Starting Points

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikita Mathias
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Grand Tour ◽  
Mass Tourism ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Lisbon Earthquake ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Historical Trajectory ◽  
Modern Mass

The starting point of my historical trajectory (the iconography of the sublime) is the second half of the eighteenth century. This was when the aesthetic appreciation of natural disaster events and the establishment of the sublime as a category of landscape perception became closely intertwined. Mapped out as a dense network of discourses, practices, and cultural phenomena, my analysis of this historical constellation stretches from, among others, seventeenth-century Dutch landscape painting and art academic understandings of the sublime to the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, the Picturesque, and natural scientific discourses to Grand Tour travelers and modern mass tourism.

Everyday Aesthetics and the Experience of the Profound

2020 ◽  
pp. 173-202
Author(s):  
Patrick Fessenbecker
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Formal Analysis ◽  
Literary Interpretation ◽  
Aesthetic Value ◽  
Literary Aesthetics ◽  
Intellectual Content ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
Everyday Aesthetics ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Deep Thought

The oldest arguments justifying formal analysis of literature, of course, grow out of a longer tradition in aesthetics, one having its roots in the development of a theory of the aesthetic in the eighteenth century. Ultimately, to emphasize the content over the form in literary interpretation is to emphasize forms of aesthetic value other than the beautiful and the sublime: to read for the content, and particularly for the intellectual content, is to value a book because it is deep, thought-provoking, and profound. Yet far from ignoring a text’s aesthetic nature, in fact these latter ways of reading offer the possibility for a renewed justification for literary aesthetics, one especially salient given the deep skepticism that formalist accounts of aesthetic value evoke.

scholarly journals THE INNER LIVES OF EARLY MODERN TRAVEL

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 349-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
MARK R. F. WILLIAMS
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Grand Tour ◽  
Cultural Engagement ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Many ◽  
Long Eighteenth Century

AbstractThis article assesses the role of memory, interiority, and intergenerational relations in the framing of early modern experiences and narratives of travel. It adopts as its focus three generations of the Clerk family of Penicuik, Scotland, whose travels through Europe from the mid-seventeenth century onward proved formative in the creation of varied ‘cosmopolitan’ stances within the family. While such widely studied practices as the ‘Grand Tour’ have drawn on discourses of encounter and cultural engagement within the broader narratives of the ‘long’ eighteenth century, this article reveals a family made deeply anxious by the consequences of travel, both during and after the act. Using diaries, manuscript correspondence, memoirs, and material objects, this article reveals the many ways in which travel was fashioned before, during, and long after it was undertaken. By shifting focus away from the act of travel itself and towards its subsequent afterlives, it explores the ways in which these individuals internalized what they experienced in the course of travel, how they reconciled it with the familiar, quotidian world to which they returned, and how the ‘cosmopolitan’ worldviews they brought home were made to inform the generations that followed.

Avenues for Research in Eighteenth-Century Portuguese Overseas History

Itinerario ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-121
Author(s):  
William Donovan
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Gold Rush ◽  
Profound Impact ◽  
Lisbon Earthquake ◽  
Brazilian History

Early modern Luso-Brazilian history is in a rut; and nowhere is that rut more evident than for the period between the late seventeenth century and the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, the period of the Brazilian gold rush. The mineral strikes made a profound impact on Portugal's society and economy: in both what changed and what remained the same. Yet surprisingly, this era remains one of the least studied periods in Portuguese history. There is not, for example, even a modern biography of Dom Joao V, whose forty-five-year reign encompassed the gold rush's most glittering moments. In what follows I will argue that several widespread perceptions of the lack of sources for early modern Luso-Brazilian history are incorrect and in need of substantial revision; and further that some traditional explanations of eighteenth-century economic history have been based on inadequate research more dependent upon ideology than sound scholarship.

