selenak: (Émilie du Chatelet)
[personal profile] selenak
The German Historical Museum in Berlin, the modern building part of which is just behind a baroque building founded by F1, is currently running an exhibition titled "What is Enlightenment? Questions to the 18th Century". Said exhibition features various entries of Frederician interest (and much more of general interest, but I was pressed for time and had to be selective.)

Objects include a Fritz manuscript beta'd by Voltaire and Émilie's Newton translation )

And that's just a small selection of a very good exhibition, the website of which is here.
mildred_of_midgard: (Default)
[personal profile] mildred_of_midgard
Authors: [personal profile] selenak, [personal profile] cahn
Original discussion: https://cahn.dreamwidth.org/200007.html?thread=4252999#cmt4252999

[personal profile] selenak: So, at fail fandom anon, they have this "am I the asshole?" meme where a fictional (usually emotionally clueless) character asks this question in universe. I thought this was made for the Hohenzollern (and many of their social circle), so, here we go:

I, m34, was just trying to look out for my bratty younger sibling, m20 - there's this hot guy, total prick tease, whom the brat is swooning about. I might have said the guy has STD and made fun of his everything, and now the brat isn't talking to me anymore, when I was just being concerned for his health! AITA?

I, f55, always wanted the best for my children, especially when it came to their marriages. Now my oldest daughter looks at me as if I'm a madwoman just because I told her she should treat her new husband like her brother and not have sex with him so we can still annul this wretched marriage she should never have agreed to in the first place! She knows how much this means to me, and yet she betrayed me this way, she should be grateful I'm still talking to her at all! AITA?

I should have known this would happen, but: here I am, making some money on the side while providing heroic beta-reading services and writing my own stuff and defending an unfairly attacked guy against a shitstorm - and what happens? The guy who's been hitting on me for 16 years before I finally agreed to move in with him all of a sudden leads the shitstorm, attacks me while he's at it, burns my latest masterpiece and has me arrested while complaining to all our mutual friends that IATA!!!!!

[personal profile] cahn: Now my oldest daughter looks at me as if I'm a madwoman just because I told her she should treat her new husband like her brother and not have sex with him so we can still annul this wretched marriage she should never have agreed to in the first place!

omg, lol SD! I am going to say, YTABPAC, an acronym I just now made up that means "you're the asshole but possibly also crazy" :) Because when you put it like that...

As for your third one, he got some replies:
(just to be complete, for mildred:
ESH = "Everyone sucks here"
YTA = "You're the asshole"
NTA = "Not the asshole")

RandomRedditAddict
I can't help thinking there are a heck of a lot of missing reasons here. How is that you "should have known" this would happen? It's a little hard to say without more details, but I'm leaning ESH on this one.

MyActualNameIsGreaterThanThis
YTA. RRAddict's post above has a great point, missing reasons galore. Maybe you were really mean and annoying and made fun of this poor guy behind his back, whose only crime was thinking you were amazing?? And, like, are you kidding me, people don't just get arrested for NO REASON. I bet there was totally a reason, like maybe you STOLE his stuff!!

[personal profile] selenak: So here I, m, am, having a long term affair with the love of my life (m), procreating in my marriage (with f), having an affair with a bimbo (f) on the side, and mentoring this guy who has admittedly exciting future job prospects in my non existant spare time - and then that utter bastard first has sex with the bimbo, then, when I complain about it, dumps me as an mentor! I'll never get over it! His mother totally agrees with me, but the jerk still refuses to apologize - I don't need to ask whether AITA, because I know I'm not!

Here I, m64, was, enjoying my retirement as a PRIVATE CITIZEN, mentoring a few promising young people both in my state of residence and state of (former) employement, when it occured to me that takingon one more young fellow as a protegé might result in a general improvement of affairs for a great many people due to the kid's future job prospects. Now I was intensely familiar with people in his future line of work and let me tell you, most of these are jerks, with a lot of people suffering for it. His father was one of the worst. Any improvement there was enough of an incentive to lure me out of my retirement. Now I might have used a few questionable methods at first, but those prostitutes could use the money, so could various male friends in his social circle, and also, the competitition did the same thing. For a while, we seemed to hit it off and he expanded his intellectual horizon by listening to my reading tips, but unfortunately, the combination of other influences and an admittedly ill advised photobombing let to an enstragement. Well, at least I got a golden knob for a walking stick out of it, but when the kid, once on the job, immediately initiated a hostile takeover of the worst type, I couldn't help but wonder: could I have prevented this? was I the asshole there?

