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206 LITERATÛRZINÂTNE, FOLKLORISTIKA, MÂKSLA
of that period had sufficient grounds for optimism and that their rationalistic project
was perfectly justified1 . The picture of the Enlightenment culture in Ackroyd’s novel
is very different. In his novel Peter Ackroyd gives expression to the views of the
thinkers who espouse the ideas of the Enlightenment philosophy and juxtaposes them
with the views of their opponents, thereby creating a polyphonic text. Hawksmoor
deals with the world visions of the English scientists and mystics at the beginning of
the eighteenth century. In Ackroyd’s novel the rationalistic philosophy of the English
Royal Society is contrasted with the ideas of gnosticism and mysticism. However, it
is not a truly dialogic text in Bakhtin’s sense of the term as the part of the book relating
the construction of the seven churches by the diabolical architect, who makes
human sacrifices, is a first–person narrative privileging the position of the narrator
over that of his opponents.
By the beginning of the eighteenth century the Enlightenment had become the
dominant trend in the leading intellectual circles of Europe. One single human
faculty – Reason – was celebrated and glorified at the expense of all the others. 1 It
was believed that the natural light of reason was capable of illuminating the darkest
corners of the world and of human nature. Reason would reveal all the mysteries of
the human and material world and lay the foundations of natural religion, natural morality
and natural law. The Enlightenment philosophers thought that once reason and
knowledge became widespread, humanity would make great progress and irrationalism
and ignorance would be eliminated.
In Ackroyd’s novel there is a continual dialogue between Wren, the chief advocate
of the new materialistic, mechanistic and experimental natural philosophy based
on observations, measurements and mathematical calculations, and Dyer, who is a
mystic espousing an eclectic doctrine similar to Gnosticism. Dyer feels great contempt
for the rationalistic philosophers who tended to explain both physical and human
nature in mechanistic and materialistic terms.
Dyer’s extremely traumatic childhood experience led him to doubt the rational
and orderly structure of the world of which the representatives of the new science
were convinced. While the Enlightenment thinkers believed that human nature was
also governed by harmonious laws and that man was reasonable, Dyer perceived
human nature as degenerated. For him people are “the Heirs of Hell and Children of
the Devil” 3 and “Human life is quite out of the Light and … we are all Creatures of
Darknesse” 4 . His experience of the Plague and the Great Fire of London made him
doubt that the world was orderly and harmonious, that it was designed and built by
the Creator along rational lines and that it operated according to the immutable laws
of mechanics. He believes that there is very little, if, indeed, any, order and harmony
in the universe or in human nature. For Dyer the world is fearful and “Humane life
was of no certain course” 5 . In other words, it is certainly not governed by reason.
Consequently he rejects the rationalistic and mechanistic philosophy, which constituted
the dominant mode of thinking of his age, and adheres to the dualistic, Gnostic
mystical teaching of a secret society into which he was initiated when he was still a
child. It sees man as an unchangeable evil and teaches that all men are damned. Christianity
is rejected because it is hollow – it has been emptied of all its mysteries and
miracles. Everything is given a rational natural explanation. Mysteries are abolished