scholarly journals Early Modern Views on Language and Languages (ca. 1450–1800)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toon Van Hal
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Language Education ◽  
The Political ◽  
Central Theme ◽  
Port Royal ◽  
Missionary Zeal ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Modern Process ◽  
Philosophical Debates

The Early Modern interest taken in language was intense and versatile. In this period, language education gradually no longer centered solely on Latin. The linguistic scope widened considerably, partly as a result of scholarly curiosity, although religious and missionary zeal, commercial considerations, and political motives were also of decisive significance. Statesmen discovered the political power of standardized vernaculars in the typically Early Modern process of state formation. The widening of the linguistic horizon was, first and foremost, reflected in a steadily increasing production of grammars and dictionaries, along with pocket textbooks, conversational manuals, and spelling treatises. One strategy of coping with the stunning linguistic diversity consisted of first collecting data on as many languages as possible and then tracing elements that were common to all or to certain groups of languages. Language comparison was not limited to historical and genealogical endeavors, as scholars started also to compare a number of languages in terms of their alleged vices and qualities. Another way of dealing with the flood of linguistic data consisted of focusing on what the different languages had in common, which led to the development of general grammars, of which the 17th-century Port-Royal grammar is the most well-known. During the Enlightenment, the nature of language and its cognitive merits or vices became also a central theme in philosophical debates in which major thinkers were actively engaged.

How Did Spinoza Declare War on Theology and Theologians?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Israel
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Science And Religion ◽  
The Political ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Early Modern History ◽  
Authorial Intention ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Reason And Faith ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Supernatural Agency

Israel argues that Spinoza’s biblical criticism revolutionized the discipline by combining a historical-critical approach with a philosophical demonstration. It eradicated supernatural agency and miracles from the historical process. Spinoza’s new hermeneutics scrupulously distinguished authorial intention from truth of fact. Taken together with his philosophical naturalism, this challenged the essential reconcilability of reason and faith, of science and religion, which was to become the groundwork of the edifice of the Enlightenment erected by Locke, Newton, Leibniz, and Wolff. Thus Spinozism undermined the claim that theology, science, and philosophy form a single harmonious whole. Standard accounts of the Enlightenment and early modern history fail to grasp the full scope of Spinoza’s critique of religion. Ironically, Spinozism became the intellectual origin of a revolutionary consciousness that threatened the political and religious state of affairs because it was publicized and reinforced by apologetic eighteenth-century observers, who excoriated Spinoza’s legacy.

Fénelon

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
English Language ◽  
French History ◽  
Political Resistance ◽  
Louis Xiv ◽  
Education Literature ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Anglophone World ◽  
Philosophical Debates

Fénelon may be the most neglected of all the major early modern philosophers. His political masterwork was the most-read book in eighteenth-century France after the Bible, yet today even specialists rarely engage his work directly. This problem is particularly acute in the Anglophone world, for while Fénelon’s works have been published in several excellent modern French editions, only the smallest fraction of his vast and influential corpus has appeared in modern English translation. This volume aims to help remedy this by bringing to English-language audiences the first collection of his moral and political writings in translation. By so doing it hopes to make more widely available the riches of one of the leading voices of resistance to the absolutism of Louis XIV. Fénelon’s political thought will thus be of particular interest to students and scholars of French history, as well as to those today engaged in questions of political resistance and reform. But Fénelon’s reach also extends to fields well beyond politics and ethics. In the Enlightenment, Fénelon came to be celebrated not only as a humanitarian political reformer but also as a pioneering theorist of education, a prescient student of economics and international relations, and a key voice in contemporary philosophical debates—not to mention his fame as one of the seventeenth-century’s most preeminent theologians and spiritualists and masters of French prose. As such, his work will be of interest to students and scholars in fields ranging from philosophy and political science to economics, education, literature, French history, and religion.

Enlightenment

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Munck
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
The Political ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Ancien Régime ◽  
The French Revolution

The Enlightenment, as a historical term, is intimately linked to the Ancien Régime: both describe historical constructs that once seemed more French than European, at least in origin, and although the term “Ancien Régime” acquired its meaning only in retrospect (from the perspective of 1790), both were originally used by historians to denote something which had come to an end by 1789. The Enlightenment was the intellectually innovative and emancipatory process which, depending on the definition of the Ancien Régime itself, either modernized the political and social structures of the early modern state, or helped to undermine it and to precipitate the upheaval of the French Revolution.

“I'd make thee eat the mischief thou hast vented”: Discourse of Law in Ben Jonson's Catiline His Conspiracy

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-45
Author(s):  
Akihiko Shimizu
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Legal Discourse ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Of Emergency ◽  
Gunpowder Plot ◽  
Effective Use ◽  
Legal Procedures ◽  
The Way

This essay explores the discourse of law that constitutes the controversial apprehension of Cicero's issuing of the ultimate decree of the Senate (senatus consultum ultimum) in Catiline. The play juxtaposes the struggle of Cicero, whose moral character and legitimacy are at stake in regards to the extra-legal uses of espionage, with the supposedly mischievous Catilinarians who appear to observe legal procedures more carefully throughout their plot. To mitigate this ambivalence, the play defends Cicero's actions by depicting the way in which Cicero establishes the rhetoric of public counsel to convince the citizens of his legitimacy in his unprecedented dealing with Catiline. To understand the contemporaneousness of Catiline, I will explore the way the play integrates the early modern discourses of counsel and the legal maxim of ‘better to suffer an inconvenience than mischief,’ suggesting Jonson's subtle sensibility towards King James's legal reformation which aimed to establish and deploy monarchical authority in the state of emergency (such as the Gunpowder Plot of 1605). The play's climactic trial scene highlights the display of the collected evidence, such as hand-written letters and the testimonies obtained through Cicero's spies, the Allbroges, as proof of Catiline's mischievous character. I argue that the tactical negotiating skills of the virtuous and vicious characters rely heavily on the effective use of rhetoric exemplified by both the political discourse of classical Rome and the legal discourse of Tudor and Jacobean England.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Randall
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Fine Arts ◽  
James Madison ◽  
Modern Conception ◽  
Political World ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Constitutional Thought

