Frederick the Great discussion post 11

[cahn]

In our last installment, our heroes found that Henri de Catt's memoirs, a major source for current biographers of Frederick the Great, are not to be trusted!!

rheinsberg

Comments

Re: "Hot or not" in 1742

[selenak]

Yes, though he writes this to Voltaire in 1759. (In the 1730s, he'd been been a romance in art anti in his correspondance with him.) Apropos Racine's play about Titus and Berenice, his favourite. Note that something Caesar & Cleopatra as well as Titus & Berenice have in common is Roman ruler & foreign Queen (resented by Romans), but as opposed to Antony & Cleopatra not in a way where the Roman is presented as losing all for love. (Never mind history, I'm just talking tropes here.) Titus and Berenike give each other up for duty and rulership. Caesar doesn't give up Cleopatra per se but he leaves again for his life in Rome. All very Aeneas and Dido, and of course we had Fritz quoting Dido to Voltaire in his indignant 1743 letter, as spotted by you, casting himself as Dido. So I think it's not out of the question the whole love across the border, duty vs romance set up resonated with him.

Re: Pharsalus - he used that comparison to Mitchell as well, for one of the 1757 battles - "my Pharsalus against the House of Austria". (Err. Six more years to go, Fritz.) There's certainly a high degree of fascination with Caesar in general, see also ranting to Wilhelmine in his sour Grapes letters to Italy of how Caesar would despise today's Italians (before admitting he's the Galley slave scorning the free).

But the thing is - if an opera is supposed to celebrate Fritz the conquering hero over a powerful woman, well, you know what's right there? Alcina. Ahem. Also, it's not like Fritz was subtle with his allegories otherise. Even the starry-eyed editor mentions he - of course just as an ironic jest - had the field preacher preach about St. Paul's "Women be silent" after Mollwitz. So picking an opera in which the most famous (at this point) Queen of the ancient world - "non humilis mulier", as even Horace, otherwise writing Augustan Propaganda, put it - plays a positive role and ends up with more, not less power, is actually downright layered for what might or might not be going on in his subconscious.

(BTW, also had a look at some more of the many political letters to Heinrich, and when Heinrich after the Joseph meeting speculates that maybe a new relationship with the Austrians could be a thing Fritz is all "then the Queen-Empress" (not the Queen of Hungary!) "would have to give up the habit of hating me which she has kept for thirty years" first. Fritz pretending to be baffled at MT having anything against him is Fritzian, but what slays me is when his biographers - or editors like even Mitchell's - follow suit.)

(Not to mention that Fritz writing to Heinrich, of all the people, how anyone could have a grudge against poor him is hilarious for other reasons.)

Re: "Hot or not" in 1742

[mildred_of_midgard]

Yes, though he writes this to Voltaire in 1759.

Thanks for the date! Yeah, I wonder if Voltaire had changed Fritz mind as early as 1742. He doesn't say in 1759 that the change is recent, or does he?

Mind you, Fritz is perfectly capable of liking things even when he objects to all or part of the content, such as when he wrote Heinrich that the St. Augustine (opera?) he attended had beautiful music, and that was all that mattered (and then proceeded to bitch about Augustine).

So I think it's not out of the question the whole love across the border, duty vs romance set up resonated with him.

That is fascinating.

if an opera is supposed to celebrate Fritz the conquering hero over a powerful woman, well, you know what's right there? Alcina

Ahahaha, but then Voltaire will cast Fritz as Alcina. :P

"non humilis mulier", as even Horace, otherwise writing Augustan Propaganda, put it

Okay, so you know much more about the Romans than I do, but in the one semester on Horace and Catullus I had as an undergrad (and I can't claim to have looked at Horace since then), the professor used phrases like "non humilis mulier triumpho," and Horace's use of Latin freedom of word order to juxtapose "mulier" and "triumpho" despite their not being syntactically or semantically linked, to argue that Horace was undermining his Augustan propaganda left and right. The same professor also argued in the Aeneid course that Vergil was undermining *his* propaganda left and right too, and that these guys were massively ambivalent at best about the Augustan program (and many of the Roman poets were outright opposed and thus didn't write propaganda in the first place). Any thoughts?

plays a positive role and ends up with more, not less power, is actually downright layered for what might or might not be going on in his subconscious.

Possible. It's also quite possible he was just thinking at the level of "Caesar = me, YEAAHH!" At this early date, I know he'd been caught off guard by MT's willingness and ability to resist at all, but they haven't been through three wars yet. Honest question: how much of his grudging respect has formed at this date, based on quotes?

Fritz pretending to be baffled at MT having anything against him is Fritzian, but what slays me is when his biographers - or editors like even Mitchell's - follow suit.)

Hahaha, yes.

(Not to mention that Fritz writing to Heinrich, of all the people, how anyone could have a grudge against poor him is hilarious for other reasons.)

You said it.