I, m, am a good looking career guy who used to be a in a steady relationship with someone in the same profession. Okay, my superior, but not the ultimate boss. (Could have had him, too, back in the day, if I'd wanted.) Now, maybe I was a bit high-handed when treating most of my s.o.'s hangers-on as the parasites they were, but I was just looking out for him! I mean, we've been through years of a high stress situation together, and now that's over, he's dumping me for some younger bit of fluff? Am I supposed to take that lying down?!!!! Of course I raised holy hell, I mean, who wouldn't, and okay, maybe hitting on his wife wasn't the best tactic, but I know he's been wanting to divorce her for eons. Anyway, the point is: I've been transferred to the back of beyond while the himbo got a gorgeous estate, and I still don't know how that happened. AITA?

I, m, really want everyone to be happy, and can't help it if many of them hit on me. I also want a steady job. Somehow, this evolved into a situation where this woman whom I had pay my travelling expenses thinks we'll live together while the guy in whose house I lived is having a fit because I had dinner with her on my last evening in town. But did either of them get me the job I wanted? They did not! So what's to complain about? AITA?

Some years ago I, m, and my long term companion, f, agreed to put our relationship on a non-sexual footing. AT the time, I thought it was a good idea, what with me being often ill and also way older. Since then, however, I discovered that I still can enjoy sex with a different woman. This doesn't impact on my relationship with my long-term companion, right? I mean, since we agreed to go platonic anyway, and I'm still as attracted as ever by her mind? It's just, there's this good looking younger guy hitting on her these days, and it looks like she's attracted to him, and I can't see that going anywhere good, so I said so, and we had an almighty row, especially after she found out about my other relationship. Okay, maybe I shouldn't have said "it's not like we're married" or "ditch the he-man, he's just after your money", but was that a reason for calling me a love rat and an overrated hack?!? AITA?

I, m41, am a loving family man with a strong work ethic and good Christian values. All I want is for my family to share those, especially my oldest son. To that end, I appointed him the best teachers, ensured he's always supervised and thus does not feel neglected, and spared him the awful stupid lessons I had to endure as a kid. Like Latin and ancient history. All I want in return is for him to be exactly like me, is this too much to ask? But no. He keeps grimacing when I'm around, ridicules all I hold dear, keeps lying to me, gets into debts and in general shows every sign of becoming the kind of lazy slob bound to ruin my life's work! So naturally I took counter measures. Some of them might have been drastic, like sending bad influences away and dragging him in front of two armies, but they were for his own good! Anyone could see that! And now the kid has humilated me in front of Europe by trying to run away, even conspiring with my own employes in order to do so. I might have overreacted when telling his mother he was dead, slapping his sister and telling him his mother doesn't care anymore, but I don't think so. It's just, my other kid, who's usually good as gold, now doesn't want to join my favourite profession anymore. AITA?

[personal profile] cahn:

DerAlteD
NTA. Kid should be more grateful. Maybe the problem is that he doesn't really see how much you do for him. I bet more family time would help, bring him to your nights out with the guys or whatever you do for fun. Or find him a nice girl! That's what he needs. Bonus is that your other kid will see all this and realize that the male authority figures really do know best.

pastorb
Depends on what you mean by "bad influences" -- I hope you're not trying to totally cut him off from his friends, that would be YTA territory for sure.

