin
Poetic Works. Translated by Alexander Levitsky and
Martha T. Kitchen. Providence, R.I.: Brown Uni-
versity, 2001.
Works about Gavriil Romanovich Derzhavin
Crone, Anna Lisa. Daring of Dershavin: The Moral
and Aesthetic Independence of the Poet in Russia.
Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publishers, 2001.
Hart, Pierre R. G. R. Derzhavin: A Poet’s Progress.
Columbus, Ohio: Slavica Publishers, 1979.
Descartes, René (1596–1650) nonfiction
writer, philosopher, scholar
René Descartes was born in La Haye, France, to
Joachim Descartes, a counselor in the French parlia-
ment. In 1606 he entered the Jesuit school of La
Flèche in Anjou, where he studied classics, logic,
philosophy, and mathematics. He received a law de-
gree and a bacalaureat (B.A.) in 1616 from the Uni-
versity of Poitiers. He enlisted at a military school in
Breda, Holland, where he studied mathematics with
the Dutch scientist Isaac Beeckman (1588–1637).
After serving briefly in the Bavarian army (1619), he
embarked on eight years of travel, spending time in
Bohemia, Hungary, Italy, Holland, and France. He
ultimately settled in Holland, where he lived from
1628 to 1648, maintaining correspondence across
Europe with many of the most important mathe-
maticians and philosophers of his day.
In 1648 Descartes was persuaded by Queen
Christina of Sweden to accept a position at her
court. The queen was so eager to study mathemat-
ics with Descartes that she demanded his presence
at five o’clock every morning. Breaking his lifelong
habit of getting up at 11
A.M., and suffering in the
northern climate, Descartes caught pneumonia,
which ultimately killed him.
Critical Analysis
When Descartes moved to Holland, he began work
on a scientific work, The World, or Treatise on
72 Descartes, René
Light. He had nearly finished it when he learned
that the Italian scientist Galileo GALILEI was being
tried for defying church teaching by publishing his
findings about the Earth’s movement around the
Sun. In the circumstances, Descartes decided not
to publish his work on light or anything about the
world as it actually is; instead he confined his pub-
lishing to speculative works about how the world
could be.
Descartes’first two published works, and the ones
for which he is best known, are Discourse on Method
(1637) and Meditations on First Philosophy (1641).
At the beginning of Meditations he writes, “I should
withhold from assent no less carefully from opinions
that are not completely certain and indubitable than
I would from those that are patently false.”
With this statement Descartes sets out his un-
derlying purpose: to establish a methodology that is
based on skepticism, eventually labeled “Cartesian
doubt.” His experiments with light had brought the
phenomenon of optical illusions to his attention.
Since one’s senses can deceive one, Descartes sup-
poses “that everything I see is false. . . . I have no
senses whatever.” From this piece of reasoning he
concludes that the only thing of which he can be
certain is that he thinks. As he explains in Discourse
on Method:
I resolved to assume that everything whatever
entered into my mind was no more true than
the illusions of my dreams. But immediately af-
terwards I noticed that whilst I thus wished to
think all things false, it was absolutely essential
that the “I” who thought this should be some-
what, and remarking that this truth “I think,
therefore I am” was so certain and so assured
that all the most extravagant suppositions
brought forward by the skeptics were incapable
of shaking it, I came to the conclusion that I
could receive it without scruple as the first prin-
ciple of the Philosophy for which I was seeking.
There is a split in Cartesian thought between
the evidence of the senses, which must remain
uncertain, and pure thought. The philosopher,
according to Descartes, is required to progress
from a simple idea, one that can be known with-
out any prior knowledge, to ideas that can be
known only because of one’s knowledge of the
chain of ideas that proceeds from the first one.
Hence, as the scholar Emily Grosholz points out,
“the argument of the Meditations [the basis of all
Descartes thought] critically limits the extent of
human knowledge to ideas proportional to the ‘I
think’ with which it begins.” This limitation re-
quires the Cartesian philosopher to ignore other
possibilities, excluding, for example, considera-
tions of the body.
