Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
|
Your cart is empty |
|||
Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary studies > 16th to 18th centuries
The early eighteenth century was a vibrant period for European journalism. Already the author of several journals including the first spectator in French (Le Misanthrope), Justus van Effen attempted to capture the Regency spirit in France with La Bagatelle, also modelled on the English Spectator. Characterised by their overtly ironic tone, the Bagatelliste's comments range from witty observations on contemporary society or literary controversies to bolder and more subversive reflections on the principles of inheritance or religious orthodoxy. Produced as a twice-weekly quarter sheet, La Bagatelle included short works of poetry and prose; brevity and stealth were its tools and its defences. In this first critical edition of La Bagatelle, James L. Schorr uncovers the sources of each periodical essay, and situates Van Effen's ironic commentaries in their social and cultural context. Tracing the influence of classical as well as contemporary English writers, Schorr also explores an evolution in the character of the Bagatelliste himself, from the seventeenth-century 'man of science' to the philosophe of the Enlightenment. Containing substantive textual commentary and variants from the 1718-19 and 1722-24 issues, Schorr's critical edition represents a major addition to our knowledge of early eighteenth-century French journalism and the intellectual climate in which it flourished. Published with kind support from the Dr. C. Louise Thijssen-Schoute Foundation.
The last of the great Enlightenment encyclopedias, Charles Joseph Panckoucke's Encyclopedie methodique was originally conceived as an innovative revision of the Encyclopedie and the Supplement. Arranged in a series of subject-specific dictionaries, it began to appear in 1782 and was completed 50 years later, boasting 203 volumes of text and plates produced by many eminent editors and contributors. Kathleen Hardesty Doig's book is the first to compare the genealogy of the Methodique with its predecessors as a means to understanding Panchoucke's original vision for his work. Through careful examination of each volume of the Methodique, the author explores for instance: how Diderot's materialist, anti-clerical articles were scrupulously preserved; how new contributions on religious topics, written by a renowned French theologian, provided a counter-balancing apology of Catholicism; how subjects were augmented or radically transformed, particularly in the sciences where articles reflect groundbreaking research in chemistry and medicine; how these changes illuminate the editors' original goal of an encyclopedia designed to present information in an accessible format to specialists and amateurs alike.
In an era when both Church and State assigned gender roles and defined sexual practices in terms of male/female, lawful/illicit, Sade's extensive accounts of sexual activity were categorized as deviant, prurient or provocative. William F. Edmiston explores how Sade's unique challenge to sexual, moral and social taboos anticipates the discourses of queer theory. Following an overview of queer theory, Edmiston examines the categories of sex, gender and sexuality as treated in some of Sade's best- and lesser-known works. He demonstrates the extent to which Sade erodes the boundaries of sexual opposition through discourses justifying rather than illegitimizing 'unlawful' sex. The author reveals the coexistence of two competing discourses on sexuality: a proclivity that cannot be eradicated, and a habit that one can choose to adopt. This pioneering re-reading culminates with an examination of how recent biographies attempt to force Sade into a normal/abnormal dichotomy, manipulating police reports, personal correspondence or narratorial interventions to establish (or not) the author's homosexuality. Through revealing Sade's attempts to undermine prevailing gender roles and sexual identities, Edmiston uncovers a 'queer' discourse that challenges the still common assumption that heterosexuality is exclusively natural and normative, and that nature has always prompted humans to reproduce, rather than to seek pleasure.
Violence was an inescapable part of people's daily lives in eighteenth-century France. The Revolution in general and the Terror in particular were marked by intense outbursts of political violence, whilst the abuse of wives, children and servants was still rife in the home. But the representation of violence in its myriad forms remains aesthetically troublesome. Drawing on correspondence, pamphlets, novels and plays, authors analyse the portrayal of violence as a rational act, the basis of (re)written history, an expression of institutional power, and a challenge to morality. Contributions include explorations of: the use of the dream sequence in fiction to comprehend violence; how rhetoric can manipulate violent historical truth as documented by Burke in his Reflections on the Revolution in France; the political implications of commemorating the massacre at the Tuileries of 10 August 1792; how Sade's graphic descriptions of violence placed the reader in a morally ambivalent position; the differing responses of individuals subjected to brutal incarceration at Vincennes and the Bastille; the constructive force of violence as a means of creating a sense of self.
