voltaire foundation gb (631 risultati)

Paperback. Condizione: New.

Paperback. Condizione: New.

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Paperback. Condizione: New. Revised edition.

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Paperback. Condizione: VG. 1st Edition. Very clean tight etxt but some cover wear.

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Paperback. Condizione: New.

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Paperback. Condizione: New. The purpose of this study is to assess the importance of Switzerland in the life and writings of Edward Gibbon. Whereas the choice of Lausanne as a place of exile for Gibbon to undo his youthful conversion to Roman Catholicism was largely accidental, the society and intellectual resources of that city, perched on its hills overlooking the shores of Lake Geneva, proved to be of lasting influence for the rest of his life. During his period of exile, he began to write in French his first work to be published, the Essai sur l'étude de la littérature, and the subject of Switzerland was his preferred choice of research until his Grand Tour, in which he renewed his residence in Lausanne for a further eleven months, stimulated the idea of writing a history of Rome. Eventually he decided to retire to Lausanne at the end of his parliamentary career to finish the last three volumes of The Decline and fall of the Roman Empire.Brian Norman shows that the liberalism of Gibbon's political philosophy in his criticism of Lausanne's subjection to the aristocratic rule of Berne surprised the patriots of the new canton of Vaud when his Letter on the Government of Berne, which is here established as a youthful work of the late 1750s, was posthumously published at the end of the eighteenth century.The author then proceeds to examine Gibbon's other early writings relating to Switzerland, his letters and journals, The Decline and fall of the Roman Empire and his Memoirs in order to show the abiding effect of the society, language, history, constitution and military organisation of Switzerland on his beliefs and assumptions.

Hardback. Condizione: New. This study illustrates the significance of Jean-Jacques Dortous de Mairan's networking in the spread of Enlightenment thought. It focuses primarily on the unpublished correspondence between Mairan and the Geneva scientists, Firmin Abauzit, Gabriel Cramer, Jean Jallabert and Charles Bonnet. Mairan was an assiduous correspondent whose letters reveal the progress of scientific thought in the first three quarters of the eighteenth century. Despite the high regard in which of his contemporaries, he has been, until recently, relatively neglected by Enlightenment scholars. This is the first full-length study devoted to Mairan's relations with scientists in other countries, to the process of cross-fertilisation in the production of scientific knowledge, and to his considerable influence on the development of scientific thought on key issues. The topics covered in the letters range from the Shape of the Earth and vis vivacontroversies and the medical powers of electricity, to the nature of the Seichesin the Lac du Léman and the origin of monsters. One of the major interests of the correspondence is Mairan's obvious fascination with Newton. Neglect of his contribution to the history of ideas can be partly explained by the fact that he was unfairly considered a 'last-ditch' Cartesian in a triumphantly Newtonian world. The detailed analysis of the letters in this study amply shows a constant preoccupation with both the Opticks and the Principiaand a fairly sophisticated understanding of scientific method. The letters abound in references to other scientists, such as the Bernoullis, Nollet, Dufay and Maupertuis. They provide an exciting, unguarded and 'behind-the-scenes' view of scientific developments before they were finalised and appeared in published works. It is particularly revealing, therefore, to compare the letters to Mairan's contributions to the Mémoires de l'Académie royale des sciences, his early dissertations, and his mature works. Mairan's unpublished correspondence with Geneva scientists is a treasure-house of information on personalities, ideas and controversies of crucial importance to the international scientific community from 1717 to 1769.

Paperback. Condizione: New. During the early modern period the public postal systems became central pillars of the emerging public sphere. Despite the importance of the post in the transformation of communication, commerce and culture, little has been known about the functioning of the post or how it affected the lives of its users and their societies. In Postal culture in Europe, 1500-1800, Jay Caplan provides the first historical and cultural analysis of the practical conditions of letter-exchange at the dawn of the modern age.Caplan opens his analysis by exploring the economic, political, social and existential interests that were invested in the postal service, and traces the history of the three main European postal systems of the era, the Thurn and Taxis, the French Royal Post and the British Post Office. He then explores how the post worked, from the folding and sealing of letters to their collection, sorting, and transportation. Beyond providing service to the general public, these systems also furnished early modern states with substantial revenue and effective surveillance tools in the form of the Black Cabinets or Black Chambers. Caplan explains how postal services highlighted the tension between state power and the emerging concept of the free individual, with rights to private communication outside the public sphere. Postal systems therefore affected how letter writers and readers conceived and expressed themselves as individuals, which the author demonstrates through an examination of the correspondence of Voltaire and Rousseau, not merely as texts but as communicative acts.Ultimately, Jay Caplan provides readers with both a comprehensive overview of the changes wrought by the newly-public postal system - from the sounds that one heard to the perception of time and distance - and a thought provoking account of the expectations and desires that have led to our culture of instant communication.