Descartes’ thought has remained extremely im-
portant and influential. Cartesian philosophy took
hold in France almost immediately. In England,
however, his influence was less immediate. The
Cartesian distrust of the evidence of the senses ran
directly contrary to British empiricism, a philoso-
phy built upon direct sensory evidence and typi-
fied by the work of Francis
BACON and John Locke.
Later skeptical philosophers such as David Hume
renewed interest in Descartes in the 18th century.
“Over the centuries and with currently renewed
intensity,” as Grosholz observes, Descartes’ Medita-
tions “has never failed to inspire serious discussion
among philosophers.”
English Versions of Works by René
Descartes
Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philos-
ophy, 4th ed. Translated by Donald Cress. Indi-
anapolis, Ind.: Hackett Publishing, 1999.
Discourse on Method and The Meditations. Translated
by F. E. Sutcliffe. New York: Penguin Books, 1998.
Philosophical Essays and Correspondence. Edited by
Roger Ariew. Indianapolis, Ind.: Hackett Publish-
ing, 2000.
The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. one.
Edited by John Cottingham, et al. New York: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1985.
Treatise of Man. Translated by Thomas Steele Hall.
New York: Prometheus Books, 2003.
Descartes, René 73
Works about René Descartes
Ariew, Roger, and Marjorie Grene, eds. Descartes and
His Contemporaries: Meditations, Objections, and
Replies. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1995.
Cottingham, John, ed. The Cambridge Companion to
Descartes. New York: Cambridge University Press,
1992.
Grosholz, Emily. Cartesian Method and the Problem of
Reduction. New York: Oxford University Press,
1991.
Sorell, Tom. Descartes: A Very Short Introduction. New
York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Díaz del Castillo, Bernal (1496–1584)
explorer, nonfiction writer
Bernal Díaz del Castillo was born in Medina del
Campo. He began a career of expeditions to the
New World when he was 18 and served as a soldier
in several expeditions, but he is best known for his
service under Hernán CORTÉS in the Yucatán. The
Cortés expedition inspired Díaz del Castillo’s
chronicle, Historia verdadera de la conquista de la
Nueva España (The True History of the Conquest of
New Spain, 1632). He was in his 60s when he began
writing and died in Santiago de los Caballeros in
Guatemala at age 88.
The True History of the Conquest of New Spain
is a soldier’s eyewitness account, told from Díaz del
Castillo’s perspective, of the campaigns of Cortés.
By his own account, Díaz del Castillo was eager to
leave a record of his dramatic experiences in the
New World for his children and grandchildren.
Unlike other famous conquistadors, Díaz del
Castillo does not distinguish himself through mil-
itary deeds; his fame rests solely on his compre-
hensive historical chronicle.
The True History of the Conquest of New Spain
is largely autobiographical and has the value of au-
thenticity. The narration encompasses the years
from 1517 to 1524, the period of Cortés’s disas-
trous expedition to Las Hibueras (Honduras). Later
additions and corrections provide information up
to the year 1568. Throughout, Díaz del Castillo
demonstrates a remarkable memory for details, in-
cluding names of persons, places, and horses. In a
straightforward and conversational style, he de-
scribes the men’s hopes, fears, and personalities.
He also analyzes Cortés’s psychology, vividly por-
trays the Spanish conqueror in action, and pro-
vides a wealth of information on the Aztec empire
and civilization, including a memorable descrip-
tion of Tenochtitlán.
Modern critics consider Díaz del Castillo’s work
a valuable source for the study of Mexico’s history
and one of the greatest Spanish-American histori-
cal narratives. The chronicle is noted for its drama,
detail, and recording of the extremes of human ex-
perience.
English Versions of a Work by Bernal
Díaz del Castillo
Conquest of New Spain. Translated by J. M. Cohen.
New York: Viking Press, 1963.
The Discovery and Conquest of Mexico: 1517–1521.