How did doctors argue in eighteenth-century medical pamphlet wars? How literary, or clinical, is Diderot's depiction of mad nuns? What is at stake in the account of a cataract operation at the beginning of Jean-Paul's novel Hesperus? In this pioneering volume, contributors extend current research at the intersection of medicine and literature by examining the overlapping narrative strategies in the writings of both novelists and doctors. Focusing on a wide variety of sources, an interdisciplinary team of researchers explores the nature and function of narration as an underlying principle of such writing. From a reading of correspondence between doctors as a means of continuing professional education, to the use of inoculation as a plotting device, or an examination of Diderot's physiological approach to mental illness in La Religieuse, contributors highlight: how doctors exploited rhetorical techniques in both clinical writing and correspondence with patients. how novelists incorporated medical knowledge into their narratives. how models such as case-histories or narrative poetry were adopted and transformed in both fictional and actual medical writing. how these narrative strategies shaped the way in which doctors, patients and illnesses were represented and perceived in the eighteenth century.
Author, political activist and salonniere, Germaine de Stael has become the focal point of groundbreaking research in women's studies, in performing arts, and in language/translation theory. In this multidisciplinary volume, a team of scholars concentrates on the vast range of her political and cultural engagements, both during and after the French Revolution. In this collection of studies, which examine issues as diverse as citizenship, immigration, abolition or constitutional liberalism, Stael's stance as a champion of moderation against the perils of extremism and polarization comes clearly to the fore. Contributors shed new light on the Groupe de Coppet, the circle of which she was the heart, and on the cosmopolitan networks she created within and beyond Europe. Other articles underline and reassess Stael's formative influence on national cultures distant in space and time, redefining her Italianism in Corinne ou l'Italie, analysing the British reception of her Considerations and exploring the impact of De l'Allemagne on American intellectual life. Germaine de Stael: forging a politics of mediation highlights Stael's pioneering place in the history of global interaction. She emerges as a truly modern thinker as well as an agent of multicultural exchange.
Out of public sight for over a hundred years, the Livre de caricatures tant bonnes que mauvaises is a remarkable work. This collection of comic and satirical drawings was created by a Parisian luxury embroiderer, Charles-Germain de Saint-Aubin, at a time of rigid press censorship to entertain a small group of family and friends. For today's reader the Livreprovides not only a series of richly imaginative and varied drawings, but also a fascinating and intriguing commentary on pre-Revolutionary Paris. In this first comprehensive study of the Livre de caricatures, which includes over 190 illustrations, an international team of scholars investigates the motivations and operations behind the making of the book, and the many facets of Parisian life that it illuminates. Embracing politics and religion, theatre, fashion and connoisseurship, and the court of Versailles and the Parisian streets, the scope of the Livre is immense. The work's unique quality is evident in its humour - whimsical, fantastical, challengingly allusive, but not without a sharp political edge when targeting clerics, the court and Louis XV's mistress, Madame de Pompadour. Known within the Saint-Aubin family as the Livre de culs, the Livre delights in the transgression of social convention and the keen deflation of vanity and pretence. Contributors explore this irreverent image of eighteenth-century Paris in all its glory. In today's world, the visual satire of the Livre de Caricatures continues to resonate, instruct and entertain.
Eighteenth-century Epicureanism is often viewed as radical, anti-religious and politically dangerous. But to what extent does this simplify the ancient philosophy and underestimate its significance in Enlightenment writing? Through a pan-European analysis of Enlightenment centres from Scotland to Russia via the Netherlands, France and Germany, contributors argue that elements of classical Epicureanism were appropriated by radical and conservative writers alike. They move beyond literature and political theory to examine the application of Epicurean ideas in domains as diverse as physics, natural law, and the philosophy of language, drawing on the work of both major figures (Diderot, Helvetius, Smith and Hume) and of lesser-known but equally influential thinkers (Johann Jacob Schmauss and Dmitrii Anichkov). This unique collaboration, bringing together historians, philosophers, political scientists and literary scholars, provides rich and varied insights into the different strategic uses of Epicureanism in the eighteenth century.
