Entry tags:
Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 18
...apparently reading group is the way to get lots of comments quickly?
Every time someone thinks that just because history is a passion of mine, I'd want to live in the past (any past), I can only conclude that someone knows nothing of history, verily.
Maaaaan :( IDK, someone here is really awful. Not sure whether it's Hervey or Caroline or both, but... yeah.
Granted, Caroline's mother totally neglected her so she had to learn how to read and write by herself when she was 10 until Sophie Charlotte got a hold on her, and Hervey's mother did a turnaround from "my favourite child" to "you scum of the Earth" which his biographer can't explain other than note it starts with his marriage, so the constant "Fritz of Wales is worse than Tiberius and Nero put together and I wish he was dead" outbursts coupled with "that ungrateful beast, I'm sure he wants me dead, how monstrous is that?" happen with that emotional background. (Plus Hervey quotes her as saying, which I included already in my write up of the Halsband biography, that she wishes Hervey was her son and that evil FoW had Hervey's horrible mother; the writers of the "Hephaistion and Alexander: Hervey and FoW" essay think all the constant harping on Hervey as the alternate son is stretching things a bit, since he was only 13 years younger than Caroline. But imo it's still possible that they fulfilled that emotional need for each other, and it's noticable that Caroline's actual other son and fave, future Billy the Butcher, Duke of Cumberland, gets next to no page time in these memoirs. He's at her death bed in one scene and gets told he's her sole hope for the British future, and there's just one mention elsewhere when both Hervey and the editor in footnotes discuss the periodically raised and abandoned idea of splitting Hannover and Great Britain up again so Billy the Butcher can inherit one of the two. But that's it. Methinks whatever is true of Caroline, I wouldn't be surprised if Hervey did come to see her as a replacement mother and that this provided him with additoinal ire fuel against Fritz of Wales. (Cumberland he couldn't rationally object to since he hadn't done anything at that point when Hervey writes, so he just edits him out as much as he can.)
Mind you, courtesy of Victorian editor Croker's footnotes, I got reminded again that G2 and Caroline for the first time considered the Britain/Hannover split when FoW really hadn't done anything yet they could object to but lived his parentless life in Hannover. They really wanted English born Bill for King, and if that was absolutely impossible, then they wanted him to have Hannover. So by the time Fritz of Wales rejoined the family in Britain as an adult, he already knew his parents very much prefered the younger brother he didn't even know. Incidentally, the reason why G2 and Caroline eventually didn't go through with this idea is one Hervey has himself pointing out to them - the Elector of Hannover is a prince of the HRE, which means the succession can only be altered with the Emperor's consent as well as the consent of the two princes in question (remember, this came up as to why FW couldn't change the succession without Fritz agreeing to it), and, speculates Hervey, the Emperor won't want to, because as long as the King of GB is also the Elector of Hannover, it means that Britain as a state is beholden to him.
(Sidenote: could be that MT's Dad was thinking that, but as we know, it didn't work out that way once G2's government teamed up with Fritz in 1756...)
I vote this Princess Emily and Princess Amalie of Prussia should get together!
They certainly would have had things in common. When reading this passage, I also rolled my eyes at Hervey none too subtly complaining he'd had to play the perfect courtier for G2 despite being worn out and exhausted from attending Caroline, yet otoh writing the story to demonstrate Emily's "falseness" towards her father. Of course, Emily isn't saying this to G2's face, any more than Amalie would say something like this to Fritz, for all her famous bluntness. You don't do that towards the person who has the power to lock you up in a heartbeat, or at the very least deprive you of income and all creature comforts.
Hervey on G2 and FW really was a goldmine of quotable lines. Never mind Zeithain and FW meeting August(us) the Strong, the summit we want to see is FW and G2 as adults clashing as a spectacle to all and sunder.
Maaaaan :( IDK, someone here is really awful. Not sure whether it's Hervey or Caroline or both, but... yeah.
