Introduction: entrails and digestion in the eighteenth century

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Rebecca Anne Barr ◽  
Sylvie Kleiman-Lafon ◽  
Sophie Vasset
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Self ◽  
Medical Culture ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Cultural Imaginary ◽  
Scientific Experiments ◽  
The City

This chapter discusses the ideas and themes underpinning the volume, contextualizing the importance of the gastric area in literary and medical culture, and more widely in the cultural imaginary of the eighteenth-century. It discusses the various ways in which stomach disorders, digestive motions, and belly-centred conceptions of the self and society complicate notions of the Enlightenment. Using examples from artisanal diaries, from scientific experiments, and from eighteenth-century novels, the chapter contextualizes and introduces the main themes of the volume: from revolutionary art’s visualizations of the viscera, to carnivalesque scatologies, to medical conceptions of the function of the stomach, and the city as bodily organism.

The Useful Knowledge of William Hutton

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan E. Whyman
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Industrial Change ◽  
Rapid Rise ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Useful Knowledge ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
Literary Fame ◽  
The City

The Useful Knowledge of William Hutton shows the rapid rise of a self-taught workman and of the city of Birmingham during the two major events of the eighteenth century—the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment. Hutton achieved wealth, land, status, and literary fame, but later became a victim of violent riots. The book boldly claims that an understanding of the Industrial Revolution requires engaging with the figure of the ‘rough diamond’, a person of worth and character, but lacking in manners, education, and refinement. A cast of unpolished entrepreneurs is brought to life as they drive economic and social change, and improve their towns and themselves. The book also contends that the rise of Birmingham cannot be understood without accepting that its vibrant cultural life was a crucial factor that spurred economic growth. Readers are plunged into a hidden provincial world marked by literacy, bookshops, printing, authorship, and the spread of useful knowledge. We see that ordinary people read history and wrote poetry, whilst they grappled with the effects of industrial change. Newly discovered memoirs reveal social conflict and relationships in rare detail. They also address problems of social mobility, income inequality, and breathtaking technological change that perplex us today.

The library of Hendrik Gabriël van Gameren, Bishop of Antwerp (1700-75)

Quaerendo ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 258-278
Author(s):  
Anna E. C. Simoni
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Close Friend ◽  
Limited Extent ◽  
Single Track ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Definite Answer ◽  
The City ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractLittle is known of the books belonging to private owners in eighteenth-century Antwerp. This article describes the library of one of the prelates of the city; numerous other studies will have to be published before a reliable overview can be provided. Before he was appointed Bishop of Antwerp in 1758 Hendrik Gabriël van Gameren had been a professor in the Theological Faculty of Louvain University. In this capacity he had, among other things, collaborated on the new edition of 'Duhamel's Bible' (Louvain 1740). Otherwise Van Gameren played no distinguished part in society either as a professor or as a bishop. He was however a close friend of the highest official in the country, Patrice-François de Neny; it seems very probable that he shared the latter's Jansenist convictions. There are two documents which allow us an insight into his collection of books: a printed auction catalogue (Louvain 1775) and the ledger of the Louvain auctioneer-bookseller Jan Frans van Overbeke. The latter organised the auction of Van Gameren's library and carefully noted in a register the names of buyers and the prices obtained. He furthermore indicated which of the titles in the catalogue had really belonged to Van Gameren. These sources disclose that Van Gameren possessed a scholarly library of only limited extent (550 titles) which consisted almost exclusively of theological, church-historical and canon law books. The authors most represented were Karel van den Abeele, J.B. Thiers and Louis Maimbourg. But polemical literature concerning the Jesuit problem and Jansenism was also widely represented. The books were mostly of Southern Netherlandish and French origin. It is further noticeable that they are mostly recent works, especially in Latin or French, far fewer in Dutch. And although the Bishop's exlibris is known, he does not appear to have been a true bibliophile. The limited and single-track nature of the collection and the complete absence of any works in connexion with the Enlightenment lead to the assumption that the Bishop's heirs did not send his complete library to auction. To gain a definite answer to this we would have to dispose of an estate inventory. Regrettably no such document has been preserved.

Saving the Self: Between the Enlightenment and the Deluge

2000 ◽  
Vol 45 (6) ◽  
pp. 657-660
Author(s):  
Mary Gergen
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Enlightenment

Drezno w relacjach polskich osiemnastowiecznych peregrynantów. Rekonesans .