Hospitality, in particular hospitality to strangers, was promoted in the eighteenth century as a universal human virtue, but writing of the period reveals many telling examples of its abuse. Through analysis of encounters across cultural and sexual divides, Judith Still revisits the current debate about the social, moral and political values of the Enlightenment. Focussing on (in)hospitality in relation to two kinds of exotic Other, Judith Still examines representations of indigenous peoples of the New World, both as hosts and as cannibals, and of the Moslem 'Oriental' in Persia and Turkey, associated with both the caravanserai (where travellers rest) and the harem. She also explores very different examples of Europeans as hosts and the practice of 'adoption', particularly that of young girls. The position of women in hospitality, hitherto neglected in favour of questions of cultural difference, is central to these analyses, and Still considers the work of women writers alongside more canonical male-authored texts. In this thought-provoking study, Judith Still uncovers how the Enlightenment rhetoric of openness and hospitality is compromised by self-interest; the questions it raises about attitudes to difference and freedom are equally relevant today.
Historians of eighteenth-century thought have implied a clear distinction between mystical or occult writing, often termed 'illuminist', and better-known forms of Enlightenment thinking and culture. But where are the boundaries of 'enlightened' human understanding? This is the question posed by contributors to this volume, who put forward a completely new way of configuring these seemingly antithetical currents of thought, and identify a grey area that binds the two, a 'Super-Enlightenment'. Through articles exploring the social, religious, artistic, political and scientific dimensions of the Super-Enlightenment, contributors demonstrate the co-existence of apparent opposites: the enlightened and the esoteric, empiricism and imagination, history and myth, the secretive and the public, mysticism and science. The Enlightenment can no longer be seen as a sturdy, homogeneous movement defined by certain core beliefs, but one which oscillates between opposing poles in its social practices, historiography and even its epistemology: between daring to know, and daring to know too much.
What constituted the 'private' in the eighteenth-century? In Representing private lives of the Enlightenment authors look beyond a simple equation of the private and the domestic to explore the significance of the individual and its constructions of identity and environment. Taking case studies from Russia, France, Italy and England, specialists from a range of disciplines analyse descriptions of the private situated largely outside the familial context: the nobleman at the theatre or in his study, the woman in her boudoir, portraitists and their subject, the solitary wanderer in the public garden, the penitent at confession. This critical approach provides a comparative framework that simultaneously confirms the Enlightenment as a pan-European movement, both intellectually and socially, whilst uncovering striking counterpoints. What emerges is a unique sense of how individuals from different classes and cultures sought to map their social and domestic sphere, and an understanding of the permeable boundaries separating private and public.
Did 'sex education' actually exist in eighteenth-century France? Shaped by competing currents of religious dogma, atheist materialism and bourgeois morality, eighteenth-century France marked the beginning of what Michel Foucault called 'une fermentation discursive' on matters related to sex. But when we consult the educational theorists or philosophes of the time for their opinions on preparing a young person for life as a sexual being, we are met with a telling silence. Did an Enlightenment era that dared to make sex an object of discourse also dare to make it an object of pedagogy? Sex education in eighteenth-century France brings together specialists from a range of disciplines to address these issues. Using a wide variety of literary, historical, religious and pedagogical sources, contributors explore for the first time the nexus between sex and instruction. Although these two categories were publicly kept distinct, writers were effectively shaping attitudes and behaviours. Unraveling the complex system of rules and codes through which knowledge about sex was communicated, contributors uncover a new dimension in the practice of education in the eighteenth century.
