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Alex Taube. Pârdomas par apgaismîbas laikmeta nozîmi postmodernajâ daiïliteratûrâ: Pîtera ..
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finer Philosophie” 28 . When dissecting the woman’s corpse, Wren’s perceptions of
the corpse evoke no images in his imagination, conjure up no memories or associations.
His perceptions are wholly dissociated from his memory and imagination. In
contrast, the perception of the body evokes an emotional response in Dyer and stimulates
his imagination. It makes Dyer imagine the death of the woman and sympathise
with her. While Wren is examining the corpse, Dyer relives the death of the woman in
his imagination.
Locke and other Enlightenment thinkers believed that human beings were rational
and therefore equal, that they possessed the same natural rights of life, liberty and
property, and that their behaviour was governed by the law of reason29 . To subvert
this view Dyer talks about the world of the vagabonds and beggars, who are unreasonable,
uneducated, unenlightened, and whose behaviour is irrational. They live in
the darkness and are not aware of the passage of time. Society extols the virtues of
liberalism and social progress and emphasizes the equality of all men, and yet the
poor and the underprivileged are marginalized or excluded from it. London for Dyer
is not a city full of light and merriment but rather a “Nest of Death and Contagion” 30 .
The people tend to think that since London has been rebuilt its character has changed,
but for Dyer London still is the “Capital City of the World of Affliction”, “the Capitol
of Darknesse”, and “the Dungeon of Man’s Desires” 31 . He contrasts the vision of
the privileged with that of the outcasts: “Those in their snug Bed–chambers may call
the Fears of Night meer Bugbears, but their Minds have not pierced into the Horror
of the World which others, who are adrift upon it, know” 32 . Society is to blame for
the miserable condition of the poor and the outcast, and yet it severely punishes those
whom it has consigned to a life of misery and deprivation: “most Men owe not only
their Learning to their Plenty but likewise their Vertue and their Honesty. For how
many Thousands are there in the World, in great Reputation for their Sober and Just
dealings with Mankind, who if they were put to their Shifts would soon lose their
Reputation and turn Rogues and Scoundrels? And yet we punish Poverty as if it were
a Crime, and honour Wealth as if it were a Vertue. And so goes on the Circle of
Things: Poverty begets Sin and Sin begets Punishment” 33 .
Like most Enlightenment thinkers Sir Christopher Wren disregarded tradition and
authority. “He liked to destroy Antient things: sad and wretched Stuff, he called it,
and he us’d to say that Men are weary of the Reliques of Antiquity” 34 . Instead he
praised “Sensible Knowledge” and “the Experimentall Learning” 35 , but Dyer was not
convinced, and still doubted man’s ability to lay new foundations, having no better
foundations to build upon than man’s nature. Dyer derived his knowledge of architecture
from ancient authors. He is in favour of the ancients rather than the moderns:
“We live off the past: it is in our Words and our Syllables. It is reverberant in our
Streets and Courts, so that we can scarce walk across the Stones without being reminded
of those who walked there before us” 36 . He studied “the antient Architects,
for the greatness of the Antients is infinitely superior to the Moderns” 37 . Likewise,
he believes that the truths expressed in art are eternal and that the ancient works of
literature may be more truthful in their depiction of human nature, which, for Dyer, is
changeless, thoroughly corrupt and impossible to perfect, than the works of contemporary
writers. The Ancients’ “Tragedy reflects Corruption, and Men are the same
now as they have ever been” 38 .