Maupertuis is an idiot and the Academy is filled with his stooges. Maupertuis threatens our hero with violence! (Mildred: Is this the duel challenge?)
I suppose? Because I can't recall another violence threat.
Berlin is the first time Voltaire realizes the French Enlightenment is happening and that he's part of it. Until then, he was just an isolated figure doing his own thing and ignoring his contemporaries.
? He was literary feuding with half of them, which I wouldn't call "ignoring". And he did have pals, both French and international, hence all those visitors in Cirey (hello Algarotti).
Unanimous vote: now this sounds plausible to me.
Doctored letters: Pleschinski's translation is strictly Voltaire/Fritz, not any of the Madame Denis letters. Also he originally published it in 1991, I think. Of course there's editing text covering who is who and what went on between letters, but I don't recall him mentioning anything of the sort. And Orieux, of course, published his biography in the 1960s, so there is no research beyond that point, either.
Mind you, it would be entirely ic for these two (remember the part where Fritz had a Voltaire poem forged to get him into (more) trouble?), but otoh, what I consider even more likely is that Voltaire, if he doctored, made himself look better/smarter by inserting sentences showing he was aware Fritz was being despotic, and that he wasn't planning on staying after the first year anyway.
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Re: Voltaire and Fritz
Date: 2020-07-24 02:02 pm (UTC)I suppose? Because I can't recall another violence threat.
Berlin is the first time Voltaire realizes the French Enlightenment is happening and that he's part of it. Until then, he was just an isolated figure doing his own thing and ignoring his contemporaries.
? He was literary feuding with half of them, which I wouldn't call "ignoring". And he did have pals, both French and international, hence all those visitors in Cirey (hello Algarotti).
Unanimous vote: now this sounds plausible to me.
Doctored letters: Pleschinski's translation is strictly Voltaire/Fritz, not any of the Madame Denis letters. Also he originally published it in 1991, I think. Of course there's editing text covering who is who and what went on between letters, but I don't recall him mentioning anything of the sort. And Orieux, of course, published his biography in the 1960s, so there is no research beyond that point, either.
Mind you, it would be entirely ic for these two (remember the part where Fritz had a Voltaire poem forged to get him into (more) trouble?), but otoh, what I consider even more likely is that Voltaire, if he doctored, made himself look better/smarter by inserting sentences showing he was aware Fritz was being despotic, and that he wasn't planning on staying after the first year anyway.