Grundy's description of Fritz showing up in Algarotti's life works as an amusing antidote (she notes Algarotti must have thought he hit the jackpot - a princely patron who was young, smart, charismatic and sexually compatible! - and with some Schadenfreude reports how that turned out).
Lolsob.
she did tease Algarotti about him when they were resuming relations in their final years, during the 7 Years War in the later 1750s:
I saw that when I was reading their letters, and I wondered if that was aimed at Fritz, or if I was just reading too much into it! Good to know.
one of the local gangsters named Palazzi managed to first trick, then threaten her (to the point where she wasn't allowed to go anywhere without his "protection") , helping himself to a considerable part of her money, until she finally managed to get free and rid of him. (He later ended up imprisoned and executed for murder; this really could have ended lethally.)
Yikes! I thought I saw something along these lines when I was scanning it, but I didn't stop to read the episode, because I knew you'd be on it. :)
Grundy always tries to balance Montagu the writer with Lady Mary the person, and makes the case that it's as a writer she has become immortal.
*nod* That's what I'd gathered from the reviews.
Useful for Enlightenment crossovers: like Hervey, Lady Mary met and befriended Voltaire when he was in England.
18th century: *everyone* walks into a bar and either knows everyone or knows someone who knows/is related to/has slept with them.
Incidentally, while Halsband in the 70s knows so little of Émilie that he thinks Voltaire was the only one writing about Newton and that Émilie was "catty" to Algarotti the second time he visited because his work about Newton was a rival to Voltaire's
Sigh. Well, to be fair, in 1736, Émilie and Voltaire were collaborating on a volume about Newton, for which she did the research and walked him through the technical parts, while he did the writing. When it was published, he was listed as the author, with an indication in the foreword/whatever that she was really a co-author. It was published in 1738, and Algarotti's book in 1737, so I can see why it would be seen as Voltaire's and the two books would be seen as rivals (and this is ringing a bell).
Ah, yes, from the Algarotti dissertation:
The success the Newtonianismo achieved in comparison to Voltaire‘s 1738 Éléments de la philosophie de Neuton caused the latter to turn on Algarotti and seek to discredit his book through his correspondence.
Whereas Émilie's magnum opus on Newton wasn't started until after Algarotti's visit (my sources are all agreeing on approximately 1744-1746), and wasn't finished until her death and published until the 1750s.
But if you're writing about her, Voltaire, Algarotti, and their work on Newton, you should still mention it!
Also, Algarotti's second visit to Cirey was in 1736, when both books were still in draft form, and there was no rivalry or disappointment yet. So that can't have been the cause of her being unhappy with him that year.
Grundy knows just a little more and thinks Émilie was annoyed that Algarotti didn't dedicate his "Newton for Dummies" to her.
The Algarotti dissertation, Bodanis, and Zinsser all agree that she was upset that he didn't dedicate it to her. Dissertation writer cites a letter from Émilie to Algarotti; Zinsser cites several letters to Algarotti and Maupertuis. Bodanis cites a letter in which she's pleased that Voltaire *did* dedicate his work to her a year later.
There's also some controversy over the portrayal of the Marquise in Algarotti's work. She's a thinly veiled allusion to Émilie, but it's apparently been argued that she's less intelligent and therefore arguably an insult to the real person. The Algarotti dissertation author has counterargued that the fictional Marquise is perfectly intelligent if you read closely, just not yet informed about Newtonianism.
But Zinsser reports that Émilie was offended because of the fictional Marquise's personality, and the constant references to love and eroticism in the text, which seem to have felt as condescending and irritating to her as they would to me. Though coming from Algarotti, who totally would have written an erotic ode to the lone eagle filled with double entendres... :P
Hm. Just noticed this: Algarotti author: Voltaire trashed Algarotti's book because he was jealous of its success! Émilie author: Voltaire trashed Algarotti's book because he was defending Émilie's honor!
Émilie: I'm defending my honor by writing a better book than both of you put together.
Neither mentions Émilie's own work on Newton, or Émilie's work in general. Anglocentrism to the end.
That's the really unforgivable part! Even Algarotti dissertation writer describes her work with appropriate praise.
Lady Mary and Wilhelmine were in Italy at the same time! And they definitely could have met. (If they have, I don't recall it from the letters posted at the travel letters website, but I could easily have missed it - I haven't read every single one. If they haven't, well, maybe they kept it secret for Reasons!
Ooh! Could be.
Hmm. The complete Lady Mary letters, edited and published by Halsband, are apparently available in 3 volumes for $80, which is cheaper than the $150 I had previously been finding.