Granted, Caroline's mother totally neglected her so she had to learn how to read and write by herself when she was 10 until Sophie Charlotte got a hold on her, and Hervey's mother did a turnaround from "my favourite child" to "you scum of the Earth" which his biographer can't explain other than note it starts with his marriage, so the constant "Fritz of Wales is worse than Tiberius and Nero put together and I wish he was dead" outbursts coupled with "that ungrateful beast, I'm sure he wants me dead, how monstrous is that?" happen with that emotional background. (Plus Hervey quotes her as saying, which I included already in my write up of the Halsband biography, that she wishes Hervey was her son and that evil FoW had Hervey's horrible mother; the writers of the "Hephaistion and Alexander: Hervey and FoW" essay think all the constant harping on Hervey as the alternate son is stretching things a bit, since he was only 13 years younger than Caroline. But imo it's still possible that they fulfilled that emotional need for each other, and it's noticable that Caroline's actual other son and fave, future Billy the Butcher, Duke of Cumberland, gets next to no page time in these memoirs. He's at her death bed in one scene and gets told he's her sole hope for the British future, and there's just one mention elsewhere when both Hervey and the editor in footnotes discuss the periodically raised and abandoned idea of splitting Hannover and Great Britain up again so Billy the Butcher can inherit one of the two. But that's it. Methinks whatever is true of Caroline, I wouldn't be surprised if Hervey did come to see her as a replacement mother and that this provided him with additoinal ire fuel against Fritz of Wales. (Cumberland he couldn't rationally object to since he hadn't done anything at that point when Hervey writes, so he just edits him out as much as he can.)
Mind you, courtesy of Victorian editor Croker's footnotes, I got reminded again that G2 and Caroline for the first time considered the Britain/Hannover split when FoW really hadn't done anything yet they could object to but lived his parentless life in Hannover. They really wanted English born Bill for King, and if that was absolutely impossible, then they wanted him to have Hannover. So by the time Fritz of Wales rejoined the family in Britain as an adult, he already knew his parents very much prefered the younger brother he didn't even know. Incidentally, the reason why G2 and Caroline eventually didn't go through with this idea is one Hervey has himself pointing out to them - the Elector of Hannover is a prince of the HRE, which means the succession can only be altered with the Emperor's consent as well as the consent of the two princes in question (remember, this came up as to why FW couldn't change the succession without Fritz agreeing to it), and, speculates Hervey, the Emperor won't want to, because as long as the King of GB is also the Elector of Hannover, it means that Britain as a state is beholden to him.
(Sidenote: could be that MT's Dad was thinking that, but as we know, it didn't work out that way once G2's government teamed up with Fritz in 1756...)
I vote this Princess Emily and Princess Amalie of Prussia should get together!
They certainly would have had things in common. When reading this passage, I also rolled my eyes at Hervey none too subtly complaining he'd had to play the perfect courtier for G2 despite being worn out and exhausted from attending Caroline, yet otoh writing the story to demonstrate Emily's "falseness" towards her father. Of course, Emily isn't saying this to G2's face, any more than Amalie would say something like this to Fritz, for all her famous bluntness. You don't do that towards the person who has the power to lock you up in a heartbeat, or at the very least deprive you of income and all creature comforts.
Hervey on G2 and FW really was a goldmine of quotable lines. Never mind Zeithain and FW meeting August(us) the Strong, the summit we want to see is FW and G2 as adults clashing as a spectacle to all and sunder.
did they know it was a bowel - I suspect as well they originally thought it was a growth.
Hmmm. Reading between the lines, does this mean Melusine (lover of G1 and possibly therefore not a fan of G2?) and Fritz of Wales were on good terms?
You know, I think that's very likely. Because while Fritz of Wales didn't see his parents and siblings for fourteen years, he did see his grandfather G1 whenever G1 was visiting Hannover during his reign, and Melusine was with him on those occasions. Also, Horace Walpole son of Sir Robert Walpole (G2's PM for years and years) claims that Melusine was tight with the opposition to his Dad, who was also a political enemy of FoW's (the more so the more Fritz of Wales drifted towards said opposition).
