cahn | Frederick the Great discussion post 11

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From: (Anonymous)

Thank you to all three of you for the welcome and helpful advice!!! I'm really happy to participate.

Can you clarify what format the letters are in? Are they handwritten facsimiles, non-copy-pastable scans of transcribed text, copy-pastable transcribed text, translations, some combination of the above, what? For me, the justification of the cost really depends on the answer.

They are copy-pastable transcribed text - there are also a few letters with English translations, it really depends on the historical figure. There are editor's notes for most letters (Voltaire's editor is English), explaining context or differences between manuscripts. They also note which libraries the original letters are kept in, if it is known. And they note where the letters were sent from, the age of the sender and recipient at the time the letter was sent, etc. The sample content (httpd://www.e-enlightenment.com/info/content/content_samples.html) is a decent enough example of what the database is like. Voltaire is definitely the figure with the most comprehensive correspondence, since there's an entire project/foundation (http://www.voltaire.ox.ac.uk/) dedicated to him.

I'm not sure if it's worth such an expensive subscription, but it does have a really intuitive search system. I can easily find every instance of Voltaire complaining about "Luc" to a wide range of correspondents, especially during the Seven Years War ;)

Is there a letter from Voltaire to Madame Denis from 1750 that contains the following passage?

Yes! On the 13th of October 1750, Voltaire sent the following letter (there is a French original, and English translation which I will quote, which is slightly different from your version):

"I have been handed over, my dear, with all due formalities, to the King of Prussia. The marriage is accomplished: will it be happy? I do not know in the least: yet I cannot prevent myself saying, Yes. After coquetting for so many years, marriage was the necessary end. My heart beat hard even at the altar."

What university are you attending, if I may ask?

The University of Oxford. I can download old books if they are available at the Bodleian Libraries, but I'm not sure if they'll be available - it's not very good for old books in general. That said, there is a lot of contemporary research.

Also, how's your French?

Unfortunately, even worse than anybody else here, I suspect. I've never been educated in French - I did a Spanish GCSE haha. I've been practicing German on Duolingo, and have been considering starting French as well, but that's about it really.

I'm great with computers and bad with people.

If only I was good with computers! I was mostly successful socialising as a child - though only with boys, and not with other girls - secondary school is where things really fell apart. As a teenager, I was alright with spending my time alone, but now as a university student I've noticed my social skills have become extremely stunted. I have literally no friends at Oxford and I rarely see or hear from secondary school friends haha.

I'll be popping in occasionally, then!

From:

gambitten

Damn! I thought I was logged in - sorry for the anon message.

In terms of my biomedical interests, I'm mostly neuroscience/experimental psychology oriented, though I don't know enough to talk with any kind of confidence yet. I might be doing a research project about how motivation modulates working memory? I'm also attending lectures about pharmacology, though the knowledge for that goes in one ear out the other on account of my terrible concentration. Otherwise, things are going okay.

Edited (To address another part of a comment.) Date: 2020-02-25 12:35 pm (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Damn! I thought I was logged in - sorry for the anon message.

No worries, it's happened to all of us. It was happening so often to

selenak for a while there that we started blaming Prussian cyber agents from the beyond!

In terms of my biomedical interests, I'm mostly neuroscience/experimental psychology oriented

That's cool! I know just enough neuroscience to throw in some jargon when talking about trauma psychology, no more. It's super interesting, though, and I keep trying to add to my knowledge a little bit here and there. (It will help when my own concentration is back, for sure. Sympathies to you.)

From:

cahn

Yay, so glad you are here!

You probably are aware of this if you organized according to mildred's comments, but I started another post. (I usually start one when I notice the comment count getting near to or above 300, which is when we've noticed it starts to get hard to navigate. Though I think we've got a rhythm now where each separate thought gets a different thread, which is really helping the navigation process.)