BearsAreNotTheAnswer
YTA. I just feel like if someone wants to run away, then that's your answer right there, you know?
mildred_of_midgard: (Default)
[personal profile] mildred_of_midgard
Author: [personal profile] selenak
Original discussion: https://cahn.dreamwidth.org/184453.html?thread=3221381#cmt3221381

Cast
🤴🏻 Fritz, a King
👨🏻‍💻 Voltaire, a writer
👩🏻‍🎓 Émilie, a lady of science
👨🏻‍🎓 König, a gentleman of science
👨🏻‍🚀 Maupertuis, an explorer, later head of the Academy
👨‍🦱 Fredersdorf, a Consigliere
👩🏻‍🦰 Madame Denis, a niece
👮🏻‍♂️ Freytag, a Prussian resident in Frankfurt
👥 Academy members; later, the rest of Europe
👩🏻‍🦱: Wilhelmine, a sister


Act 1
🤴🏻: 💌 👨🏻‍💻
👨🏻‍💻: 💌 🤴🏻
🤴🏻: 📖📝👐😇❓
👩🏻‍🎓: 🤨🗝❗️
👨🏻‍💻: 🤷🏻‍♂️
🤴🏻: 😣
🤴🏻: 💌🧳🏰❓
👨🏻‍💻: 👩🏻‍🎓❤️👨🏻‍💻🧳❓
🤴🏻: 👨🏻‍💻❗️👩🏻‍🎓❌
👨🏻‍💻: 😶
👩🏻‍🎓: 🤔
👩🏻‍🎓: ⚰️
👨🏻‍💻: 😭
🤴🏻: 🤩🧳🏰❓
👨🏻‍💻: 👣🏰
🤴🏻👨🏻‍💻: 🪢💍

Act 2
👨🏻‍🚀: 🥸👥
👨🏻‍🎓: 🖕
👨🏻‍🚀: 💪🏻🦶🏻👥
👨🏻‍💻: 😈👅👨🏻‍🚀
🤴🏻: ❗️🤐❗️
👨🏻‍💻: 🤥😇; 📝😈
🤴🏻: ⁉️📝🗞
👨🏻‍💻: 🖕🗞📕📗📘👅
👥: 😯
🤴🏻: 💥🔥📚
👨🏻‍💻: 🧳

Act 3
🤴🏻: 📖⁉️🤫
👨‍🦱: ✉️👮🏻‍♂️
👨🏻‍💻👩🏻‍🦰: 🧳🏤
👮🏻‍♂️: ⛓👩🏻‍🦰👨🏻‍💻
👥: 😱
👨🏻‍💻: 🤬📖🔙👮🏻‍♂️
🏤: 💶❗️
👨🏻‍💻: 😤💶✔️
👨🏻‍💻👩🏻‍🦰: 🧳
👨🏻‍💻: 😡💔
🤴🏻: 😡💔

Act 4
🤴🏻: ⚔️🗺😰
👩🏻‍🦱: ✉️ 👨🏻‍💻👐
👨🏻‍💻: ✉️ 😼🤴🏻
🤴🏻: ❗️😍😡📩
👨🏻‍💻: 😍😡📩
👨🏻‍💻🤴🏻: 💌👅💌👅⏳
👥: 🤯
🤴🏻👨🏻‍💻: 😎
mildred_of_midgard: (Default)
[personal profile] mildred_of_midgard
Author: [personal profile] selenak
Original discussion: https://cahn.dreamwidth.org/170895.html?thread=2232463#cmt2232463

[personal profile] cahn's prompt: Clearly Verdi should have written an opera about these people

[personal profile] selenak: Clearly, though I guess none of them getting themselves assassinated deterred him. Though I suppose he could have written an opera about poor SD the older and Königsmarck the murdered lover? But then he'd have run into censorship problems again and would have had to transfer the whole action to the colonies.

Sophia Dorothea of Celle and Königsmarck )

Meanwhile, Fritz/Voltaire/Émilie as written by not Verdi, no, their composer is Rossini.

Fritz/Voltaire/Émilie )
selenak: (Émilie du Chatelet)
[personal profile] selenak
Lauren Gunderson: Emilie. La Marquise du Chatelet defends her life tonight.