Paperback. Condizione: New. The Revolutionary era was a period of radical change in France that dissolved traditional boundaries of privilege, and a time when creative experimentation flourished. As performance and theatrical language became an integral part of the French Revolution, its metaphors seeped into genres beyond the stage. Claire Trévien traces the ways in which theatrical activity influenced Revolutionary print culture, particularly its satirical prints, and considers how these became an arena for performance in their own right.Following an account of the historical and social contexts of Revolutionary printmaking, the author analyses over 50 works, incorporating scenes such as street singers and fairground performers, unsanctioned Revolutionary events, and the representation of Revolutionary characters in hell. Through analysing these depictions as an ensemble, focusing on style, vocabulary, and metaphor, Claire Trévien shows how prints were a potent vehicle for capturing and communicating partisan messages across the political spectrum. In spite of the intervening centuries, these prints still retain the power to evoke the Revolution like no other source material.

Paperback. Condizione: New. Sade's rehabilitation as a major Enlightenment writer has hitherto not extended to a re-evaluation of his dramatic works. With a theoretical framework inspired by psychoanalysis and dramatic theory, and attentive to eighteenth-century theoretical debates, Thomas Wynn demonstrates the value of these neglected works. This is the first study to consider the nature and implications of Sade's dramatic aesthetic, and to define the erotic quality of spectatorship in his experimental plays.Challenging the assumption that the gaze is sadistic, the author uses insights from film theory to argue that Sade adapts contemporary theatrical texts and practice to create an aesthetic distinct from that of his novels. Rather than replicate the style of such works as Les Cent vingt journées de Sodome, Sade's drama anticipates a masochistic model, as theorised by Theodor Reik and Gilles Deleuze. This analysis of Sadean spectatorship takes a thematic rather than chronological or text-by-text approach. The author argues that Sade, as an atheist materialist, focuses on the structural elements of theatre to produce visual pleasure rather than moral improvement, and that he elaborates an insistently visual dramatic aesthetic, a mode analogous to the linguistic saturation of the novels' tout dire.With reference to eighteenth-century obscene drama, theatre architecture and the history of visuality, the author explores the paradox that Sade's theatre is meant not for the stage, but for the private imagination. His visionary theatre is an example of the late eighteenth-century sublime, an aesthetic of the ineffable and the unrepresentable which, in its emphasis on the survival of the demeaned individual, structurally resembles masochism.Without deforming his technique or strategy, the author shows that Sade's voluptuous theatre - like his fiction - addresses an individual whose sovereignty in a godless world is intimately linked to the independent imagination. This book will be of interest to all those working in eighteenth-century drama and theory of spectatorship.

Hardback. Condizione: New.

Hardback. Condizione: New. Qui dit Diderot dit philosophe par excellence, encyclopédiste en chef, prôneur d'un matérialisme absolu, prosateur ludique et parfois cocasse. Pourtant, au cours des cinquante dernières années, la critique nous a dévoilé l'autre visage de Diderot - celui d'un théoricien de la politique qui s'oppose à ses contemporains en évitant les traités et en favorisant les vifs échanges et contre-attaques intellectuelles. Dans Sens et fonction de l'utopie tahitienne dans l'oeuvre politique de Diderot, Bernard Papin replace le Supplément au voyage de Bougainville dans son contexte historique et nous propose de le découvrir en tant que tournant décisif dans la pensée politique de celui qui a démenti vouloir écrire 'un de ces traités du bonheur, qui ne sont jamais que l'histoire du bonheur de chacun de ceux qui les ont faits'. S'inscrivant dans une longue tradition de textes utopiques, Le Supplément déjoue les attentes et semble aller à l'encontre des méthodes habituelles de Diderot. A mi-chemin entre réalisme et onirisme, ce traité aux allures de rêverie et teinté de provocation représente pour Papin le moment où Diderot devient père de la Révolution, préférant 'les vociférations des peuples en colère aux conversations feutrées des alcôves princières'.