I also found socializing at university rather difficult, especially at first (I don't know where you are exactly in your degree?) and my university wasn't nearly as big as yours! One of the things that worked for me was finding a couple of extracurriculars I enjoyed and had some social component (in my case, orchestra/choir/music and church) -- I should imagine that Oxford has some sort of History society that would welcome you :)

Of course I don't want to discourage you from hanging out with us -- we would love for you to hang out here ~~and find stuff for us~~! But it's also nice to find people in RL who share interests, and university is a place where a lot of people with disparate and academic interests are all jammed up together, which makes it a bit easier sometimes. :)

I'm also not great with people, but at a certain point, like mildred, I started treating it like a research project rather than one of those things one is just expected to pick up. Though unlike mildred, I didn't do a deep dive into anthropology, but mostly treat it like a learning algorithm where observations (of both other people and myself) lead to formulating scripts that function better or worse at dealing with certain situations, and updating the network with new information given the observation results :) I still occasionally make some rookie mistakes, but less than I used to :)

ETA: mildred responded to your anonymous comment below; not sure if you have seen it, because you probably get emailed about direct replies to gambitten but not to anonymous replies?

Edited Date: 2020-02-27 06:35 pm (UTC)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

but mostly treat it like a learning algorithm where observations (of both other people and myself) lead to formulating scripts that function better or worse at dealing with certain situations, and updating the network with new information given the observation results :)

That's way more practical than what I did, which was keep the same social skills but collect a lot more theoretical knowledge that I largely refuse to apply. :P But then I'm odd in that I see my low level of socialization as a feature rather than a bug.

I usually start one when I notice the comment count getting near to or above 300

It amuses me that we have two consecutive posts that ended up with exactly 380 comments.

Though I think we've got a rhythm now where each separate thought gets a different thread, which is really helping the navigation process.)

Thank goodness for that! I also like that we eventually settled on keeping thread subjects relevant. That helps too. (Props to

selenak for starting that!)

ETA: mildred responded to your anonymous comment below; not sure if you have seen it, because you probably get emailed about direct replies to gambitten but not to anonymous replies?

Ooh, good call! If you don't subscribe to the post, you won't get notified for things like that.

From:

gambitten

Discussions progress pretty quickly! I'll barely be able to keep up lol

I'm about half way through my degree at this point. I tried quite hard to make friends in my first year and I joined a few societies, but connections didn't really result? I'm alright with staying by myself now; it's more reliable than being frustrated or anxious trying to make new connections at university, which won't last for very long.

I did see that reply! I try to read the whole threads.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Well, you're definitely welcome here, and your contributions have already been invaluable!

Discussions do move pretty fast, haha. I think we're all operating at the limits of our ability to keep up. :)

From:

cahn

I knoooooow, I can't keep up either, lol.

That is totally fair! And we are really enjoying your company :D

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I'm not sure if it's worth such an expensive subscription, but it does have a really intuitive search system. I can easily find every instance of Voltaire complaining about "Luc" to a wide range of correspondents, especially during the Seven Years War ;)

Ooh, that's encouraging. I wouldn't pay for an year's subscription, but one or two months might be worth it, especially when I'm back at work.

Reminder for

cahn in case it's useful: Luc is Voltaire's monkey and therefore also what he calls Fritz when he's annoyed at him (and vice versa, calls Luc Frédéric II).

And yeah, he was super annoyed at Fritz during the Seven Years' War, so annoyed that he had to write to him ALL THE TIME, so Fritz could bitch to Catt and Mitchell and sundry about how Voltaire was just the absolute scum of the earth, while devouring the letters with his eyes and exclaiming, "He hasn't forgotten me!" :P

You know. Just another day on board the Fritz/Voltaire ship.

Yes! On the 13th of October 1750, Voltaire sent the following letter (there is a French original, and English translation which I will quote, which is slightly different from your version):

OMG THANK YOU SO MUCH. THANK YOU FOREVER.

The University of Oxford.

Fancy! I'll keep that in mind when using WorldCat and the like.

Unfortunately, even worse than anybody else here, I suspect. I've never been educated in French - I did a Spanish GCSE haha.

Join the club of non-French speakers, then. :)

I'll be popping in occasionally, then!

Yay!