which does not exactly inspire confidence in his French-translating abilities.
Worse, he's the one who decided Mimi was male because Fritz uses "il" to refer to "le singe", which I raised an eyebrow at but dutifully copied because, "Maybe he knows something I don't know." I should have known better.
I will also point out that his bio of Fritz contains a lot of verse in French and English, and just from my comparisons of the two, he does extreeeemely loose translations of verse, in an effort to make the rhymes work in English. I think even one of his Amazon reviews complains about this.
So McDonogh's English version will have to do, I suppose.
Oh, the royal librarian can do better than that. :D I give you the French original (p. 369) from the Trier site (which has more than Preuss if you're willing to dig around).
Leaving aside that Fritz in the poem gives Algarotti a female partner - Chloris is straight from the Augustan poets as a name of a mistress - as simply using a literary trope
Blanning, who as the material you found is pretty good about letting Fritz be gay but not GAY GAY GAY, decides that this poem is not evidence for Fritz/Algarotti, because...wait for it...
"There is nothing in the poem to suggest that Frederick himself was Algarotti's partner. On the contrary, the passage just quoted is preceded by lines identifying the lover as the nymph 'Chloris'."
And that's a level of bizarreness on par with Voltaire as Austrian agent. My first reaction was, "Have you heard of tropes? Do you know what a trope is? Have you read literature like ever?"
Furthermore, from a logical perspective, I don't believe in nymphs. Do you believe in nymphs, Blanning? If she's obviously fictional--the alternative to this being at least partly a work of imagination is that Fritz witnessed Algarotti's orgasm with a nymph named Chloris--and we know that Algarotti was bi (Blanning even says he was bi, in this very discussion), why the fuck couldn't Algarotti and Fritz have had sex, in a century when you had to have at least (im)plausible deniability and couldn't go around announcing, "Actually, this poem describes me and Algarotti last night."
Anyway, Blanning then adduces less implausible counterevidence to the idea that Fritz and Algarotti were getting it on: "In one letter at least, Frederick appeared to state explicitly that their relationship was not physical. On 29 November 1740 he wrote that he felt as much pleasure at seeing Algarotti again after a long absence as did Medoro when reunited with his beloved Angelica, 'the difference being that it is my intellect alone that participates in this pleasure, and that it seeks only to woo yours to warm itself with the fire of your sparkling genius.'"
And I agree they probably weren't having an active sexual relationship (if nothing else, there's evidence Algarotti was suffering from or believed by more than Fritz to be suffering from STDs in 1739/1740--much more evidence than there is for Marwitz), but there's nothing to say they had never tried it. (As you know, my headcanon is "once or twice before Fritz decided sexual activity wasn't worth the trouble." That said, I will free admit it's entirely likely they never did.)
otherwise that's taking a considerable liberty with someone whom you want to stay with you at your court, even taking different concepts of privacy and royal prerogative in the 18th century into account.
Interesting argument. We know that Fritz wrote a fairly vicious lengthy poem called the Palladion (it's been translated into German and I can look for the translation if you want), featuring his librarian Darget* getting sexually assaulted by Jesuit priests and finally deciding to go with it and embrace male/male sex. Apparently it was so raunchy that Fritz only had a few copies distributed, but "the secret could not be kept, especially not after Voltaire had been given a copy on his arrival in 1750." See, Fritz needed his own Émilie!
* The one Blanning thinks the French sent as ambassador despite being a mere secretary because the French were hoping Fritz's homosexual attraction to Darget could be used to their advantage, and to their disappointment found "Fritz knew how to keep sex and politics separate."
Per Blanning, Darget got offended (oh, Fritz, what were you thinking?), and they never did repair their relationship.* Which Blanning thinks was "very likely" explicitly homosexual in the second half of the 1740s (but provides nothing I consider stronger evidence than the evidence for Fritz/Algarotti).
* As described by Blanning, Fritz's efforts at reconciliation are as emotionally mature as his and his father's condolence letters, i.e., "But think of meeeee!"
I, personally, don't think Fritz was so sensitive to other people's feelings that he couldn't have written about their orgasms without having participated in any? The stronger evidence is that Algarotti *didn't* get offended, but then the poem is actually quite nice to Algarotti, especially compared to the Palladion (have only seen excerpts and summaries, and "oof" just from what I've seen), and it's possible Algarotti the "Everyone knows I get around" was cool with it.
