Eighteenth Century

2006-04-25T12:34:00.000-07:00

French Revolution

2006-04-12T20:05:00.000-07:00

Beaumarchais, and etc.

Wrap up of the Seven Years' War (1756-1763)

-Shift of alliances

-Invasion of Saxony

-Prussian - Austrian dualism

Pierre Augustin Caron = Beaumarchais (1732-1799)

-son of a watchmaker

-watch-ring for Madame de Pompadour

-married Madeleine Francquet in 1756 (social mobility)

-music teacher to daughters of Louis XV

-political and financial intrigues, adventures and lawsuits

-pamphleteer

-married Genevieve-Madeleine Wettebled Leveque in 1768

-"secret" missions for Louis XV and XVI

-spats with the Chevalier d'Eon

-supported American independence (Roderigue Hortalez and Co.)

-preserved Voltaire's legacy

-married Marie-Therese de Willer-Mawlaz in 1786

-supported French Revolution but was not trusted

-wrote numerous plays

2006-04-11T06:21:00.000-07:00

Frederick II, the Great, King of Prussia (1712-1786)

-Son of Frederick William I
-poor father-son relationship
-Rheinsburg
-ascended the throne in 1740

-corresponded with Voltaire
-philosopher-king
-Anti-Machiavel (1741)

-invades Silesia in 1742: war with Austria

-Prussia become one of the Great Powers of Europe

-Seven Years War, 1756-1763

-Enlightened despotism

2006-04-04T07:47:00.000-07:00

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

2006-03-30T10:43:00.000-08:00

Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia

-Programs of Europeanization and modernization started under Peter I
-Empress Elizabeth reigned 1741-61
-German prince chosen as heir, Peter III
-German princess (Catherine) married to Peter in 1745.
--Catherine takes lovers and reads voraciously between 1745 and 1761.
-Peter III becomes czar in 1761 -- but a palace coup or revolution places Catherine on the throne instead.
--Autocratic rule

Foreign policy follows that of Peter I, the Great

-secure access to Black Sea

-expand westward to unite Slavic territories

-defend western territories

-Greek Project

"Enlightened Despotism"

-Nakaz or "Instruction" for the new Code of Laws of the Russian Empire

-good publicity from philosophes

-reform in industries

-reform in education

-support for the arts and sciences

2006-03-20T21:29:00.000-08:00

England in the 1760s

George III and Queen Sophie-Charlotte

Lady Elizabeth Montagu

Bluestockings

Mary Wollstonecraft

2006-03-20T19:46:00.000-08:00

The Industrial Revolution

-Engels: "an industrial revolution, a revolution which at the same time changed the whole of civil society."

-Change from an economy based on manual labor to one based on machines and inanimate power;
-Began in Britain in the 1760s, in the textile industry;
-Machines sped the processes of spinning and weaving.

Inventions:

James Hargreaves: Spinning Jenny
-simple, inexpensive, still run by hand

Richard Arkwright: Water Frame
-"borrowed" idea;
-factory system: dedicated space, organized, regimented, gave employer total control, cut production costs.

Samuel Crompton: Water Mule
-strong and fine thread, also powered by water

Edmund Cartwright: Power Loom

-Hand-weavers had been the richest artisan group; now weaving was also mechanized and powered by water.

-Not a good businessman.

The Steam Engine

-First models invented by Thomas Savery and Thomas Newcomen: used to pump water out of mines.

-Significantly improved or reinvented by the Scotsman James Watt;

-Watt teamed up with John Wilkinson and Matthew Boulton -- iron manufacturers.

-Watt and Boulton belonged to the Lunar Society of Birmingham.

steam engine

-Steam power was used not just for pumping water out of mines, but in most British industries.

-In factories, people had to keep pace with machines, in much less than perfect conditions.

-Luddites

Was the industrial revolution good for the working people of England?

-two schools of thought: optimists and pessimists

Cottonopolis: Manchester

2006-03-14T12:44:00.000-08:00

2006-03-14T09:15:00.000-08:00

Jean-Jacques Rousseau -- Enlightenment Heretic?

Wrote an autobiography: The Confessions, published posthumously
-image creation: outsider, radical, ordinary citizen, good guy

Born in Geneva in 1712
-mother died young, father was a watchmaker
-Protestant
-apprenticeship in engraving: failed and ran away

First patroness, the Baroness de Warens
-converts to Catholicism in Turin
-works as a servant, teacher, secretary only when he feels like it

1742 moves to Paris to compose music
-Therese Levasseur
-children

1750 writes first philosophical essay for the Academy of Dijon on the question:

"Has the reestablishment of the arts and sciences helped to purify morals?"

