Age of Reason, The

The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature | 2003 | 522 words | Copyright

Age of Reason, The, by Paine (1795). The work was written in Paris at the height of the Terror. In it Paine attacks Christianity and the Bible: the Old Testament consists of ‘obscene stories and voluptuous debaucheries’, whereas the New is inconsistent, and the account of the Virgin Birth, for example (a passage that was found particularly shocking), merely ‘hearsay upon hearsay’. He concludes with a plea for religious tolerance. The work was widely attacked as blasphemous and scurrilous.

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MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Age of Reason, The." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. 29 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Age of Reason, The." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (May 29, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-AgeofReasonThe.html

MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Age of Reason, The." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Retrieved May 29, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-AgeofReasonThe.html

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