Cultural transfers between eighteenth-century France and Britain did much to shape the intellectual identity of each nation. But what were the main channels of communication? How did they function? What was their impact? In Cultural transfers: France and Britain in the long eighteenth century a team of specialists focuses on the networks and correspondences on which these exchanges were based, the concrete form they took and the material, political or ideological constraints which governed them. Particular attention is paid to the roles of: intermediaries such as diplomats, scientific institutions, or the Huguenot exiles who played a crucial part in disseminating English scientific, theological and political writings gazettes, learned periodicals, and government-sponsored journals where the French learned about British political debates and institutions translators, who could significantly alter texts in line with their own preconceptions and agendas or the expectations of their readers This multidisciplinary book moves beyond the classic concern with 'influences' of one author or culture on another. It presents a new understanding of the hidden international networks that sustained the Republic of Letters and of the synthesis that emerged through contacts and interaction between French and British culture.
On ne peut penser les Lumieres sans l'auteur du Contrat social et l'Emile, mais on ne saurait cependant nier que Rousseau denonce les 'philosophes modernes' dans les termes les plus forts. Comment donc penser les rapports entre Rousseau et les philosophes? Dans ce volume les specialistes de Rousseau vont au-dela des oppositions figees. Ils montrent comment le 'citoyen de Geneve', a partir de sources philosophiques partagees avec ses contemporains, delimite le champ de la raison et construit une pensee politique rigoureuse, s'imposant ainsi a ceux qui souvent rejettent ses idees religieuses ou sa denonciation des sciences et des arts. Confrontant la richesse irreductible de ses ecrits, les auteurs proposent le portrait intellectuel d'un homme qui construit sa pensee a la fois avec et contre les philosophes, les obligeant a justifier ou a modifier leurs propres convictions face au defi que represente son oeuvre. Figure emblematique de son siecle, Rousseau suscite l'indignation mais oblige aussi a des reexamens difficiles. C'est par l'etude de cette position a la fois centrale et marginale que l'on peut saisir la force de sa pensee et discerner ce qu'elle signifie pour nous.
'Women seem to be destined solely for our pleasure. When they no longer have that attraction, they have lost everything' (letter from Diderot to Sophie Volland, 1762). How typical was this view of the 'older woman' in the eighteenth century? What was it like for women of intelligence and sensibility to grow old in such a culture? By studying the correspondences of four prominent women (Francoise de Graffigny, Marie Du Deffand, Marie Riccoboni and Isabelle de Charriere) during their middle and late years, Stewart explores the relation of female aging to respectability, sexuality and power. The author's focus lies in the physical, emotional and professional well-being of middle-aged and elderly women during a time when all the available dignity of age seemed to belong to men. The 'repulsiveness' of growing old was patently a female issue. One of the most emblematic aspects of these correspondences is the often unrequited love of older women for younger men during a period when the common wisdom denied women the right to any feelings except piety. Stewart juxtaposes their letters with representations of aging women in the period's fictional and medical literature. She takes up several canonical, mostly male-authored, texts that purvey this common wisdom, and re-reads them with originality and grace. Through The Enlightenment of age - at once learned, highly personal and entertaining - Stewart speaks to us about the secret lives of older women, and about the ethos of an era.
The modern encyclopedia was born in the eighteenth century. Although numerous studies have shed light on its evolution, important participants have been neglected. Dennis de Coetlogon's Universal history of the arts and sciences may be little known to us today, but its contribution to the development of the encyclopedia is as compelling as it is paradoxical. Loveland examines the Universal history in its cultural context to provide the most detailed picture to date of the world of British encyclopedias in the first half of the eighteenth century. His lively analysis reveals how Coetlogon: flouted the emerging norms of encyclopedia-writing, combining impartial discourse with harangues, advertisements and personal revelations broadened the scope of the traditional dictionary of arts and sciences towards history, geography and religion included far fewer and longer articles than was customary in alphabetical works championed Christian and politically conservative values, providing a fascinating counter-model to the later French Encyclopedie In triggering the adoption of serial publication by the owners of Chambers's Cyclopedia, and establishing a model for alphabetized treatises taken up by the Encyclopedia Britannica, the Universal history was indeed an inspiration for the modern encyclopedia.