Translated by A. P. Maudslay and edited by Genaro
Garcia. New York: Da Capo Press, 2004.
Works about Bernal Díaz del Castillo
Cerwin, Herbert. Bernal Díaz, Historian of the Con-
quest. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,
1963.
Grauer, Ben. How Bernal Díaz’s “True History” Was
Reborn. New York: B. Grauer, 1955.
Dickinson, John (1732–1808) politician
The American Revolution was far more than sim-
ply a military conflict. It also was an era when ideas
of political philosophy were fundamentally recon-
sidered. Questions were debated and discussed re-
garding the nature of government, the relations
between citizens and the state, and how to create
societies that have a proper balance of freedom and
order. The American revolutionaries were forced
to ask themselves whether they should break their
ties with Great Britain, and if so, what kind of in-
74 Díaz del Castillo, Bernal
dependent nation they would create. Among the
brilliant men involved in these critical debates was
John Dickinson.
Dickinson was born in Maryland to an ordinary
Quaker family. They moved to Delaware when
Dickinson was still very young, and throughout his
adult life he was involved with the affairs of both
Delaware and Pennsylvania. He began studying law
in Philadelphia and spent three years in London
completing his studies. Upon his return to Amer-
ica, he established a successful legal practice.
By the mid-1760s, relations between Great
Britain and the American colonies were breaking
down, beginning with the issue of the Stamp Act in
1765, when Britain attempted to tax the colonists
without their consent. Elected to the legislative as-
sembly of Pennsylvania, Dickinson began speaking
out against British policies, which he felt were op-
pressive. He also began writing political tracts up-
holding his views. Soon his reputation spread
throughout America and he became one of the
most popular men in the colonies.
In late 1767 Dickinson began writing a series of
articles titled Farmer’s Letters, in which he assumed
the guise of an educated common man, a com-
monly used method for writing political tracts at
the time. In these articles, he attacked the British
legal and political positions with both logic and
passion, laying out the arguments of the Ameri-
cans in a clear and profound style. The Farmer’s
Letters had an immense impact in both America
and Britain, where they were reprinted with the
help of Benjamin
FRANKLIN. By 1774 Dickinson
was one of the most popular men in America.
With the outbreak of military hostilities in
1775, Dickinson became a member of the Conti-
nental Congress, which struggled to fight a war
while also endeavoring to solve the overall issues.
Dickinson strongly opposed the movement to
issue a declaration of independence, believing that
some sort of compromise with Great Britain was
still possible and that America could never survive
on its own. He wrote an eloquent petition to King
George III, which was rejected. His opposition to
independence caused him to lose his popularity,
and his final defeat was confirmed by the Declara-
tion of Independence in July 1776.
Dickinson remained a patriot, serving in the
American army during the war. Though he had
opposed breaking away from Britain, once Amer-
ica was committed to independence, Dickinson
fought hard for it. After his army service, he served
in a variety of political offices in both Delaware
and Pennsylvania.
After the war, Dickinson wrote in support of
the U.S. Constitution but effectively retired from
public life. He died in his home in Delaware on
February 14.
Dickinson is remembered as an honest statesman
who defended his beliefs even when they were not
popular with the people. At the same time, he de-
fended his nation with energy and determination,
even when he believed it was moving in the wrong
direction. His clear and sharp political writings stand
as a model for not only the ideas they contained but
also the manner in which they were written.
Works by John Dickinson
Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabi-
tants of the British Colonies. Murrieta, Calif.: Clas-
sic Textbooks, 2003.
The Political Writings of John Dickinson. Edited by
Paul Leicester Ford. New York: Da Capo Press,
1970.
Works about John Dickinson
Bradford,M.E.A Better Guide than Reason: Federal-
ists and Anti-Federalists. Introduction by Russell
Kirk. Somerset, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1994.
Flower, Milton E. John Dickinson: Conservative Revo-
lutionary. Charlottesville: University Press of Vir-
ginia, 1983.
