Montaigne on Curiosity

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zahi Zalloua
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Loaded Term ◽  
Elusive Concept ◽  
Careful Assessment

Curiosity for Montaigne is an elusive concept. As a Renaissance author, Montaigne inherits a long and multifaceted critical discourse on the question of curiosity. His reflections on this religiously and philosophically loaded term require careful assessment. This chapter first contextualizes Montaigne’s attitude toward curiosity by looking briefly at the mixed reception of curiosity in ancient and medieval discourses before turning to how early modern figures conceived of curiosity as, in large part, a danger to humanist, religious, and/or philosophical ideals of the period. It will then turn to Montaigne’s musings on curiosity, showing how his essaying, or essayistic doing, puts the author paradoxically at odds with his own dismissive remarks, or constative description, of curiosity. The essay form—a form that illustrates and enacts a curious will or “spirited mind”—will also be considered in the discussion of Montaigne’s transvaluation of curiosity.

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Gavin Alexander ◽  
Emma Gilby ◽  
Alexander Marr
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Visual Art ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Introductory Essay

The essays in this volume locate early modern criticism in some of its many geographical, institutional, commercial, social, disciplinary, discursive, conceptual, lexical, textual, and visual locations. ‘Criticism’ is taken in both more general and more specific senses, encompassing various modalities of thinking, talking, and writing about literature and visual art. The volume places the term ‘criticism’ in its various early modern contexts, and identifies key ‘critical’ concepts, terms, practices, discourses, and kinds of text or image that played an important role in the development, across the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, of thinking about literature and visual art. This introductory essay looks at the origins and scope of early modern criticism, at the range of its sites and kinds, and at some particular places and moments that saw distinct and significant developments in critical discourse.

Exclusion Crises: Poverty, Migration and Parochial Responsibility in English Rural Communities, c. 1560–1660

Rural History ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Hindle
Keyword(s):  
Rural Communities ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
Value Judgements ◽  
Elusive Concept

‘Community’ is ubiquitous in the historiography of early modern England. Although the term is almost universally employed and appealed to, however, its meaning remains controversial, and its use by historians much criticised. Part of the difficulty lies in the fact that the very concept of ‘community’ is not the creation of modern social scientists: its origins lie in traditional notions of communitas, that quality of oneness claimed by mediaeval associations of various kinds. Consequently, modern historians and sociologists tend to agree only on two issues: first, that ‘community’ implies geographical propinquity, common ties, and focused interaction between and amongst its members; and second, that these characteristics have generally undergone a historical process of decline or disintegration. Rather vaguely-defined as this common ground is, it is sufficiently clear to render modern users of the term vulnerable in turn to two criticisms in particular. It is argued, first, that the mythic status of community begs both historical and sociological questions, relying merely on untested assumptions; and, second, that the strongly emotive overtones and inherent value judgements of such a nostalgic term introduce confusing elements of normative prescription to social-historical analysis. From this perspective, community is not only an elusive concept but also a flawed ideal, and calls for its abandonment have increased.

Hugo Grotius in Dialogue with His Colleagues

Grotiana ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 148-175
Author(s):  
Lydia Janssen
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
Image Building ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Insight Into

In his Historia Gotthorum (1655), Hugo Grotius set up a Swedish ‘Gothic myth’, a powerful historiographical construct aimed at increasing Swedish prestige by identifying the ancient Swedish as the forebears of the late antique Goths, Vandals and Lombards. Entering into dialogue with fellow historiographers was vital to this venture. The ‘Prolegomena’ to Historia Gotthorum are accordingly marked by an extensive polemical dimension. A critical discourse analysis of both explicit and hidden polemics in this text reveals a clever combination of scholarly argumentation on the basis of historical evidence and strategic image-building to convince the reader. Furthermore, Grotius regularly drew on the works of contemporary colleagues for his historical evidence. The present article sheds light on the various argumentation strategies deployed in the ‘Prolegomena’ to Historia Gotthorum and the role of early modern historiographical texts as treasure troves of historical knowledge. This not only offers further insight into Grotius’s historiographical practice, but also provides an excellent example of how early modern historical writers interacted with the texts of their immediate colleagues.

Infantilizing Bābā Dārā: The Cultural Memory of Dārā Shekuh and the Mughal Public Sphere

2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajeev Kinra
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Cultural Memory ◽  
Tipping Point ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Cultural Legacy ◽  
Indian Nation

AbstractThe modernist image of the eclectic Mughal prince and patron, Dārā Shekuh (d. 1659 CE), has been almost universally positive, routinely singling him out as an exceptionally tolerant, but ultimately “ill-fated” figure. His defeat and execution by his younger, more conventionally pious brother, Awrangzib 'Alamgīr (r. 1658-1707), is in turn lamented as a civilizational tipping point away from the Mughals' cosmopolitan ethos of “peace with all” toward a more narrowly sectarian vision of empire—one which undermined not only the Mughals themselves, but also the entire Indo-Persian ecumene and, ultimately, the Indian nation. The early modern response to Dārā's character and cultural legacy was, however, far more complex than this caricature of “good Muslim” tolerance versus “bad Muslim” fanaticism would suggest. This article grapples with that complexity by examining the oblique critical discourse surrounding three of Dārā's most well-known interlocutors: Bābā Lāl Dayāl, Chandar Bhān “Brahman,” and Hakīm Sarmad.

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