The changed conception of conversation that emerged by c.1700 was about to expand its scope enormously – to the broad culture of Enlightenment Europe, to the fine arts, to philosophy and into the broad political world, both via the conception of public opinion and via the constitutional thought of James Madison (1751–1836). In the Enlightenment, the early modern conception of conversation would expand into a whole wing of Enlightenment thought. The intellectual history of the heirs of Cicero and Petrarch would become the practice of millions and the constitutional architecture of a great republic....

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas I. Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
First Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Michel De Montaigne ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Northern European ◽  
Political Conception ◽  
Legal Principle ◽  
Ethical Disposition

In academic debates and popular political discourse, tolerance almost invariably refers either to an individual moral or ethical disposition or to a constitutional legal principle. However, for the political actors and ordinary residents of early modern Northern European countries torn apart by religious civil war, tolerance was a political capacity, an ability to talk to one’s religious and political opponents in order to negotiate civil peace and other crucial public goods. This book tells the story of perhaps the greatest historical theorist-practitioner of this political conception of tolerance: Michel de Montaigne. This introductory chapter argues that a Montaignian insistence that political opponents enter into productive dialogue with each other is worth reviving and promoting in the increasingly polarized democratic polities of the twenty-first century.

The Folly of the Cross

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Viladesau
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Theology Of The Cross ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Modern Thought ◽  
Fourth Volume ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Satisfaction Model

This work surveys the ways in which theologians, artists, and composers of the early modern period dealt with the passion and death of Christ. The fourth volume in a series, it locates the theology of the cross in the context of modern thought, beginning with the Enlightenment, which challenged traditional Christian notions of salvation and of Christ himself. It shows how new models of salvation were proposed by liberal theology, replacing the older “satisfaction” model with theories of Christ as bringer of God’s spirit and as social revolutionary. It shows how the arts during this period both preserved the classical tradition and responded to innovations in theology and in style.

Stuart Succession Literature

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
British Literature ◽  
The Political ◽  
Literature And Politics ◽  
Distinct Category ◽  
Political Structures ◽  
Distinguished Group ◽  
Modern British Literature

Moments of royal succession, which punctuated the Stuart era (1603–1714), occasioned outpourings of literature. Writers, including most of the major figures of the seventeenth century from Jonson, Daniel, and Donne to Marvell, Dryden, and Behn, seized upon these occasions to mark the transition of power; to reflect upon the political structures and values of their nation; and to present themselves as authors worthy of patronage and recognition. This volume of essays explores this important category of early modern writing. It contends that succession literature warrants attention as a distinct category: appreciated by contemporaries, acknowledged by a number of scholars, but never investigated in a coherent and methodical manner, it helped to shape political reputations and values across the period. Benefiting from the unique database of such writing generated by the AHRC-funded Stuart Successions Project, the volume brings together a distinguished group of authors to address a subject which is of wide and growing interest to students both of history and of literature. It illuminates the relation between literature and politics in this pivotal century of English political and cultural history. Interdisciplinary in scope, the volume will be indispensable to scholars of early modern British literature and history as well as undergraduates and postgraduates in both fields.

Intertheatricality and Propaganda

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurence Publicover
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Real World ◽  
The Political ◽  
Merchant Of Venice ◽  
The Merchant Of Venice ◽  
Political Background ◽  
Controversial Nature

This chapter analyses the ways in which the collaborative drama The Travels of the Three English Brothers defends the Sherley brothers’ real-world political endeavours across Europe and Persia through its intertheatrical negotiations. Explaining the political background of those endeavours and their controversial nature, it illustrates how the playwrights liken the Sherleys to the heroes of dramas that had been popular on the early modern stage over the preceding twenty years, in particular Tamburlaine and The Merchant of Venice. It also examines the significance of Francis Beaumont’s specific parody, in The Knight of the Burning Pestle, of an episode in Travels in which the Persian Sophy acts as godfather to the child of Robert Sherley. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the role of playing companies in shaping dramatic output.

The Progresses, Processions, and Royal Entries of King Charles I, 1625-1642

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siobhan Keenan
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
Archival Research ◽  
Public Display ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
Charles I ◽  
King Charles I

The Progresses, Processions, and Royal Entries of King Charles I, 1625–1642 is the first book-length study of the history, and the political and cultural significance, of the progresses, public processions, and royal entries of Charles I. As well as offering a much fuller account of the king’s progresses and progress entertainments than currently exists, this study throws new light on one of the most vexed topics in early Stuart historiography—the question of Charles I’s accessibility to his subjects and their concerns, and the part that this may, or may not, have played in the conflicts which culminated in the English civil wars and Charles’s overthrow. Drawing on extensive archival research, the book opens with an introduction to the early modern culture of royal progresses and public ceremonial as inherited and practised by Charles I. Part I explores the question of the king’s accessibility and engagement with his subjects further through case studies of Charles’s ‘great’ progresses in 1633, 1634, and 1636. Part II turns attention to royal public ceremonial culture in Caroline London, focusing on Charles’s royal entry on 25 November 1641. More widely travelled than his ancestors, Progresses reveals a monarch who was only too well aware of the value of public ceremonial and who did not eschew it, even if he was not always willing to engage in ceremonial dialogue with his people or able to deploy the power of public display to curry support for his policies as successfully as his Tudor and Stuart predecessors.

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