Diderot, Denis (1713–1784) philosopher,
encyclopedist
Denis Diderot ranks with MONTESQUIEU, VOLTAIRE,
and ROUSSEAU as a leader in the French ENLIGHTEN-
Diderot, Denis 75
MENT. Within this intellectual circle he was known
by the nickname “Pantophile” because his thought
encompassed all subjects.
Like Rousseau, who was first a friend and later a
bitter critic, Diderot came from an artisan fam-
ily—his father was a master cutler—and gave voice
to the discontents and aspirations of middle-class
groups. But the content of his thought extended
far beyond any narrow bounds that might have
been imposed by his socioeconomic origins.
Diderot was an intellectual rebel, thoroughly com-
mitted to atheism and to a revolution in aesthetics
and political theory.
As a youth in Langres, Diderot received a sec-
ondary education from the Jesuits and took pre-
liminary steps toward entering that order by
receiving his tonsure. At age 16 he moved to Paris,
where he matriculated at the University of Paris,
receiving a master of arts degree in 1732. He aban-
doned his plan to enter the clergy and also declined
to take degrees in law or medicine, actions that an-
gered his family. During the years from 1728 until
1740, Diderot may have worked briefly as a law
clerk, and he most certainly continued his inde-
pendent studies in a wide range of fields. He sup-
ported himself by tutoring and translating books
from English into French. But not much more is
known of his life until 1740, when his literary ca-
reer began to blossom.
In the eyes of his family, Diderot was behaving
irresponsibly. His father cut off all financial sup-
port and also refused to assent to his son’s request
in 1743 for permission to marry Anne-Toinette
Champion. In an effort to show his displeasure and
to enforce his will on his son, the elder Diderot re-
sorted to a standard practice of the time: He had
his son incarcerated for a short period in a
monastery near Troyes. Upon his release, young
Diderot returned to Paris, where he and Mademoi-
selle Champion were secretly married.
During the early 1740s, Diderot was circulating
in various cafés and coffeehouses, making contacts
with philosophes such as Rousseau and Condillac.
His English translations began to appear in 1742,
but the year 1745 marked the solid establishment
of his career. In that year, he published a transla-
tion of the Essay on Merit and Virtue by Anthony
Ashley Cooper, third earl of Shaftesbury.
The Shaftesbury translation helped to secure
Diderot a position with the publisher André Le
Breton as a translator of the Chambers Cyclopedia.
Although never completed, the Chambers project
gave birth to the great ENCYCLOPEDIA, one of the
major publications of the Enlightenment.
Critical Analysis
The process of creating the Encyclopedia took
nearly three decades, and it would eventually con-
tain 17 volumes of text and 11 additional volumes
of engravings and illustrations. It was one of the
most astonishing literary achievements of all time.
Many of the most famous and important
thinkers and writers of the Enlightenment con-
tributed to the Encyclopedia, including Voltaire,
Rousseau, Montesquieu, and numerous other
prominent men of letters. Diderot became its gen-
eral editor in 1747, with assistance from Jean Le
Rond d’ALEMBERT in the realms of mathematics
and science, and he also contributed a large num-
ber of articles.
The Encyclopedia was originally intended as
simply an amassing of human knowledge, but it
gradually developed into an extensive social com-
mentary as well. It criticized organized religion in
general and the Catholic Church in particular. It
also seemed to disparage monarchial forms of
government.
During his years of working on the Encyclope-
dia, Diderot also wrote and published many other
works. In 1749 he published Lettre sur les aveugles,
or Letter on the Blind, which questioned the exis-
tence of God. He followed this with Lettre sur les
sourds et muets, or Letter on the Deaf and Dumb,
which was a wide-ranging work dealing with vari-
ous linguistic subjects and demonstrating Diderot’s
broad intellect.
Diderot also wrote a number of novels and
plays, perhaps the most famous being his play Père
de famille, or Father of a Family. It was produced
in 1758, and became a standard of dramatic pieces
76 Diderot, Denis