I'm still tempted, but I should probably hold off for now. Unless other people are *extremely* interested. :P
Anyway, thank you very much for the write-up! You're the best of all possible readers!
Letters - let me first check whether I can get them via interlibrary loans here in Germany, or whether the Stabi has them. Unfortunately, it will be October till I am in Munich again, by which time I hope we won't have another lockdown, but 80 Dollars is still a lot.
The Marquise: well, Algarotti dissertation writer as I recall also points out that Algarotti didn't invent the "noble lady has science explained to her as a way for author to explain it to reader" concept but copied it from a previous work by someone else. Lady Mary's biographer Grundy, btw, argues that Lady Mary as well as Émilie might have influenced Algarotti's depiction, and points out that lacking erotic enthusiasm for her or not, he did take her serious as an author and did learn from her (not the other way around):
Of the poems of hers which he kept, in her handwriting or his own, several are not original but extemporary adaptations, either from others or from herself . This does not mean that he sapped her originality but that she was thinking and writing on the spur of the moment, as she often did in topical writing. Now she was mediating for him the English poetic tradition . Among other things this was a tutor -pupil relationship , with the woman , unusually, as tutor . Algarotti kept the erotic addresses, from woman to man and from man to woman, which she crafted out of Lansdowne or Addison ( who in turn was just then drawing on Horace) . He also kept a political epigram which she had already adapted and updated , and a dramatic speech she wrote for Brutus, justifying his murder of Caesar. (...)
During his months in England Algarotti was finishing his version of Newton's Optics ( published at Milan , late 1737) . Lady Mary (an experienced collaborator) and Hervey listened , praised, and offered linguistic and other finishing touches. Algarotti set the scientist - narrator's dialogues with his noble, brilliant , and beautiful female pupil in an arbour or private Parnassus, which reflects both Lady Mary's Twickenham garden and Voltaire's Cirey. The pupil is a marchesa (Emilie du Châtelet's title) . She speaks strongly against war, and is called a citizen of the world ( as Lady Mary called herself ). Early in volume ii comes a more unmistakable allusion . To prove the utility of science to women, the narrator cites inoculation, which now preserves the charms of English as well as of Circassian beauties. On the scale of tributes to Lady Mary's inoculation work, this ranks somewhere between The Plain Dealer's gallantry and Voltaire's heroinizing. Algarotti does not name her; he stresses the saving of beauty, not of life; and he takes no note ofher engagement in social struggle. However, his treatise won from her a commendatory poem which he placed first in the volume when the Newtonanismo was reprinted at Naples, 1739 .
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Re: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (III)
Lolsob.
she did tease Algarotti about him when they were resuming relations in their final years, during the 7 Years War in the later 1750s:
I saw that when I was reading their letters, and I wondered if that was aimed at Fritz, or if I was just reading too much into it! Good to know.
one of the local gangsters named Palazzi managed to first trick, then threaten her (to the point where she wasn't allowed to go anywhere without his "protection") , helping himself to a considerable part of her money, until she finally managed to get free and rid of him. (He later ended up imprisoned and executed for murder; this really could have ended lethally.)
Yikes! I thought I saw something along these lines when I was scanning it, but I didn't stop to read the episode, because I knew you'd be on it. :)
Grundy always tries to balance Montagu the writer with Lady Mary the person, and makes the case that it's as a writer she has become immortal.
*nod* That's what I'd gathered from the reviews.
Useful for Enlightenment crossovers: like Hervey, Lady Mary met and befriended Voltaire when he was in England.
18th century: *everyone* walks into a bar and either knows everyone or knows someone who knows/is related to/has slept with them.
Incidentally, while Halsband in the 70s knows so little of Émilie that he thinks Voltaire was the only one writing about Newton and that Émilie was "catty" to Algarotti the second time he visited because his work about Newton was a rival to Voltaire's
Sigh. Well, to be fair, in 1736, Émilie and Voltaire were collaborating on a volume about Newton, for which she did the research and walked him through the technical parts, while he did the writing. When it was published, he was listed as the author, with an indication in the foreword/whatever that she was really a co-author. It was published in 1738, and Algarotti's book in 1737, so I can see why it would be seen as Voltaire's and the two books would be seen as rivals (and this is ringing a bell).
Ah, yes, from the Algarotti dissertation:
The success the Newtonianismo achieved in comparison to Voltaire‘s 1738 Éléments de la philosophie de Neuton caused the latter to turn on Algarotti and seek to discredit his book through his correspondence.
Whereas Émilie's magnum opus on Newton wasn't started until after Algarotti's visit (my sources are all agreeing on approximately 1744-1746), and wasn't finished until her death and published until the 1750s.