2020 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 26-43
Author(s):  
Marcin Pliszka
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social Life ◽  
The City ◽  
The Way

The article analyses descriptions, memories, and notes on Dresden found in eighteenth-century accounts of Polish travellers. The overarching research objective is to capture the specificity of the way of presenting the city. The ways that Dresden is described are determined by genological diversity of texts, different ways of narration, the use of rhetorical repertoire, and the time of their creation. There are two dominant ways of presenting the city: the first one foregrounds the architectural and historical values, the second one revolves around social life and various kinds of games (redoubts, performances).

NOBILES PAUPERES: VILNIAUS MISIONIERIŲ ŠPITOLĖS GLOBOTINIAI XVIII A.

2018 ◽  
pp. 58-72
Author(s):  
Martynas Jakulis
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Social Status ◽  
First Year ◽  
Mutual Aid ◽  
Mission Hospital ◽  
Charity Hospital ◽  
Social Composition ◽  
Charitable Institution ◽  
The City ◽  
Qualitative Characteristics

In 1695, Jan Teofil Plater and his wife Aleksandra founded a hospital for six impoverished nobles in Vilnius. Situated near the newly built church of the Ascension and the convent of the Congregation of Mission in the Subocz suburb beyond the city walls, this hospital was the first and, until the end of the eighteenth century, the only charitable institution providing care for individuals of particular social status. The article, based on the hospital’s registry book and other sources, examines the quantitative, as well as qualitative characteristics of the institution’s clientele, such as its fluctuations in size, its social composition, and the causes of its inmates’ impoverishment. The research revealed that, despite the demand for care, the overseers managed to maintain a stable number of inmates, rarely admitting more than one or two persons every year, and thus ensuring a steady operation of the hospital (see table 1). However, in contrast with other charitable institutions in Vilnius, the clientele of the Congregation of Mission hospital changed frequently because of expulsions (39.6 percent of all cases) and inmates leaving the hospital on their own initiative (20.1 percent) already in the first year of their stay. The mortality of inmates (27.8 percent) affected the size and turnover of the clientele to a much lesser extent than observed in other hospitals. Although there are no reliable data on the inmates’ age and health, such statistics show that they probably were younger and healthier than the clients of other charitable institutions in Vilnius. Moreover, the Congregation of Mission hospital’s inmates differed from the clients of other institutions in respect of social composition. Impoverished petty nobles, originating mainly from the districts of Lida and Oszmiana, constituted the majority (56.25 percent) of the hospital’s inmates whose social status is noted in the registry book (62.5 percent). The nobles became clients of the Congregation of Mission hospital either because of old age, disability, as well as other accidental causes, or because of increased social vulnerability outside mutual aid networks, comprised of family members, kin or neighbours. The article argues that the foundation of a hospital designated to provide care primarily for impoverished nobles shows that the poverty of nobles was recognized by contemporaries as a social problem that should be tackled. Keywords: poverty, charity, hospital, the Congregation of Mission, Vilnius, nobles, eighteenth century.

TILTAI IR KELTAI KAIP XVIII AMŽIAUS VILNIAUS PAVIETO BAJORŲ TEISINIŲ GINČŲ OBJEKTAI IR NUSIKALTIMŲ ERDVĖS

2018 ◽  
pp. 299-318
Author(s):  
Domininkas Burba
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Common Type ◽  
General Situation ◽  
Small Object ◽  
Violent Crimes ◽  
Rural Space ◽  
Green Bridge ◽  
Violent Conflicts ◽  
The City