scholarly journals Second Nature and the Sonic Sublime

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 178-196
Author(s):  
Miranda Stanyon
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Contemporary Art ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Second Nature ◽  
Michel De Certeau ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
Physical Environments ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Point Of Departure

Like other spaces of the Enlightenment, the sublime was what Michel de Certeau might have called “a practiced place.” Its rhetorical commonplaces, philosophical terrains, and associated physical environments were cultivated, shaped, and framed by human action and habit. But can the sublime—epiphanic, quasi-spiritual, unmasterable, extraordinary—ever really become a habit? Is it possible, even natural, to become habituated to sublimity? Taking as its point of departure the Aristotelian claim that “habit is a second nature,” this article explores the counterintuitive relationship between habit and the sublime. It focuses not on that eighteenth-century “cultivar,” the natural sublime, but on sonic sublimity, exploring on one hand overwhelming sounds, and on the other a conceptualization of sound itself as a sublime phenomenon stretching beyond audibility to fill all space. As this exploration shows, both the sublime and habit were seen as capable of creating a second nature, and prominent writers connected habit, practice, or repetition to the sublime. Equally, however, there are points of friction between the aesthetic of the sublime and philosophies of habit, especially in the idea that habit dulls or removes sensation. This is a prominent idea in Félix Ravaisson's landmark De l'habitude (1838), a text currently enjoying renewed attention, and one that apparently stems from Enlightenment attempts to explain sensation, consciousness, and freedom. Similar concerns inform the eighteenth-century sublime, yet the logic behind the sublime is at odds with the dulling of sensation. The article closes by touching on the reemergence of “second nature” in contemporary art oriented toward the sublime, and on the revisions of Enlightenment nature this involves.

Virtual Cities as Memoryscapes

2020 ◽  
pp. 236-256
Author(s):  
Maria Alexandra ◽  
Gago Da Câmara ◽  
Helena Murteira ◽  
Paulo Simões Rodrigues
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Lisbon Earthquake ◽  
Historical Awareness ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The City ◽  
Determining Factor ◽  
Over Time

The digital re-creation of a past city represents more than a mere depiction of its historical awareness; it also represents its imaginability. In retrospect, the imaginability of the city corresponds to the outcome of various perceptions that we have acquired of it over time, and which currently confers us with a certain degree of accuracy in its readability. The imaginability of the city is therefore a determining factor in virtually re-creating the latter and subsequently converting it into a memoryscape. This theory can be validated by the specific case study of Lisbon, Portugal, which has during the last few years been the subject of at least four projects that sought to virtually re-create the city’s past. Despite presenting themselves distinctively with different technological applications, the four projects held the same starting point; the great Lisbon earthquake of 1755 (a major disruptive event in its history), and were all focused on presenting the cityscape that was lost as a result. Lisbon’s iconography from the sixteenth century to the mid-eighteenth century (drawings, engravings, and paintings) was used as crucial data.

scholarly journals Between Art Academy and Entertainment Culture: Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg, John Martin, and the Sublime

Romantik ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 57
Author(s):  
Nikita Mathias
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Volcanic Eruptions ◽  
Natural Phenomena ◽  
Stage Design ◽  
Visual Mode ◽  
Class Interest ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
The Aesthetic

This article discusses the work and the reception of the artists Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg (1740–1812) and John Martin (1789–1854), both in terms of their engagement with art as an academic discipline and in terms of their relationship to the emergent middle-class interest in the consumption of visual spectacle. A central concern in both respects was the aesthetic category of the sublime, which had been established around the mid-eighteenth century as the primary visual mode of experiencing the force and power of nature. De Loutherbourg successfully recreated sublime spectacles (for example, shipwrecks, volcanic eruptions, waterfalls, avalanches) within academy painting and stage design. Later, he invented the Eidophusikon, a multimedia device that was designed to stage dynamic natural phenomena. The Eidophusikon is thought to have influenced London’s pictorial entertainment circle, which proved inspirational for John Martin around half a century later.