G2 having contempt and hate for his sister SD: starting Horace Walpole's memoir, I am stunned to discover HW claims that SD, daughter of G1, was "a staunch Jacobite" all her life. Now, this is the first time I've come across this claim - certainly no biographer and memoirist we've come across so far on the German side claims that, and it makes absolutely no sense in terms of SD's most dear ambition (her daughter as Queen of England, Fritz married to a Hannover-British princess and preferably governing Hannover). So I feel safe to say it's not true. However, I'm perfectly willing to believe Horace W. heard it from his primary source of G2 stories, to wit, G2's official English mistress Lady Suffolk. (Who was increasingly deaf, btw.) and didn't question it further, because HW, of a generation later than Hervey, lived until 1791 and when writing his memoir has already outlived Fritz of Prussia (whom he refers to as the late great King of Prussia). Meaning: he probably knew about Fritz favoring the Scottish Keiths, who actually were Jacobites, and the story of sending George Keith as ambassador to Versailles despite the insult to uncle G2. Maybe when that happened G2 said something like "typical! I bet his mother put him up to it!" and thus the English court, unfamiliar with SD as a person for the most part, drew this "aha! SD the Jacobite!" conclusion.
Algarotti: might reconsider Lady Mary as an option, because Hervey vs Fritz of Prussia is bound to get way uglier than his rl triangle. Or maybe he elopes with Andrew Mitchell. :)
Your scenario: sounds very likely except for one thing: what does Fritz of Prussia do the first time G2 disses the Best of All Mothers in his presence?
Hmmm. Reading between the lines, does this mean Melusine (lover of G1 and possibly therefore not a fan of G2?) and Fritz of Wales were on good terms?
You know, I think that's very likely. Because while Fritz of Wales didn't see his parents and siblings for fourteen years, he did see his grandfather G1 whenever G1 was visiting Hannover during his reign, and Melusine was with him on those occasions. Also, Horace Walpole son of Sir Robert Walpole (G2's PM for years and years) claims that Melusine was tight with the opposition to his Dad, who was also a political enemy of FoW's (the more so the more Fritz of Wales drifted towards said opposition).
G2 having contempt and hate for his sister SD: starting Horace Walpole's memoir, I am stunned to discover HW claims that SD, daughter of G1, was "a staunch Jacobite" all her life. Now, this is the first time I've come across this claim - certainly no biographer and memoirist we've come across so far on the German side claims that, and it makes absolutely no sense in terms of SD's most dear ambition (her daughter as Queen of England, Fritz married to a Hannover-British princess and preferably governing Hannover). So I feel safe to say it's not true. However, I'm perfectly willing to believe Horace W. heard it from his primary source of G2 stories, to wit, G2's official English mistress Lady Suffolk. (Who was increasingly deaf, btw.) and didn't question it further, because HW, of a generation later than Hervey, lived until 1791 and when writing his memoir has already outlived Fritz of Prussia (whom he refers to as the late great King of Prussia). Meaning: he probably knew about Fritz favoring the Scottish Keiths, who actually were Jacobites, and the story of sending George Keith as ambassador to Versailles despite the insult to uncle G2. Maybe when that happened G2 said something like "typical! I bet his mother put him up to it!" and thus the English court, unfamiliar with SD as a person for the most part, drew this "aha! SD the Jacobite!" conclusion.
Algarotti: might reconsider Lady Mary as an option, because Hervey vs Fritz of Prussia is bound to get way uglier than his rl triangle. Or maybe he elopes with Andrew Mitchell. :)
Your scenario: sounds very likely except for one thing: what does Fritz of Prussia do the first time G2 disses the Best of All Mothers in his presence?
Edited 2020-09-22 20:47 (UTC)
just doubling down on Duolingo, as I'm realizing I need a baseline syntax and vocab that I don't have yet.
This all sounds great and makes perfect sense. I'm happy that you're studying German!
Random insertion of paragraph breaks has concluded; tomorrow, I'll run the file through the translator and upload the results to the library.