Bridges and ferries, as objects of dispute and crime locations among the eighteenth century nobles of Vilnius district, is the main topic of research in this article. Case materials and auxiliary documents from the records of Vilnius district castle and land courts reveal how often bridges are mentioned in the court processes in both violent and non-violent crimes. Research explores what types of violent crimes took place on bridges or ferries most often. It also works on questions of geographic localisation and statistics, discussing general situation of bridges in Vilnius and its neighbouring areas in the eighteenth century. Bridges are regularly mentioned in the books of the eighteenth century Vilnius castle and land courts, albeit most references are not related to conflicts and bridges are mentioned as orientation marks or in reference to location of a real estate object. Both non-violent legal disputes, involving bridges as objects, and violent crimes on the bridges were not in multitude, however non-violent crimes were in smaller numbers. There were seven dispute cases about lands, properties and plots of land where bridges and ferries are mentioned. Non-violent conflicts mostly took place in rural areas of the district, four of them, and three such disputes happened in Vilnius (one on the Green Bridge and two on the bridges over the River Vilnia). Most commonly recorded violent crime on a bridge was beating and, since this was the most common type of crime perpetrated by nobles in the eighteenth century Vilnius district, this trend is logical. A bridge is once mentioned in the record about a raid. In terms of location, more crimes on the bridges took place in the rural space, although this particular space wasn’t dominant, since six crimes were reported in the province and five in the city – two in Vilnius on the Green (Stone) Bridge, two on the bridges over the River Vilnia and one on a ferry near Šnipiškės. Trends in crime locations match general crime tendencies in Vilnius district, where more crimes took place in the rural space than in the urban one. One may guess, that the rare mention of bridges partially testifies to the fact that in the eighteenth century Vilnius district level of communication was not high and there were not too many bridges. On the other hand, when assessing trends in violent crimes in Vilnius district it was revealed that bridge based crimes comprised only one percent of all crimes. Having in mind that bridge is a relatively small object, compared to several different or other urban and rural spaces, this number isn’t that small. Keywords: Vilnius district, castle court, land court, crimes, nobles, peasants, bridges, ferries, passings.

The “New Empire of Common Sense”

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul B. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Joseph Priestley ◽  
Common Sense Philosophy

Although the rise of Scottish common sense philosophy was one of the most important intellectual developments of the Enlightenment, significant gaps remain in our understanding of the reception of Scottish common sense philosophy in the Atlantic world during the second half of the eighteenth century. This chapter focuses on the British context in the period 1764–93, and examines published responses to James Oswald, James Beattie, and, especially, Thomas Reid. The chapter contextualizes the polemics of Joseph Priestley against the three Scots and argues that it was Joseph Berington rather than Priestley who was the first critic to claim that the appeal to common sense was the defining feature of “the Scotch school” of philosophy. It also shows that Reid was widely acknowledged to be the founder and most accomplished exponent of the “school”, whereas Beattie and Oswald were typically dismissed as being derivative thinkers.

Maximus

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Byers
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Action ◽  
American Art ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Self ◽  
Postwar Period ◽  
Avant Garde ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Art Practices ◽  
The One

This concluding chapter charts the continuing significance of the early postwar moment in Olson’s later work, particularly The Maximus Poems. The philosophical and political concerns of the American avant-garde between 1946 and 1951 play out across The Maximus Poems just as they inform later American art practices. The search of the early postwar American independent left for a source of political action rooted in the embodied individual is seen, on the one hand, to have been personified in the figure of Maximus. At the same time, Maximus’s radical ‘practice of the self’ charts a sophisticated alternative to the Enlightenment humanist subject widely critiqued in the United States in the immediate postwar period.

Classical Learning in Britain, France, and the Dutch Republic, 1690-1750

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Floris Verhaart
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
General Point ◽  
Classical Literature ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Literary Value ◽  
Age Of Reason ◽  
Renaissance Humanism ◽  
The Enlightenment

The Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was a moment when scholars and thinkers across Europe reflected on how they saw their relationship with the past, especially classical antiquity. Many readers in the Renaissance had appreciated the writings of ancient Latin and Greek authors not just for their literary value, but also as important sources of information that could be usefully applied in their own age. By the late seventeenth century, however, it was felt that the authority of the ancients was no longer needed and that their knowledge had become outdated thanks to scientific discoveries as well as the new paradigms of rationalism and empiricism. Those working on the ancient past and its literature debated new ways of defending their relevance for society. The different approaches to classical literature defended in these debates explain how the writings of ancient Greece and Rome could become a vital part of eighteenth-century culture and political thinking. Through its analysis of the debates on the value of the classics for the eighteenth century, this book also makes a more general point on the Enlightenment. Although often seen as an age of reason and modernity, the Enlightenment in Europe continuously looked back for inspiration from preceding traditions and ages such as Renaissance humanism and classical antiquity. Finally, the pressure on scholars in the eighteenth century to popularize their work and be seen as contributing to society is a parallel for our own time in which the value of the humanities is a continuous topic of debate.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document