Fabulous play, of which I had seen excerpts on Youtube, and which I've finally had the chance to read. Gunderson excells at witty dialogue, she does manage to make the main scientific issues of Émilie's life comprehensible to non-scientists, and while providing ample room for Émilie's love life avoids the trap fall of biopics and bio dramas about female characters, which end up all too often are all about the romance and utterly fail to show what made female character X famous, and what drove her. Not so here. She thanks Judith Zinsser in the preface and mostly follows the outlinesof Zinssers biography, though not so much in the Voltaire characterisation. Her Voltaire is flawed and male ego is a big reason for his clashing with Émiilie re: Newton vs Leipniz and then taking up with Denis, but at the same time, Gunderson's drama does present him as sincerely loving Émilie throughout the story. It helps, of course, that she's a playwright and he's a witty character. (Notable the only one other than Émilie herself who isn't played by the three actors - "Soubrette", "Gentleman", "Madame" - who take over the roles of everyone else at different points in the drama.)


Judith Zinnser: Émilie du Chatelet: Daring genius of the Enlightenment.

Mostly I agree with [personal profile] cahn's take. It's extremely informative and well researched in terms of Émilie and her world, though there's the occasional glitch an editor should/could have spotted, as when Zinsser, reporting on what the Marquis du Chatelet was doing in the 1740s, says he was busy fighting for King and Country in the Austrian War of Succession against "Prussia and England". Prussia was, of course, an ally of France in the Austrian War of Succession, and the Marquis would have been fighting against Austria (and England). (BTW, Austrian Trenck does mention him briefly and approvingly as a worthy opponent when talking about conquering Straßburg.) I learned a few fascinating details unknown to me, like Louise Gottsched (wife of Gottsched the language defender and important Enlightenment figure in her own right) writing about Émilie, which I must remember to check. Zinsser also is good at pointing out several of the anecdotes about Émilie being just that, anecdotes, and unverifiable, and at giving source citations. However, in her laudable zeal of presenting Émilie as her own woman, not Voltaire's love interest, and arguing against all those years of one sided Voltaire idolisation by biographers (that is, by pro Voltaire biographers - he had of course his enemies writing about him from his life time onwards though for reasons having nothing to do with Émilie), I find she ends up going to the other extreme and simply asssuming the worst with just about everything Voltaire ever said about Émilie.

Where Zinnser went over the top )

All this said: the book isn't about Voltaire, nor should it be. It's about Émilie, and very much succeeds in being so.

Robyn Arianrhod: Seduced by logic. Émilie du Chatelet, Mary Sommerville and the Newtonian Revolution.

I've only read the Émilie part of this so far but really like it. Heavy on the scientific side but lucidly written - the author even had the chance to read Émilie's original manuscript of her Principia translation, and describes it - and the description of Émilie's life is neither as romantisizing as Bodanis nor as defensive and feeling in need to rescue Émilie from Voltaire as Zinsser.

Fascinating details and context provided by Arianhrod )

Sidenote: Françoise de Graffigny, her story and her fallout with Émilie and Voltaire from her perspective )

Cahn reviews Arianhod as well )


[personal profile] selenak: This brings me, though, to one thing all the Émilie books agree on without ever poviding citation and quotes to back it up, and which I have to say I must question, to wit: Madame Denis as "eager to please, not talking back, conventionally feminine and either of mediocre intelligence" (the non fiction crowd) or downright stupid (Gunderson). Now, as I said before, I don't doubt that there was something of the cliché of "man in midlife crisis goes for sexy young thing" in the whole Voltaire/Denis relationship starting when it did. But given how Madame Denis appears throughout the rest of Voltaire's life, and given the utter lack of eager to please quotes from her in these books, it seems to me our Émilie biographers approach the question with a pre-formed idea (Émilie was too challenging, ergo he went for a bimbo) and don't bother to back it up. Why do I think that? Not because I see her as a misjudged genius, no. But consider this:

Madame Denis doing her own thing )

Back to the actual books. One thing [personal profile] cahn did not mention, which has nothing to do with Émilie, was Zinsser in her summary of Voltaire's pre-Émilie life and loves springs this on us:

Zinsser: Voltaire was bi because he was molested by Jesuits and/or English aristos! )
selenak: (CourtierLehndorff)
[personal profile] selenak
Being a review/write up of: "Francesco Algarotti: Ein philosophischer Hofmann im Jahrhundert der Aufklärung", edited by Hans Schumacher and Brunhilde Wehinger. (Brunhilde Wehinger also wrote and edited several Émilie-related essays and essay collections.) This is an anthology of essays by different authors on Algarotti's work, covering the entire spectrum - the Newton book, the poetry, the philosphical treatises, the correspondance with Fritz, the Russian travel book - and showcases what a polymath he was. Otoh, there is little biography in it; it's really focused on the work. This said, I found various interesting-to-us things to report.