But if you're writing about her, Voltaire, Algarotti, and their work on Newton, you should still mention it!
Also, Algarotti's second visit to Cirey was in 1736, when both books were still in draft form, and there was no rivalry or disappointment yet. So that can't have been the cause of her being unhappy with him that year.
Grundy knows just a little more and thinks Émilie was annoyed that Algarotti didn't dedicate his "Newton for Dummies" to her.
The Algarotti dissertation, Bodanis, and Zinsser all agree that she was upset that he didn't dedicate it to her. Dissertation writer cites a letter from Émilie to Algarotti; Zinsser cites several letters to Algarotti and Maupertuis. Bodanis cites a letter in which she's pleased that Voltaire *did* dedicate his work to her a year later.
There's also some controversy over the portrayal of the Marquise in Algarotti's work. She's a thinly veiled allusion to Émilie, but it's apparently been argued that she's less intelligent and therefore arguably an insult to the real person. The Algarotti dissertation author has counterargued that the fictional Marquise is perfectly intelligent if you read closely, just not yet informed about Newtonianism.
But Zinsser reports that Émilie was offended because of the fictional Marquise's personality, and the constant references to love and eroticism in the text, which seem to have felt as condescending and irritating to her as they would to me. Though coming from Algarotti, who totally would have written an erotic ode to the lone eagle filled with double entendres... :P
Hm. Just noticed this:
Algarotti author: Voltaire trashed Algarotti's book because he was jealous of its success!
Émilie author: Voltaire trashed Algarotti's book because he was defending Émilie's honor!
Émilie: I'm defending my honor by writing a better book than both of you put together.
Neither mentions Émilie's own work on Newton, or Émilie's work in general. Anglocentrism to the end.
That's the really unforgivable part! Even Algarotti dissertation writer describes her work with appropriate praise.
Lady Mary and Wilhelmine were in Italy at the same time! And they definitely could have met. (If they have, I don't recall it from the letters posted at the travel letters website, but I could easily have missed it - I haven't read every single one. If they haven't, well, maybe they kept it secret for Reasons!
Ooh! Could be.
Hmm. The complete Lady Mary letters, edited and published by Halsband, are apparently available in 3 volumes for $80, which is cheaper than the $150 I had previously been finding.
I'm still tempted, but I should probably hold off for now. Unless other people are *extremely* interested. :P
Anyway, thank you very much for the write-up! You're the best of all possible readers!
Re: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (III)
The Marquise: well, Algarotti dissertation writer as I recall also points out that Algarotti didn't invent the "noble lady has science explained to her as a way for author to explain it to reader" concept but copied it from a previous work by someone else. Lady Mary's biographer Grundy, btw, argues that Lady Mary as well as Émilie might have influenced Algarotti's depiction, and points out that lacking erotic enthusiasm for her or not, he did take her serious as an author and did learn from her (not the other way around):
Of the poems of hers which he kept, in her handwriting or his own, several are not original but extemporary adaptations, either from others or from herself . This does not mean that he sapped her originality but that she was thinking and writing on the spur of the moment, as she often did in topical writing. Now she was mediating for him the English poetic tradition . Among other things this was a tutor -pupil relationship , with the woman , unusually, as tutor . Algarotti kept the erotic addresses, from woman to man and from man to woman, which she crafted out of Lansdowne or Addison ( who in turn was just then drawing on Horace) . He also kept a political epigram which she had already adapted and updated , and a dramatic speech she wrote for Brutus, justifying
his murder of Caesar. (...)
During his months in England Algarotti was finishing his version of Newton's Optics ( published at Milan , late 1737) . Lady Mary (an experienced collaborator) and Hervey listened , praised, and offered linguistic and other finishing touches. Algarotti set the scientist - narrator's dialogues with his noble, brilliant , and beautiful female pupil in an arbour or private Parnassus, which reflects both Lady Mary's Twickenham garden and Voltaire's Cirey.
The pupil is a marchesa (Emilie du Châtelet's title) . She speaks strongly against war, and is called a citizen of the world ( as Lady Mary called herself ). Early in volume ii comes a more unmistakable allusion . To prove the utility of science to women, the narrator cites inoculation, which now preserves the charms of English as well as of Circassian beauties.
On the scale of tributes to Lady Mary's inoculation work, this ranks somewhere between The Plain Dealer's gallantry and Voltaire's heroinizing. Algarotti does not name her; he stresses the saving of beauty, not of life; and he takes no note ofher engagement in social struggle. However, his treatise won from her a commendatory poem which he placed first in the volume when the Newtonanismo was reprinted at Naples, 1739 .