Tomorrow I'm also going to finish the last few pages of volume 1 of Wilhelmine's memoirs: go me! I'm 10 pages from the end and going to try to do a few more before bed.
(I am, however, reading Le Petit Prince very slowly in French, but that's another story.)
Zomg. I'm going to have to work hard to catch up when the time comes!
This all sounds great and makes perfect sense. I'm happy that you're studying German!
Random insertion of paragraph breaks has concluded; tomorrow, I'll run the file through the translator and upload the results to the library.
Tomorrow I'm also going to finish the last few pages of volume 1 of Wilhelmine's memoirs: go me! I'm 10 pages from the end and going to try to do a few more before bed.
(I am, however, reading Le Petit Prince very slowly in French, but that's another story.)
Zomg. I'm going to have to work hard to catch up when the time comes!
OK, here I am!
fandom: 18th Century CE Frederician RPF
character 1: Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802)
character 2: Catherine II of Russia
character 3: Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758)
character 4: Anna Amalie von Preußen | Anna Amalia of Prussia (1723-1787)
fandom: 18th Century CE Enlightenment RPF
character 1: Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu
character 2: Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis
character 3: Armand de Vignerot du Plessis de Richelieu (1696-1788)
character 4: Francesco Algarotti
Also, I had to change some of the writeup for last year and I added a bunch of links to![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
rheinsberg. Any more good relevant ones you want me to put in?
But someone else is going to have to write about how great Emilie is, because I tried briefly and I honestly don't know enough about the Enlightenment not to sound dumb doing it :P
FANDOM NAME: 18th Century CE Frederician RPF
Content notes: Really abusive and dysfunctional family
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Would you like a fandom with all kinds of canon slash tropes (mean abusive dad who might have been suppressing his own slashy tendencies, tragic love story with loyal best friend)? Would you like a fandom about a magnificent bastard royal figure who is a modernist and reformer (and very much into freedom of speech and religion) for his time but also likes to invade various territories for fun and profit? Would you like a fandom with interesting, layered female characters, including a woman who becomes Empress despite all of Europe thinking this is hilarious being that she's a WOMAN?
Let me introduce you to Frederick the Great / Friedrich II / "Fritz" fandom. Boy/adolescent Fritz is beaten and publicly humiliated by his father (Friedrich Wilhelm), and his boyfriend (Peter Keith) is deported when his father catches them. He falls in love again, and he and his new boyfriend (Hans Hermann von Katte) try to escape, but dad catches them and executes Katte -- and orders Fritz to watch (though evidence seems to show that Fritz was not in fact made to watch). Katte's last words are some variation on, "I die for you with joy in my heart!"
Fritz earns his freedom by marrying a woman (Elisabeth Christine), whom he sees... approximately once a year, for dinner. He eventually becomes king when his father dies, at which point he turns out to be pretty much a spectacularly magnificent bastard. On one hand, Voltaire reports on Fritz' liberal tendencies that he said, "In this country, there is freedom of conscience and penis." On the other hand, Fritz also goes around breaking treaties and invading people on paper-thin and/or really zero justification. Hilariously, he first writes the Anti-Machiavel, basically saying "You should definitely positively not break treaties and invade other people just because you can," and then a whole three months later invades Maria Theresia's province of Silesia, just because he can. (Later he tells his people to go look for a historical claim to Silesia, which they find.) Maria Theresia, meanwhile, fights three wars with Fritz, after which he gets to keep Silesia.
On the family front, Fritz goes on to treat his brothers... in a way rather reminiscent of the way his father treated him. He doesn't execute anyone's lover, but after a bunch of emotional beating up of his brother August Wilhelm, August Wilhelm dies of what everyone else in the family -- except Fritz -- thinks is a broken heart. (It may have been porphyria.) Yeah, lots of dysfunctional family in this fandom.
And I haven't even gotten into the snarky Voltaire/Fritz frenemy ship, culminating in Voltaire trolling the world by fabricating mean stories about his ex which weren't realized to be fabrications for two hundred years! Or his brother Heinrich who had a love/hate relationship with Fritz and was BFF's with Catherine the Great!