The Encyclopaedia britannica is a familiar cultural icon, but what do we know about the early editions that helped shape it into the longest continuously published encyclopedia still in existence? This first examination of the three eighteenth-century editions traces the Britannica's extraordinary development into a best seller and an exceptional book of knowledge, especially in biography and in the natural sciences. The combined expertise of the contributors to this volume allows an extensive exploration of each edition, covering its publication history and evolving editorial practices, its commentary on subjects that came in and out of fashion and its contemporary reception. The contributors also examine the cultural and intellectual milieu in which the Britannica flourished, discussing its role in the Scottish Enlightenment and comparing its pressrun, contents, reputation, and influence with those of the much more reform-minded Encyclopedie.
Recent archival research has focussed on the material conditions of marriage in eighteenth-century France, providing new insight into the social and judicial contexts of marital violence. Mary Trouille builds on these findings to write the first book on spousal abuse during this period. Through close examination of a wide range of texts, Trouille shows how lawyers and novelists adopted each other's rhetorical strategies to present competing versions of the truth. Male voices - those of husbands, lawyers, editors, and moralists - are analysed in accounts of separation cases presented in Des Essarts's influential Causes celebres, in moral and legal treatises, and in legal briefs by well-known lawyers of the period. Female voices, both real and imagined, are explored through court testimony and novels based on actual events by Sade, Genlis, and Retif de la Bretonne. By bringing the traditionally private matter of spousal abuse into the public arena, these texts had a significant impact on public opinion and served as an impetus for legal reform in the early years of the French Revolution. Trouille's interdisciplinary study makes a significant contribution to our understanding of attitudes towards women in eighteenth-century society, and provides a historical context for debates about domestic violence that are very much alive today.
Jean-Louis Wagniere servit Voltaire en qualite de secretaire de 1755 a 1778 avant de defendre sa memoire jusqu'a sa mort. Ses lettres assurent une importante mediation dans notre connaissance de la vie et de l'oeuvre du grand philosophe. Dans cette etude Christophe Paillard rassemble d'importants documents inedits qui apportent des eclaircissements sur les oeuvres de Voltaire et ses strategies epistolaires, ses rapports avec les editeurs, l'installation de sa bibliotheque a Petersbourg et l'histoire de l'edition de Kehl. Or, C. Paillard montre aussi que le temoignage de Wagniere doit etre interprete avec plus de precaution que la critique n'a eu tendance a le faire auparavant. Il fait voir que l'attribution de certaines oeuvres ou les remarques sur l'edition de Kehl doivent etre replacees dans le contexte d'une mise en scene; on decouvre a quel point le 'petit scribe' a assimile et mis en oeuvre les strategies litteraires de son maitre. Dans Jean-Louis Wagniere, secretaire de Voltaire: lettres et documents Christophe Paillard renouvelle l'etude de l'epistolaire et des methodes d'ecriture de Voltaire. Il procure aux specialistes de Voltaire une mine de documents inedits, et, de plus, il nous offre un moyen de les lire.
Includes articles on architecture, cultural history, the 'Luxury debate' in the eighteenth century, Rousseau, and the manuscript of The Life of John Wilkes with commentary and contextualisation.
Originally published in 1973 and 1977 respectively, these two volumes, now available together for the first time examine the history of French drama. The first traces tragedy, from its origins in the sixteenth century through to the last years of Louis XVI's reign. The second covers comedy, from the Renaissance, extending beyond Louis XVI into the eighteenth century and right up to the eve of the Revolution. Accessible to the general reader they would also be particularly useful for students of French drama.