Re: Toppings of all types, continued
Worse, he's the one who decided Mimi was male because Fritz uses "il" to refer to "le singe", which I raised an eyebrow at but dutifully copied because, "Maybe he knows something I don't know." I should have known better.
I will also point out that his bio of Fritz contains a lot of verse in French and English, and just from my comparisons of the two, he does extreeeemely loose translations of verse, in an effort to make the rhymes work in English. I think even one of his Amazon reviews complains about this.
So McDonogh's English version will have to do, I suppose.
Oh, the royal librarian can do better than that. :D I give you the French original (p. 369) from the Trier site (which has more than Preuss if you're willing to dig around).
Leaving aside that Fritz in the poem gives Algarotti a female partner - Chloris is straight from the Augustan poets as a name of a mistress - as simply using a literary trope
Blanning, who as the material you found is pretty good about letting Fritz be gay but not GAY GAY GAY, decides that this poem is not evidence for Fritz/Algarotti, because...wait for it...
"There is nothing in the poem to suggest that Frederick himself was Algarotti's partner. On the contrary, the passage just quoted is preceded by lines identifying the lover as the nymph 'Chloris'."
And that's a level of bizarreness on par with Voltaire as Austrian agent. My first reaction was, "Have you heard of tropes? Do you know what a trope is? Have you read literature like ever?"
Furthermore, from a logical perspective, I don't believe in nymphs. Do you believe in nymphs, Blanning? If she's obviously fictional--the alternative to this being at least partly a work of imagination is that Fritz witnessed Algarotti's orgasm with a nymph named Chloris--and we know that Algarotti was bi (Blanning even says he was bi, in this very discussion), why the fuck couldn't Algarotti and Fritz have had sex, in a century when you had to have at least (im)plausible deniability and couldn't go around announcing, "Actually, this poem describes me and Algarotti last night."
Anyway, Blanning then adduces less implausible counterevidence to the idea that Fritz and Algarotti were getting it on: "In one letter at least, Frederick appeared to state explicitly that their relationship was not physical. On 29 November 1740 he wrote that he felt as much pleasure at seeing Algarotti again after a long absence as did Medoro when reunited with his beloved Angelica, 'the difference being that it is my intellect alone that participates in this pleasure, and that it seeks only to woo yours to warm itself with the fire of your sparkling genius.'"
And I agree they probably weren't having an active sexual relationship (if nothing else, there's evidence Algarotti was suffering from or believed by more than Fritz to be suffering from STDs in 1739/1740--much more evidence than there is for Marwitz), but there's nothing to say they had never tried it. (As you know, my headcanon is "once or twice before Fritz decided sexual activity wasn't worth the trouble." That said, I will free admit it's entirely likely they never did.)
otherwise that's taking a considerable liberty with someone whom you want to stay with you at your court, even taking different concepts of privacy and royal prerogative in the 18th century into account.
Interesting argument. We know that Fritz wrote a fairly vicious lengthy poem called the Palladion (it's been translated into German and I can look for the translation if you want), featuring his librarian Darget* getting sexually assaulted by Jesuit priests and finally deciding to go with it and embrace male/male sex. Apparently it was so raunchy that Fritz only had a few copies distributed, but "the secret could not be kept, especially not after Voltaire had been given a copy on his arrival in 1750." See, Fritz needed his own Émilie!
* The one Blanning thinks the French sent as ambassador despite being a mere secretary because the French were hoping Fritz's homosexual attraction to Darget could be used to their advantage, and to their disappointment found "Fritz knew how to keep sex and politics separate."
Per Blanning, Darget got offended (oh, Fritz, what were you thinking?), and they never did repair their relationship.* Which Blanning thinks was "very likely" explicitly homosexual in the second half of the 1740s (but provides nothing I consider stronger evidence than the evidence for Fritz/Algarotti).
* As described by Blanning, Fritz's efforts at reconciliation are as emotionally mature as his and his father's condolence letters, i.e., "But think of meeeee!"
I, personally, don't think Fritz was so sensitive to other people's feelings that he couldn't have written about their orgasms without having participated in any? The stronger evidence is that Algarotti *didn't* get offended, but then the poem is actually quite nice to Algarotti, especially compared to the Palladion (have only seen excerpts and summaries, and "oof" just from what I've seen), and it's possible Algarotti the "Everyone knows I get around" was cool with it.
That, and maybe make him jealous. :)
The thought had occurred to me. :D