From A for Art and B for Broccoli to F for Frexit )
mildred_of_midgard: (Default)
[personal profile] mildred_of_midgard
Author: [personal profile] selenak, [personal profile] mildred_of_midgard, [personal profile] cahn
Original discussion: https://cahn.dreamwidth.org/164846.html?thread=1505774#cmt1505774, plus email.

[personal profile] mildred_of_midgard: The AU where Fritz hired Émilie and got inundated with a bunch of numbers. ;)

[personal profile] selenak: 'Tis an AU devoutly to be wished. Though not as much as the one where she gets Prussia in exchange for giving him Voltaire to elope with. (And keeps practicing contraception.)

[personal profile] cahn: I bet she would have got that fountain running :P
selenak: (Voltaire)
[personal profile] selenak
This biography was reccommended to me by [personal profile] shezan after she commented on my Voltaire tale, as "opinionated but never bettered" as far as French Voltaire biographies go. It has nearly a thousand pages, and does qualify as a magnum opus.

Assessment of Jean Orieux as a biographer )

Orieux' general take on Friedrich II )

On to excerpts and interesting (usually new-to-me) details.

Voltaire at school )


Even after havng read through the entire correspondance as published, Orieux still had some new or partially new to me juicy quotes from Fritz, Voltaire and Émilie about the Franco-Prussian dangerous liasons.

You will admit this is a pretty rivalry we have )

So much for the first two decades. On to the next two, i.e. the fallout of the acrimonious divorce between King and writer.

How to understand this change of heart? )

While a lot of the drama in Voltaire's life was about literature, feuding with people, and various campaigns for justice, a considerable part was also about money, Voltaire being one of the few writers of his or any other age with a solid buisiness sense. Unsurprisingly, one chapter is titled "Let's Talk About Money". Orieux gives an example of Voltaire the early modern Capitalist. "Gget wealthy" had been an early goal just as "become the greatest writer of the age" had been.

Where Voltaire got his considerable income from (not from his writings) )

But of course, had Voltaire been just a good writer with a good (and at times shady) nose for business, the French wouldn't, to this day, refer to his era as "the age of Voltaire". Orieux covers the way Voltaire basically invented the idea of the modern French intellectual extensively. Two examples of this will do.

First, here's a great example of Voltaire's mixture of business sense, PR sense, artistic sensibility and generosity at their best (i.e. the light side counterpart to such stunts as those he pulled off in Prussia).

The story of Mademoiselle Corneille )

And of course, the most famous of all campaigns-for-greater-justice Voltailre ever conducted:

The Calas Affair )

As Orieux put it: of course there had been numerous show trials and murders by law before Calas. But until this affair, whoever was declared guilty, remained guilty. (Except for Jeanne d'Arc, but that was a very special case.) A victim once condemned remained condemned. The concept of the judicative being held to account for abuse, of a normal citizen's name being cleared, this was new. As was the idea of a publicity campaign for this goal, and intellectuals weighing or even spearheading the campaign; this was more than a century before Emile Zola and the Dreyfus affair.

Finally, the conclusion Orieux arrived at about Voltaire, which he put right in the preface, where he explains why he devoted six years of his life to writing this biography:

This man without a God believed in human beings - without too many illusions. )

Cahn reviews Orieux as well )
selenak: (City - KathyH)
[personal profile] selenak
Given that no matter in which part of the world we're residing, we're currently more or less stuck and unable to travel for the immediate future, I thought I would enable some travelling via vids. There are some beautiful vids online showing several of the locations the historical characters we're talking about have spent much of their time at. Here are some for you to enjoy, starting of course with Sanssouci.