Paperback. Condizione: New. By convention, the likely end of the career of an eighteenth-century actress was marriage, the convent or the gutter. Jeanne Quinault used her talents to shape a most unconventional life. Despite her provincial origins, she was a favourite for over twenty years at the Comédie-Française and also carved an identity for herself in literary and salon life.Jeanne Quinault's role as organizer of the société badine, called the Bout-du-Banc, is what has attracted the most interest, but historians have not generally recognized in her a salonnière as devoted to benevolence and mentorship as her wealthier and better-born contemporaries. From the time of her depiction in the pseudo-memoirs of Mme d'Épinay, the story has been distorted and errors have been handed down. This study offers a fresh assessment of her friendships with Caylus, Piron, Duclos, Maurepas and many other prominent individuals.In the theatrical sphere, Mlle Quinault promoted the development of sentimental comedy, sponsored both authors and actors, and participated in the creation of a number of works, including those of Françoise de Graffigny. Another client was Voltaire, whose letters shed light on the interplay between writers and performers. On a broader scale, the story of Jeanne Quinault is also that of the large acting family to which she belonged and of their aspiration to acceptance in polite society.Drawing on archival resources and unpublished collections of letters, this work offers readers the first detailed study of the actress and her circle.

Hardback. Condizione: New.

Paperback. Condizione: New. During the long eighteenth century the moral and socio-political dimensions of family life and gender were hotly debated by intellectuals across Europe. John Millar, a Scottish law professor and philosopher, was a pioneer in making gendered and familial practice a critical parameter of cultural difference. His work was widely disseminated at home and abroad, translated into French and German and closely read by philosophers such as Denis Diderot and Johann Gottfried Herder. Taking Millar's writings as his basis, Nicholas B. Miller explores the role of the family in Scottish Enlightenment political thought and traces its wider resonances across the Enlightenment world.John Millar's organisation of cultural, gendered and social difference into a progressive narrative of authority relations provided the first extended world history of the family. Over five chapters that address the historical and comparative models developed by the thinker, Nicholas B. Miller examines contemporary responses and Enlightenment-era debates on polygamy, matriarchy, the Amazon legend, changes in national character and the possible futures of the family in commercial society. He traces how Enlightenment thinkers developed new standards of evidence and crafted new understandings of historical time in order to tackle the global diversity of family life and gender practice. By reconstituting these theories and discussions, Nicholas B. Miller uncovers hitherto unexplored aspects of the Scottish contribution to European debates on the role of the family in history, society and politics.

Paperback. Condizione: New. The canonical image of John Locke as one of the first philosophes is so deeply engrained that we could forget that he belonged to a very different historico-political context. His influence on Enlightenment thought, not least that of his theories of political liberty, has been the subject of widespread debate. In Locke's political liberty: readings and misreadings a team of renowned international scholars re-evaluates Locke's heritage in the eighteenth century and the ways it was used.Moving beyond reductive conceptions of Locke as either central or peripheral to the development of Enlightenment thought, historians and philosophers explore how his writings are invoked, exploited or distorted in eighteenth-century reflections on liberty. Analyses of his reception in England and France bring out underlying conceptual differences between the two nations, and extend an ongoing debate about the difficulty of characterising national political epistemologies. The traditional Anglocentric view of Locke and his influence is demystified, and what emerges is a new, more diverse vision of the reception of his political thinking throughout Europe.Of interest to political philosophers and historians, Locke's political liberty: readings and misreadings reveals how the issues identified by Locke recur in our own debates about difference, identity and property - his work is as resonant today as it has ever been.

Paperback. Condizione: New. This book explores the relationship between Diderot's dramatic theory and plays of the late 1750s and the dramatic practice of G. E. Lessing. It proposes a new way of looking at how Diderot's theatrical writings influenced other dramatists by situating his theory in the context of the contemporary discourse concerning painting (with its emphasis on the creation of illusion as the goal of visual art) and of the debates about prose drama (one manifestation of the transposition of the arguments about painting into the realm of writing). Diderot's dramatic theory is shown to transform neoclassical ways of thinking about how plays communicate with their audience by urging the exploitation of artistic signs that are, in terms of eighteenth-century semiotics, natural. This approach has profound implications for the form taken by dramatic language which, in Diderot's view, must create an illusion for the ear of the beholder, just as the visual signs should create one for the eye. The changes that characterise Lessing's mature dramatic style are a striking illustration of how the move to the use of natural theatrical signs can transform the writing of plays. In particular, the evolution that occurs in Lessing's capacity to create effective dramatic dialogue before and after 1760 (the year when his translation of Diderot's theatrical writings was first published) provides a fascinating case study of how the new thinking about illusion as an effect resulting from the deployment of natural artistic signs generated a radically different kind of dramatic speech. This study also shows how this seismic shift in aesthetic values brought about a reorientation of the creative stance of the dramatic writer. Playwrights cease to think of themselves as rhetoricians and poets addressing an audience and begin to align themselves instead with the painter positioned before his subject and his canvas.