Frederick the Great discussion post 12

[cahn]

Every time I am amazed and enchanted that this is still going on! Truly DW is the Earthly Paradise!

All the good stuff continues to be archived at rheinsberg :)

Comments

Re: The Lehndorff Report: 1776

[mildred_of_midgard]

Touchy, yes, but if you reported that EC hit people, I'd forgotten!

BTW, re: Candide, I don't know whether you've spotted Fritz critisizing Candide to de Catt - he says "what a terrible idea that we're happy when we're being abused" (this is how Bischof's edition translates it - your algorithm says "raped".

Machine translation is a work in progress... ;)

but I find it fascinating that Fritz would jump on this interpretation

Yeah, that's the interesting part to me. Refuting it I find less surprising, especially since he may not be talking only about his father, but about his life as a whole, and especially about the ongoing Seven Years' War.

but being a private citizen NOT going into your father's profession and not getting absolute power apparantly provides you with a key bit of more emotional health.

It definitely helps! I don't know enough about Voltaire to do a thorough compare-and-contrast, but I'm pretty sure "needing to justify why the king should be obeyed at all costs" and "catching myself acting just like dear old Dad" of the Year did Fritz no good at all, even beyond the normal tendency of people to downplay abuse.