The Making of a Man of Letters: The Backstage and Afterlife of Paul Rapin Thoyras’ Histoire d’Angleterre

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 314-347
Author(s):  
Miriam Franchina
Keyword(s):  
Self Presentation ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Scholarly Community ◽  
The World ◽  
The Republic

The significance of Paul Rapin Thoyras’s Histoire d’Angleterre (1724–1727) has been widely recognized, and yet little is known about the circumstances which brought it about. This article looks behind the scenes of its production, revealing the Histoire to be the culmination of Rapin’s self-presentation as an homme de lettres. It presents Rapin’s interaction and ensuing dispute with his intended publisher (Thomas Johnson), his contributions to Jean Le Clerc’s journals and his management of anonymity and publicity as strategies to gain acceptance and advancement within the Republic of Letters. The case study sheds light on the discourses of self-description of the scholarly community, highlighting the controversial relationship it entertained with the world of print.

Refraction and recognition

Target ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rainier Grutman
Keyword(s):  
Relative Position ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Cultural Practice ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
The World ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Minority Writers ◽  
Multilingual Literature

Texts foregrounding different languages pose unusual challenges for translators and translation scholars alike. This article seeks to provide some insights into what happens to multilingual literature in translation. First, Antoine Berman’s writings on translation are used to reframe questions of semantic loss in terms of the ideological underpinnings of translation as a cultural practice. This leads to a wider consideration of contextual aspects involved in the “refraction” of foreign languages, such as the translating literature’s relative position in the “World Republic of Letters” (Casanova). Drawing on a Canadian case-study (Marie-Claire Blais in English translation), it is suggested that asymmetrical relations between dominating and dominated literatures need not be negative per se, but can lead to the recognition of minority writers.

scholarly journals Afterlives of the Republic of Letters: Learned Journals and Scholarly Community in the Early Nineteenth Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-116
Author(s):  
Floris Solleveld
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Scholarly Community ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Changing Role

Abstract What happened to the Republic of Letters? Its history seems to stop at the end of the eighteenth century. And yet, in the nineteenth century, there still existed a community gathered in scholarly societies, maintaining a transnational correspondence network and filling learned journals. The term indeed becomes less frequent, but does not go entirely out of use. This article traces the afterlives of the Republic of Letters in the early nineteenth century. Specifically, it investigates texts that attempt to (re)define the Republic of Letters or a cognate, the wider diffusion of the term, and the changing role of learned journals in that period. While most attempts to reinvent the Republic of Letters failed miserably, they indicate a diagnosis of the state of learning and the position of scholars in a period of transition, and in doing so they contradict an ‘unpolitical’ conception of the Republic of Letters.

Circles of Confidence in Correspondence

Nuncius ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles van den Heuvel ◽  
Scott B. Weingart ◽  
Nils Spelt ◽  
Henk Nellen
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Knowledge Exchange ◽  
Technological Knowledge ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Religious Conflicts ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
The Republic

Science in the early modern world depended on openness in scholarly communication. On the other hand, a web of commercial, political, and religious conflicts required broad measures of secrecy and confidentiality; similar measures were integral to scholarly rivalries and plagiarism. This paper analyzes confidentiality and secrecy in intellectual and technological knowledge exchange via letters and drawings. We argue that existing approaches to understanding knowledge exchange in early modern Europe – which focus on the Republic of Letters as a unified entity of corresponding scholars – can be improved upon by analyzing multilayered networks of communication. We describe a data model to analyze circles of confidence and cultures of secrecy in intellectual and technological knowledge exchanges. Finally, we discuss the outcomes of a first experiment focusing on the question of how personal and professional/official relationships interact with confidentiality and secrecy, based on a case study of the correspondence of Hugo Grotius.

scholarly journals Sending in die kerk: ’n Gevallestudie

1992 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-55
Author(s):  
J. J. Kritzinger
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Dutch Reformed ◽  
Church Members ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
The World ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Church ◽  
Significant Factors

Mission in the church: A case study Based on an enquiry into mission interest in the NG Church. Although there can be no doubt that mission is the essential task to which God called the church into being, to be his witness in the world, the empirical church often shows very little awareness of this. This article relates some results of research done in the Dutch Reformed Church in the Republic of South Africa on the church members’ interest in and involvement with mission. Some of the significant factors influencing the missionary interest of the members were (a) their personal spirituality and activities within the church, (b) their political leanings, and (c) the missionary preaching and enthusiasm of the ministers. A few aspects of the ministry are highlighted as worthy of attention.

scholarly journals “A Rare Pearl Passed from Hand to Hand”

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-277
Author(s):  
Michiel Leezenberg
Keyword(s):  
Literary Field ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Literary Forms ◽  
The World ◽  
National Boundaries

Abstract Pascale Casanova’s notion of the “world republic of letters” systematically transcends national boundaries, as well as the opposition between internalist structural analyses and externalist political reductions, arguing that individual works of literature acquire their meaning only against the background of this transnational literary field with its own, irreducibly literary forms of domination. Yet, I will argue, Casanova’s work is not yet sufficiently transnational and not sufficiently historicizing; specifically, it overlooks non-Western cosmopolitan traditions and premodern vernacularization processes. As a case study, I will discuss the vernacularization of Georgian, Kurdish, and Armenian within the Persianate cosmopolitan, and on the consecration of national epics in these three languages. These examples suggest an approach to the literary field that allows for greater geographical width and historical depth; it also invites us to look for more radical historical variability in the concept of literature itself.

