If I have to summarize the age of enlightenment in one word it would be  “why?”.Questions like “why we have to pay taxes?””why can’t ordinary people have and read the Bible?”These questions questioned the authorities and the very existence of authority itself. This era is dated to 17th to 19th century considering all the philosophers, historians and scientists. As philosophers date it to the publication of René Descartes’ Discourse on the Method in 1637 and historians to the death of the the French king Louis XIV in 1715 and scientists to the publication of Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica (1687).

As people’s voice changed to logic and reasoning from believing and accepting things as they were. The literature voices also changed to convey ideas about social change from reason, individualism and social criticism. This made it an era of skepticism in literature. People used to write prose and poetry to support their reasoning with strong literary devices like satire. The good examples of that are The Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope and Candide by Voltaire. This was also titled as the reading era as people started to read extensively. This led to a rise in the demand of printed encyclopedias.