Sade's rehabilitation as a major Enlightenment writer has hitherto not extended to a re-evaluation of his dramatic works. With a theoretical framework inspired by psychoanalysis and dramatic theory, and attentive to eighteenth-century theoretical debates, Thomas Wynn demonstrates the value of these neglected works. This is the first study to consider the nature and implications of Sade's dramatic aesthetic, and to define the erotic quality of spectatorship in his experimental plays. Challenging the assumption that the gaze is sadistic, the author uses insights from film theory to argue that Sade adapts contemporary theatrical texts and practice to create an aesthetic distinct from that of his novels. Rather than replicate the style of such works as Les Cent vingt journees de Sodome, Sade's drama anticipates a masochistic model, as theorised by Theodor Reik and Gilles Deleuze. This analysis of Sadean spectatorship takes a thematic rather than chronological or text-by-text approach. The author argues that Sade, as an atheist materialist, focuses on the structural elements of theatre to produce visual pleasure rather than moral improvement, and that he elaborates an insistently visual dramatic aesthetic, a mode analogous to the linguistic saturation of the novels' tout dire. With reference to eighteenth-century obscene drama, theatre architecture and the history of visuality, the author explores the paradox that Sade's theatre is meant not for the stage, but for the private imagination. His visionary theatre is an example of the late eighteenth-century sublime, an aesthetic of the ineffable and the unrepresentable which, in its emphasis on the survival of the demeaned individual, structurally resembles masochism. Without deforming his technique or strategy, the author shows that Sade's voluptuous theatre - like his fiction - addresses an individual whose sovereignty in a godless world is intimately linked to the independent imagination. This book will be of interest to all those working in eighteenth-century drama and theory of spectatorship.
Deux cent cinquante ans apres la mort de Montesquieu, de nouvelles questions se posent. Ce volume presente en trois volets les dernieres recherches sur Montesquieu, suscitees par la nouvelle edition des OEuvres completes (Oxford, Voltaire Foundation). Avec les Lettres persanes apparait la necessite d'analyser les modes de lecture induits par les dispositifs editoriaux (paratexte, nouvelle edition 'augmentee et diminuee' en 1721, table des matieres ou des sommaires, usages typographiques du dix-huitieme ou du dix-neuvieme siecle) voire par la censure romaine. On voit ainsi combien hier et aujourd'hui la lecture est tributaire de facteurs jusque-la meconnus: les Lettres persanes sont decidement un texte redoutable... L'Esprit des lois est scrute d'abord dans son ecriture meme, grace a la mise en relation du manuscrit conserve a la Bibliotheque nationale de France et d'un enorme corpus de manuscrits et d'archives desormais disponible, mais disperse dans toute l'Europe (oeuvres inachevees, correspondance, actes notaries, etc.): les strates de composition et de redaction sont reperables et datables de maniere tres precise grace a l'identification des 'mains' des secretaires de Montesquieu, ce qui permet de reconstituer une methode de travail et une chronologie de composition sensiblement differentes de celles qui etaient admises depuis les travaux fondateurs de Robert Shackleton. Cela conduit a evoquer differents aspects complementaires de l'activite de Montesquieu, qui necessitaient une mise au point (sur la pretendue cecite de Montesquieu, sur 'L'invocation aux Muses' ou la chronologie generale des secretaires). Enfin, ce sont les themes essentiels de Montesquieu, les idees-forces autour desquelles se constitue l'oeuvre majeure, qui sont examines. Le droit comme expression d'une rationalite mais aussi comme prolongement des premiers temps de la monarchie (avec la notion de constitution), l'economie comme champ nouveau offert a la reflexion politique, et un traitement de l'histoire qui offre de fructueux rapprochements avec Voltaire: tels sont les modes d'approche d'une pensee avec laquelle s'est ouvert un horizon radicalement nouveau.
An enhanced exam section: expert guidance on approaching exam questions, writing high-quality responses and using critical interpretations, plus practice tasks and annotated sample answer extracts. Key skills covered: focused tasks to develop analysis and understanding, plus regular study tips, revision questions and progress checks to help students track their learning. The most in-depth analysis: detailed text summaries and extract analysis to in-depth discussion of characters, themes, language, contexts and criticism, all helping students to reach their potential. |
You may like...
Old Norse Made New - Essays on the…
David Clark, Carl Phelpstead
Paperback
Reframing Rousseau's Levite d'Ephraim…
Barbara Abrams, Mira Morgenstern, …
Paperback
R2,921
Discovery Miles 29 210
|