Abascal and the Problem of Letters in Peru, 1806–1816

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mónica Ricketts
Keyword(s):  
Spanish Empire ◽  
Military Officers ◽  
Ideal Case ◽  
Power Struggles ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
The Republic

The focus turns to Peru in this chapter, which offers an ideal case study for understanding the power struggles between the royal military and the republic of letters. One of the most successful military officers and viceroys of the empire, Fernando de Abascal, was vehemently committed to expanding his prerogatives and the military’s, while quashing efforts to implement liberal measures in his jurisdiction. With the support of one of the largest armies of the Spanish Empire, Abascal succeeded in both undertakings. Only a weak liberal opposition developed in Peru, a liberalism mainly concerned not to declare independence from Spain or claim autonomy within the Spanish Empire but to overcome the overwhelming power of the viceroy and his army. Abascal ruled as a virtual military dictator, confirming Liberals’ protests against him and establishing a model for future military caudillos.

Court, Salon and Republic of Letters

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Randall
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Political World ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The World ◽  
The Republic ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
The Ideal

The humanist educational project to educate the elite of Western Europe produced as one of its dizzy successes the application of conversation to the speech and behavior of nobleman at court. This, the development of the ideal of the courtier, took conversation from the leisurely retreat from the ancient political world to the courtly heart of the Renaissance political world. The salons of seventeenth-century France further transformed the conversational tradition of the court: in principle, the conversation of the salons began quietly to set itself to rival the world of oratory, to address itself to the same worldly subject matter. The Republic of Letters provided an alternate social matrix for sermo, scholarly rather than courtly—and one which migrated away from its Ciceronian roots towards the mode of Baylean critique. Where the courtly and scholarly traditions of sermo acted as complementary modes during the Renaissance, the increasing scope of salonnier conversation and the increasing abandonment of sermo by the Republic of Letters set them at odds with one another in the opening of the Enlightenment. Both now harbored universalizing ambitions, which would set these sibling modes to fierce conflict.

What he may seem to the world: Isaac Newton's autograph book epigrams

2020 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-452
Author(s):  
George Gömöri ◽  
Stephen D. Snobelen
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Personal Life ◽  
Social Utility ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
The World ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Scholarly Projects

This paper identifies, describes and analyses Isaac Newton's known inscriptions in alba amicorum (autograph books). It begins with an introduction to the early modern autograph book and its social utility for travelling students. Each Newton inscription is contextualized with brief biographies of the individual album owners. The potential reasons for Newton's use of his chosen epigrams are considered, as are possible reflexive dynamics between him and the album owners that may have helped to inform these choices. An allied consideration is the degree to which Newton's epigrams relate to scholarly projects with which he was engaged when he penned them. A special feature is the identification of the owner of an album from which a Newton inscription was stolen more than half a century ago. This study offers a glimpse of Newton's intellectual reputation across several decades, both on the Continent and in his native England. More broadly, this paper makes contributions to our understanding of Newton's personal life and the strategic use of alba amicorum in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries within the Republic of Letters.

scholarly journals  Toward the rational use of forest biomass: Lithuanian case study

2012 ◽  
Vol 58 (No. 10) ◽  
pp. 465-471 ◽  
Author(s):  
I. Varnagirytė-Kabašinskienė
Keyword(s):  
Forest Ecosystems ◽  
Nutrient Balance ◽  
Forest Biomass ◽  
Wood Ash ◽  
Related Research ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
The World ◽  
Forest Fuel ◽  
The Republic

 This paper contains the information about some principles of sustainable forestry which are still relevant in the world. In 2002, Lithuania started research on the nutrient balance in forest ecosystems when the forest fuel is harvested. The consequences of the intensive forest fuel harvesting on the forest ecosystem were analysed. At the same time, the experiment on the compensatory wood ash fertilizing was established in Lithuania. After the initial calculations, having the experimental data, the Ministry of Environment of the Republic of Lithuania has initiated the preparation of the Recommendations for compensating wood ash fertilization in the forests. This review briefly systematizes and analyses the main results of the related research and some ideas for the future studies are also presented.    

Erasmus and the republic of letters

1999 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Burke
Keyword(s):  
Final Section ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Common Currency ◽  
Republic Of Letters ◽  
Scholarly Community ◽  
Community Or ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Ideal

Erasmus was the first European intellectual to become famous, in the majority of European countries in his own lifetime. He thus illustrates the increasing importance of the international scholarly community or ‘republic of letters’ (respublica litteraria), a phrase which he helped to launch and which was common currency until the age of Voltaire. This article examines the ideal embodied in the phrase and suggests seven ways of testing the extent to which it was translated into practice (invitations to foreign scholars; the internationalization of libraries; correspondence; visits to famous scholars as part of the practice of travel; the album amicorum; the learned society; and the learned journal). A final section discusses the extent to which the republic may be said to have survived until our own day.

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