scholarly journals Helen’s semiotic body: ancient and modern representations

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-213
Author(s):  
Konstantinos P. Nikoloutsos
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Female Body ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Edmund Burke ◽  
Physical Vacuum ◽  
Male Gaze ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
Ancient Literature ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
A Site

The paper draws on theoretical work on the representation of the female body as an object of the male gaze in modern narrative, in order to decode and analyze Helen’s portrayal as a physical vacuum in ancient literature. I argue that the negation of Helen’s corporeality emphasizes the semiotic duality of her body, allowing it to be deployed both as a sign and as a site for the inscription of signs. The paper, then, proceeds to show how Helen’s Iliadic depiction has provided the eighteenth-century philosopher Edmund Burke with a rhetorical platform upon which to theorize the aesthetic dichotomy between the beautiful and the sublime. I close my analysis by illustrating how the eclecticism, compromises, and pastiches that inform Helen’s cinematic recreations find a parallel in, and thus perpetuate, ancient pictorial techniques.

scholarly journals Razones poéticas en los umbrales de la Ilustración temprana. Desde los «Fragmentos del ocio»

2017 ◽  
pp. 191
Author(s):  
Pedro Ruiz Pérez
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Literary Field ◽  
Essential Component ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Relationship

RESUMENDesde la segunda mitad del XVII hasta mediados del siglo siguiente se extiende una línea poética que trabaja con elementos persistentes desde la primera fase del barroco, pero con una articulación y un significado en el que se perciben las huellas del cambio. Una de las líneas de esta estética bajobarroca representa un paso en la dirección adoptada después por la poética neoclásica e ilustrada, y puede concretarse en la reordenación de las relaciones entre sentimiento y razón. Este estudio toma como punto de partida el poemario anónimo Fragmentos del ocio (1668, reeditado en 1683), reconocido como de Juan Gaspar Enríquez de Cabrera, y, a partir de un análisis del empleo del término «razón» y su concepto, se apoya en las variantes de una diacronía que lo acerca al siglo XVIII para abordar una proyección de los rasgos observados en la caracterización de la poética bajobarroca. Se destacan como elementos distintivos un novedoso sentido de la inmanencia, la redefinición del lugar social de la poesía y de la posición de su autor y, finalmente, la tendencia a la poesía de circunstancias. Con ellas la sentimentalidad abandona su condición de componente definitorio de la lírica y abre paso a una racionalidad ligada a los nuevos modelos de sociabilidad e ideales expresivos.PALABRAS CLAVEEnríquez de Cabrera, Fragmentos del ocio, razón, bajo barroco, poética, campo literario. ABSTRACTSince the second half of the seventeenth century a poetic current is developed until the middle of the next century, working with persistent elements from the first phase of the Baroque, but with a joint and a meaning where the traces of change are perceived. One line of this bajobarroca aesthetic represents a step in the direction that the neoclassical and illustrated poetry take after, and it may be materialized in the reconstructing of the relationship between feeling and reason. This study takes as its starting point the anonymous book of poetry Fragmentos del ocio (1668, reprinted 1683), whose author was Juan Gaspar Enriquez de Cabrera. From an analysis of the use “reason” and its concept, the study is based in the variants in a diachrony that brings the work near the eighteenth century. So, it is possible to map out the features observed in the characterization of the low baroque poetic. They are outstanding categories a new sense of immanence, the redefinition of the social place of poetry and of position of the author, and, finally, the tendency to the poetry of circumstances. With them, the sentimentality leaves his condition of essential component of lyric and gives way to rationality linked to models  of sociability and expressive ideals.KEYWORDSEnríquez de Cabrera, Fragmentos del ocio, reason, low baroque, poetics, literary field

Anticorruption in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Britain

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Knights
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Eighteenth Century Britain