-Essay is called his First Discourse

-Second Discourse on the Origins of Inequality among Men (1755) his most famous work

Moves to Montmorency in the 1760s

-"Rousseau's Cottage"

-Julie, ou La Nouvelle Heloise (1761)

-Emile, or on Education (1762)

-The Social Contract (1762)

1770 returns to Paris

-makes his living copying music

-writes his Confessions

-suffers a head injury

-moves to Ermenonville in 1776 and dies there in 1778

2006-03-01T21:19:00.000-08:00

Venice and Carlo Goldoni

2006-02-28T11:58:00.000-08:00

Some Aspects of Italy in the Eighteenth Century

2006-02-23T09:55:00.000-08:00

Denis Diderot and the Encyclopedie

Diderot (1713-1784)
-Modest artisan background
-Jesuit education
-Tried a number of different professions and then became a writer
-Frequented the coffee houses in Paris and became a friend of the philosophes
-Also connected in the literary underground
-Religious crisis?
-First secret marriage produces one child, Angelique
-First jail time in 1749, connected to publication of scurrilous novel and the essay "On Blindness"
---essay discusses a materialist philosophy

Encyclopedie (1751-1772)

-What makes it radical?: kind of knowledge gathered and how it is treated

-Modeled on Ephraim Chamber's Cyclopaedia

-Seeks all knowledge and truth

-Diderot recruits Jean Le Rond D'Alembert to the project

-Both outsiders in their way

-Anthropocentric worldview

Tree of Knowledge

Radical redefinition of authority

Radical articles and cross-references

--"Ame" ("On the Soul" by Diderot)

--"Anthropophagie" and "Eucharist"

Major Controversies including:

-D'Alembert quits in 1758

-Project is shut down, books are burned, Diderot hangs on.

2006-02-14T08:01:00.000-08:00

Montesquieu and the Persian Letters

-Charle-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brede et de Montesquieu
-Born 1689, died 1755
-Educated at the Oration College de Juilly and University of Bordeaux
-Married Jeanne Lartigue, had three children
-Became President a Mortier in the Parlement of Bordeaux
-Published Persian Letters in 1721, became a literary star
-Travelled in Europe
-Published Considerations on the Causes of the Grandeur and Decadence of the Romans, 1734
-Published The Spirit of the Laws, 2 vols., 1748

2006-02-09T11:33:00.000-08:00

Regency and Rococo France

Gloomy last years of Louis XIV
-military defeat
-finds religion
-death of son and grandsons
-dies in 1715
-Louis XV is only five years old
-Philippe II, Duke of Orleans becomes Regent

Phillippe II of Orleans
-eccentric, licentious, and innovative
-Son of Philippe I, brother of Louis XIV, and German Princess, Elizabeth-Charlotte or Liselotte

A break with the past:

-Relaxed and pleasure-loving

-Baroque to Rococo

-Public to Private

-Economic shifts

Paris building boom

-Philippe II lived at the Palais-Royale; other aristocrats moved into town too

Renewed position of aristocrats in the government

-Polysynodie

Foreign Policy

-Triple Alliance (France, England, Dutch Republic)

Financial Experiment:

-John Law: State Bank, expansion of credit, overseas trading company

-Disaster of the "Mississippi Bubble"

Cultural change:

-Legalization of the Italian Comedy

Antoine Watteau (1684-1721)

-Flemish

-Nature and Humanity

-Went to Paris

-did decorative arts, including chinoiseries and singeries

-suffered from tuberculosis

-Patrons: family Crozat

-Italian Opera

-Gilles

-Embarkation from Cythera (1717)

-The Faux-Pas

-L'Enseigne de Gersaint (1721)

2006-02-02T09:51:00.000-08:00

John Gay, William Hogarth and the Dark Side of Eighteenth-Century London

John Gay

Beer Street

Gin Lane

The Harlot's Progress: Moll Hackabout

The Stages of Cruelty

2006-01-31T12:00:00.000-08:00

Handel's London or England in the Age of Walpole or the Georgian Age

George Frederic Handel (1685-1759)
- Contemporary of Bach with a very different career
-Hamburg, 1703-1706
--Almira;

Opera
-city life
-individuality
-social setting
-Castrati, Prima donnas, Impresarios

In 1706 Handel traveled to Italy and learned the art of Italian Opera

In 1710 Handel became the court conductor for the House of Hanover
-traveled to London, had success with the opera Rinaldo

In 1714 the Elector of Saxony became King George I of England
-Handel writes the Water Music in 1717; Chandos anthems 1717-1719.

-Under George I, Whigs have control in Parliament, led by the skillful "prime minister" Robert Walpole ("the Robinocracy").
-Opposition meets around the crown prince, who becomes George II in 1727

Stability and prosperity
-Constitution: King, Parliament, and Courts of Law; or King, Parliament, and Local Governments

London is a city of energy and activity
-1719, Handel is involved in the creation of the Royal Academy of Music, which closes in 1729 or 1730.
--composes operas
--composes festival music: Music for the Royal Fireworks
--composes oratorios: The Messiah is performed in Dublin in 1742.

2006-01-26T10:19:00.000-08:00

Newtonianism Spreads

New political culture
-Constitutional monarchy
-Parliament
--Whigs and Tories
--Jacobites, Radical Whigs, Radical Republicans

Latitudinarians

Royal Society of London
-Boyle Lectures: Richard Bentley, Samuel Clarke

Richard Bentley

--"The Folly and Unreasonableness of Atheism"

--"Holy alliance": Newtonian Science + Church of England

Samuel Clarke

--Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence

John Theophilus Desaguliers

--Popularizing Newtonian science: Course of Experimental Philosophy

--Mechanical experiments

--Civil engineering

Francois-Marie Arouet or Voltaire (1694-1778)

--Letters Concerning the English Nation (1733) = Lettres Philosophiques (1734)

Newton Lecture

2006-01-22T17:15:00.000-08:00