Of Secrets and Supper Parties

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Swann
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Political Crises ◽  
Changing Patterns ◽  
Louis Xv ◽  
As If

The court of Louis XV has been depicted as if it was a dusty museum, re-enacting the rituals and ceremonies of the Sun King, but without any vitality as cultural pre-eminence passed to Paris. Using the perspective of disgrace, this chapter takes a fresh look at the court in the eighteenth century, and argues that Louis XV showed dexterity in managing his court using intermediaries and access to his person in intimate settings such as his famous supper parties. Versailles was not immune to change, and in the course of the king’s reign the court experienced a form of ‘politicization’ resulting from changing patterns of ministerial recruitment and the influence of the political crises in the parlements. The infamous Revolution of 1771 demonstrates how Louis XV used his power to divide the opposition to his policies and to uphold his position as the head of the House of Bourbon.

Monarchy

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joël Félix
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Reform Initiatives ◽  
Old Regime ◽  
Political Crises ◽  
The Social ◽  
Major Reform ◽  
Louis Xvi ◽  
Louis Xv

This chapter examines the social and political structures of the absolute monarchy. It explores the extent to which tensions and conflicts in the mid-eighteenth century, in particular disputes between government and parlements, divided the elites over reform and policy, and opened up the realm of politics to public opinion. Reviewing the fate of major reform initiatives through the reigns of both Louis XV and his grandson Louis XVI, it argues that political crises paralysed the ability of royal institutions to enforce authority and generate consensus, thus making the transition from the old regime to the modern world necessary and inevitable.

The Changing Patterns of North Korea’s International Film Co-Productions Since the 1980s: A Global Value Chain Approach

2020 ◽  
pp. 83-108
Author(s):  
Moon Hwy-Chang ◽  
Wenyang Yin
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
International Standards ◽  
The Political ◽  
Global Value Chain ◽  
Comprehensive Understanding ◽  
Changing Patterns ◽  
Film Productions

Although North Korea is one of the most closed countries in the world, it has long been pursuing international cooperation with other countries in order to upgrade the quality of its film industry to international standards. Preceding studies on this topic have mainly focused on the political influences behind filmmaking in general and very few studies have exclusively dealt with North Korea’s international co-productions. In this respect, in order to develop a comprehensive understanding of the internalization strategy of North Korea’s film productions, this paper uses the global value chain as a framework for analysis. This approach helps understand the internationalization pattern of each value chain activity of film co-productions in terms of the film location and the methods for collaborating with foreign partners. By dividing the evolution of North Korea’s international co-productions into three periods since the 1980s, this paper finds that although North Korea has shown mixed results with different aspects of the film value chain, it has generally improved its internationalization over the three periods. This paper further provides strategic directions for North Korea by learning some of the successful Chinese experiences in the film sector regarding collaboration with foreign partners—to foster a win-win situation for all involved parties.

The Gallic Singularity and the Royal Mistress

2020 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-66
Author(s):  
Christine Adams
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Soft Power ◽  
Political Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
Marie Antoinette ◽  
Louis Xvi ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Political Realm

The relationship of the French king and royal mistress, complementary but unequal, embodied the Gallic singularity; the royal mistress exercised a civilizing manner and the soft power of women on the king’s behalf. However, both her contemporaries and nineteenth- and early twentieth-century historians were uncomfortable with the mistress’s political power. Furthermore, paradoxical attitudes about French womanhood have led to analyses of her role that are often contradictory. Royal mistresses have simultaneously been celebrated for their civilizing effect in the realm of culture, chided for their frivolous expenditures on clothing and jewelry, and excoriated for their dangerous meddling in politics. Their increasing visibility in the political realm by the eighteenth century led many to blame Louis XV’s mistresses—along with Queen Marie-Antoinette, who exercised a similar influence over her husband, Louis XVI—for the degradation and eventual fall of the monarchy. This article reexamines the historiography of the royal mistress.

Reading Politics with Machiavelli

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald J. Schmidt, Jr
Keyword(s):  
The Political ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Family Farm ◽  
Louis Althusser ◽  
Political Crises ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
White Nationalism ◽  
The Republic

Reading Politics with Machiavelli is an anachronistic reading of certain key concepts in Machiavelli’s The Prince and The Discourses (as well as some of his correspondence). In 1513, soon after the Medici returned to power in Florence, Machiavelli lost his position as First Secretary to the Republic, and he was exiled. On his family farm, he began a self-consciously anachronistic reading of great political figures of antiquity, and, in combination with his own experience as a diplomat, crafted a unique perspective on the political crises of his time. At our own moment of democratic crisis, as the democratic imagination, as well as democratic habits and institutions face multiple attacks from neoliberalism, white nationalism, and authoritarianism, I argue that a similar method, in which we read Machiavelli’s work as he read Livy’s and Plutarch’s, can help us see the contingency, and the increasingly forgotten radical potential, of our politics. Louis Althusser argued that Machiavelli functions for us as an uncanny authority, one whose apparent familiarity is dispelled as we examine his epistolary yet opaque account of history, politics, and authority. This makes his readings a potentially rich resource for a time of democratic crisis. With that challenge in mind, we will examine the problems of conspiracy, prophecy, torture, and exile and use a close reading of Machiavelli’s work to make out new perspectives on the politics of our time.