This chapter takes the premodern divide, which is framed in English historiography as the end of “old corruption,” as the starting point for a long-term overview of anticorruption in Britain and its colonies. Focusing on anticorruption movements, it adds another dimension to the paradox of modernization by showing that although a transition took place in the period between the late-sixteenth century and the nineteenth century, it was by no means a linear one: anticorruption measures to ensure the scrutiny of public accounts could be introduced in the late-seventeenth century, abandoned and then reintroduced later in the eighteenth century. The chapter also argues that there is a relationship between late-sixteenth-century Reformation and eighteenth-century reforms, both of which involved an attack on corruption.

scholarly journals Acerca de las ciudades: la mirada de ayer y de hoy

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 10-23
Author(s):  
Alberto Saldarriaga Roa
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Latin American ◽  
First Century ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Look ◽  
Good And Evil ◽  
Siglo Xx ◽  
The City

Resumen: En el título del artículo: “Acerca de las ciudades: la mirada de ayer y hoy” se intenta describir su contenido y el plano de observación de distintos planteamientos acerca de aquello que se ha entendido y juzgado como ciudad desde la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII hasta el presente. Se asume, como punto de partida, un artículo del historiador austríaco Carl Schorske, en el que se plantea como, desde las últimas décadas del siglo XVII hasta las primeras décadas de siglo XX, se advierten tres modos de mirar las ciudades, bien sea como espacios de virtud, de vicio o de algo “más allá del bien y del mal”. En el texto se afirma que estos tres modos de mirar y juzgar las ciudades han perdurado a todo lo largo del siglo XX y aún en los inicios del siglo XXI. Para ello, se recorren las aproximaciones más significativas a los fenómenos urbanos, en especial a los conceptos de “metrópolis”, “megalópolis” y su secuela, “ecumenópolis” que calificaron las ciudades en razón a su extensión y complejidad. A renglón seguido se da una lectura rápida a los planteamientos del grupo Team X en los que hay crítica a la ciudad funcional y propuestas dirigidas más hacia la experiencia de la ciudad que a unos esquemas abstractos. Se detallan dos propuestas “futuristas”: la del Urbanismo Espacial” de Yona Friedmann y la de la “Arcología” de Paolo Soleri. Y, en una sección aparte, se estudian aproximaciones contemporáneas a las ciudades como espacios de “complejidad, multiculturalidad e información”. Una breve sección propone interrogantes sobre la mirada a la ciudad latinoamericana, a partir de autores como José Luís Romero y Jacques Aprile Gniset. En la bibliografía se da cuenta de los textos consultados. ___Palabras clave: Historia urbana, ciudades, metrópolis, megalópolis, ecumenópolis. ___Abstract: In the title of the article: “About the cities: the look of yesterday and today” is intended to describe its content and the plan of observation of different approaches about what has been understood and judged as a city since the second half of the eighteenth century until the present. As a starting point, an article by the Austrian historian Carl Schorske argues that, from the last decades of the seventeenth century to the first decades of the twentieth century, three ways of looking at cities are seen, either as spaces of virtue, vice or something “beyond good and evil”. The text states that these three ways of looking at and judging cities have lasted throughout the twentieth century and even at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The most significant approaches to urban phenomena, especially the concepts of “metropolis”, “megalopolis” and its sequel, “ecumenopolis”, which cities have been called, are considered because of their extension and complexity. The following section gives a quick reading of the Team X proposals in which there is criticism of the functional city and proposals directed more towards the experience of the city than to abstract schemes. Two “futuristic” proposals are described: “Spatial Urbanism”, by Yona Friedmann and “Arcología”, by Paolo Soleri. In a separate section, contemporary approaches to cities are studied as spaces of “complexity, multiculturality and information”. A brief section proposes questions about the look at the Latin American city, based on authors such as José Luís Romero and Jacques Aprile Gniset. In the bibliography, the texts consulted are reported. ___Keywords: Urban history, cities, metropolis, megalopolis, ecumenopolis. ___Recibido: 13 de julio 2016. Aceptado: 7 de septiembre de 2016.

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