Sanssouci from above, below and inside )

One of the many qualities Friedrich and his sister Wilhelmine shared was a taste in architecture. Wilhelmine, despite having rather less of a budget at her disposal, nonetheless left us one of the most beautiful opera houses in Germany, her own version of Sanssouci, the Eremitage near Bayreuth, and after the town residence of the Margraves of Bayreuth had burned down (with her and the Margrave inside it; they were lucky to get out alive), the Neues Schloss, the new city residence. The creators of the vids showing all these use music Wilhelmine herself composed to go with the videos.

Heritage of a Rococo Princess: Bayreuth before Wagner )

One of the reasons why movies or tv shows supposedly taking place at 18th century Vienna usually were filmed in Prague, starting with Amadeus in the 80s, is that Vienna has such a lot of post 18th century additions to most of its older preserved buildings and streets. However, this video focuses on the parts Maria Theresia's residence, the palace and gardens of Schönbrunn, that are preserved from her time. Here's where Friedrich's best enemy lived, with commentary in English:

Maria Theresia's Schönbrunn )

And lastly, I've found some great vids showing Cirey, home of Émilie du Chatelet and Voltaire during some of the most creative years of their respective lives:

Cirey: Still an Earthly Paradise )
selenak: (Obsession by Eirena)
[personal profile] selenak
While historians and contemporaries alike have questioned the general reliability for many a Frederician era memoirist - Pöllnitz, Wihelmine, Thièbault, Bielfeld - for various reasons (personal agenda, lack of access to archives for countercheckijng and hence reliance on faulty memory, etc.). Someone who usually escapes this kind of scepticism and whose memoirs in the biographies we've read get quoted without the slightest bit of doubt is Henri de Catt, decades-long lector to Fritz until their fallout in the early 1780s. Now, Catt's memoirs, focusing on the 7 Years War, during which time he started his work for Friedrich II., are based on a journal he kept during that time.

[personal profile] mildred_of_midgard did not only unearth a copy for the memoirs, but of the diary, published in 1884 (i.e. about a century after its author died) in the original langage (mostly French, we'll get to what else later) with a German preface. Imagine our collective surprise when the preface, comparing Catt's actual notes with what he wrote in the memoirs later, revealed Henri de Catt to have been, shall we say, somewhat economic with the truth.

How to beef up a war time journal to memoirs more than twice that size, or: Henri de Catt, historical novelist )

Before we get to actual diary quotes, here's [personal profile] mildred_of_midgard on the language Henri de Catt's journal is written in:

Elvish runes are nothing by comparison )

Good thing then, I suppose, your faithful gossipy sensationalists were taught Latin (unlike Fritz). On to De Catt: The Diary version. Featuring, sadly, not a single mention of Katte, but a good deal of highly interesting quotes including Fritz taking a break from 18th century misogony to champion the female right to have extramarital sex if their husbands cheat on them first, and a refreshingly epitepth free assessment of his best enemy, Maria Theresia; morever, I have a theory as to where Catt's description of one particular 1730 episode, which in the memoirs he gives to Fritz but in the diary hears during his weeks with Heinrich's army comes from.

Henri de Catt Unplugged )
mildred_of_midgard: Émilie Du Châtelet reading a book (Émilie)
[personal profile] mildred_of_midgard
Write-up by [personal profile] mildred_of_midgard of David Bodanis' Passionate Minds, about the life and times of Émilie du Châtelet and Voltaire and their love affair. Ends with Émilie's death.

It's a highly romanticizing view of Émilie and Voltaire, and is so uninformed about the Voltaire and Fritz interactions that it's not even funny, but contains some good material on Émilie.

Passionate Minds )

Two write-ups by [personal profile] cahn of Judith Zinsser's Émilie Du Châtelet: Daring Genius of the Enlightenment.

1) General thoughts.

Daring Genius: General thoughts )

2) Comparative synopsis of both books.

In the following synopsis, "Bodanis" will generally speaking be quotes from mildred's excellent writeup of Bodanis' book :) When I am giving my own opinions (as opposed to what I think are Zinsser's opinions), I will either indicate that it's me, cahn, speaking, or put it in square brackets :)

Daring Genius: Synopsis )

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