Searching for Political Parties in the Past

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Piero Ignazi
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Common

Chapter 1 introduces the long and difficult process of the theoretical legitimation of the political party as such. The analysis of the meaning and acceptance of ‘parties’ as tools of expressing contrasting visions moves forward from ancient Greece and Rome where (democratic) politics had first become a matter of speculation and practice, and ends up with the first cautious acceptance of parties by eighteenth-century British thinkers. The chapter explores how parties or factions have been constantly considered tools of division of the ‘common wealth’ and the ‘good society’. The holist and monist vision of a harmonious and compounded society, stigmatized parties and factions as an ultimate danger for the political community. Only when a new way of thinking, that is liberalism, emerged, was room for the acceptance of parties set.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John West
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Literary History ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Third ◽  
Religious Differences

Literary history often positions Dryden as the precursor to the great Tory satirists of the eighteenth century, like Pope and Swift. Yet a surprising number of Whig writers expressed deep admiration for Dryden, despite their political and religious differences. They were particularly drawn to the enthusiastic dimensions of his writing. After a short reading of Dryden’s poem to his younger Whig contemporary William Congreve, this concluding chapter presents three case studies of Whig writers who used Dryden to develop their own ideas of enthusiastic literature. These three writers are Elizabeth Singer Rowe, John Dennis, and the Third Earl of Shaftesbury. These case studies are used to critique the political polarizations of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century literary history and to stress instead how literary friendship crossed political allegiances, and how writers of differing ideological positions competed to control mutually appealing ideas and vocabularies.

‹ Rococo › : du jargon à la catégorie de style

2017 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 474-487
Author(s):  
Marie-Pauline Martin
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Louis Xvi ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Louis Xv ◽  
Objective Existence

Abstract Today there is a consensus on the definition of the term ‘rococo’: it designates a style both particular and homogeneous, artistically related to the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI. But we must not forget that in its primitive formulations, the rococo has no objective existence. As a witty, sneering, and impertinent word, it can adapt itself to the most varied discourses and needs, far beyond references to the eighteenth century. Its malleability guarantees its sparkling success in different languages, but also its highly contradictory uses. By tracing the genealogy of the word ‘rococo’, this article will show that the association of the term with the century of Louis XV is a form of historical discrimination that still prevails widely in the history of the art of the Enlightenment.

The Wasteland of William Blake

1947 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-204
Author(s):  
Frank O'Malley
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
William Blake ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modern Mind ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future

The question is: how can you put a prophet in his place when, by the very character of prophecy, he is eternally slipping out of place? William Blake was not an eighteenth century or nineteenth century mind or a typically modern mind at all. What I mean to say, right at the start, is that, although well aware of his time and of time altogether, he was not in tune with the main tendencies of his or our own time. Indeed time was a barrier he was forever crashing against. Blake's talent raved through the world into the fastnesses of die past and dramatically confronted the abysses of the future. His age did not confine him. As a poet he does not seem finally to have had real spiritual or artistic rinship with any of the rationalist or romantic writers of England. As a thinker he came to despise the inadequacy of the limited revolutionary effort of the political rebels of the Romantic Revolution. Blake's name is not to be seen mounted first with that of Paine or Godwin, of Rousseau or Voltaire, of Wordsworth or Shelley or Byron or Keats. With these he has, ultimately, little or nothing in common. At any rate, his voice and mood and impact are thoroughly different from the more publicly successful voices of the period of his life, older and younger generations alike.

From Hospitality to Hostility: Ibadan and Strangers, 1830–1904

1985 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toyin Falola
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Colonial Rule ◽  
Open Door ◽  
Equal Opportunities ◽  
Open Door Policy ◽  
Political Crises ◽  
City State ◽  
The City

The view that Ibadan society in the nineteenth century did not discriminate against strangers, irrespective of their origins in Yorubaland, is now firmly entrenched in the literature. To be sure, Ibadan, a new nineteenth-century Yoruba city-state, founded as a consequence of the political crises of the early decades of the century, did maintain an ‘open door’ policy to strangers, many of whom went there as adventurers, craftsmen and traders, hoping to acquire wealth and fame. This article, however, controverts the view that Ibadan society gave the strangers and the indigenes equal opportunities to wealth and power. It argues that all the key political offices went only to the Oyo-Ibadan group which dominated the city-state. Strangers were also not allowed to participate fully in the leading heights of the economy, with the result that most of the wealthy citizens were also of Oyo-Yoruba origin.In the 1890s discrimination against strangers was such that a number of moves were made to expel them. However, the British, who imposed colonial rule on Ibadan in 1893, were against the expulsion of strangers.

BLAINVILLE'S NEW MODE, OR HOW THE PLAGAL CADENCE CAME TO BE ‘PLAGAL’

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-90
Author(s):  
CALEB MUTCH
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Mixed Mode ◽  
Musical Discourse ◽  
And Function ◽  
Mode A ◽  
As If

ABSTRACTThe plagal cadence has long been a significant concept within musical discourse, but that discourse contains no convincing explanation of why the progression should be characterized as ‘plagal’. This article elucidates the meaning of the term ‘plagal cadence’ by examining its introduction into a mid-eighteenth-century Parisian debate over the nature of what would come to be called tonality instigated by Charles-Henri de Blainville's proposal of the ‘mixed mode’, a supplement to the major and minor modes. Owing to the properties of his new mode's scale, which corresponds to the Phrygian mode, Blainville identified the plagal cadence as the proper conclusion for pieces in the mixed mode. Curiously, although Blainville's work appears to contain the first published articulation of the term, he employs it as if his readers were already familiar with the ‘plagal cadence’. This article explains that oddity, finding that Blainville misread earlier accounts of plainchant as saying that plagal modes were characterized by the interval of the descending fourth. In conclusion, consideration of the controversy regarding the mixed mode and plagal cadence reveals that those historical disagreements bear striking similarities to current debates over the significance and function of the plagal cadence in theories of harmony.

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