WHERE CAN I FIND IT? (optional):
The best primer for this for a total beginner is probably![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
selenak's primer on this as a TV show, complete with imagined fanon responses. selenak and mildred_of_midgard have been gracious enough to welcome me to their fandom by telling me all kinds of wacky stories about it. Much of these collected stories, synopses of various interesting bits about these characters, and various research can be found at rheinsberg (which I've linked to copiously in this post).
fandom: 18th Century CE Frederician RPF
character 1: Friedrich Heinrich Ludwig von Preußen | Henry of Prussia (1726-1802)
character 2: Catherine II of Russia
character 3: Wilhelmine von Preußen | Wilhelmine of Prussia (1709-1758)
character 4: Anna Amalie von Preußen | Anna Amalia of Prussia (1723-1787)
fandom: 18th Century CE Enlightenment RPF
character 1: Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu
character 2: Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis
character 3: Armand de Vignerot du Plessis de Richelieu (1696-1788)
character 4: Francesco Algarotti
Also, I had to change some of the writeup for last year and I added a bunch of links to
rheinsberg. Any more good relevant ones you want me to put in?But someone else is going to have to write about how great Emilie is, because I tried briefly and I honestly don't know enough about the Enlightenment not to sound dumb doing it :P
FANDOM NAME: 18th Century CE Frederician RPF
Content notes: Really abusive and dysfunctional family
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT: Would you like a fandom with all kinds of canon slash tropes (mean abusive dad who might have been suppressing his own slashy tendencies, tragic love story with loyal best friend)? Would you like a fandom about a magnificent bastard royal figure who is a modernist and reformer (and very much into freedom of speech and religion) for his time but also likes to invade various territories for fun and profit? Would you like a fandom with interesting, layered female characters, including a woman who becomes Empress despite all of Europe thinking this is hilarious being that she's a WOMAN?
Let me introduce you to Frederick the Great / Friedrich II / "Fritz" fandom. Boy/adolescent Fritz is beaten and publicly humiliated by his father (Friedrich Wilhelm), and his boyfriend (Peter Keith) is deported when his father catches them. He falls in love again, and he and his new boyfriend (Hans Hermann von Katte) try to escape, but dad catches them and executes Katte -- and orders Fritz to watch (though evidence seems to show that Fritz was not in fact made to watch). Katte's last words are some variation on, "I die for you with joy in my heart!"
Fritz earns his freedom by marrying a woman (Elisabeth Christine), whom he sees... approximately once a year, for dinner. He eventually becomes king when his father dies, at which point he turns out to be pretty much a spectacularly magnificent bastard. On one hand, Voltaire reports on Fritz' liberal tendencies that he said, "In this country, there is freedom of conscience and penis." On the other hand, Fritz also goes around breaking treaties and invading people on paper-thin and/or really zero justification. Hilariously, he first writes the Anti-Machiavel, basically saying "You should definitely positively not break treaties and invade other people just because you can," and then a whole three months later invades Maria Theresia's province of Silesia, just because he can. (Later he tells his people to go look for a historical claim to Silesia, which they find.) Maria Theresia, meanwhile, fights three wars with Fritz, after which he gets to keep Silesia.
On the family front, Fritz goes on to treat his brothers... in a way rather reminiscent of the way his father treated him. He doesn't execute anyone's lover, but after a bunch of emotional beating up of his brother August Wilhelm, August Wilhelm dies of what everyone else in the family -- except Fritz -- thinks is a broken heart. (It may have been porphyria.) Yeah, lots of dysfunctional family in this fandom.
And I haven't even gotten into the snarky Voltaire/Fritz frenemy ship, culminating in Voltaire trolling the world by fabricating mean stories about his ex which weren't realized to be fabrications for two hundred years! Or his brother Heinrich who had a love/hate relationship with Fritz and was BFF's with Catherine the Great!
WHERE CAN I FIND IT? (optional):
The best primer for this for a total beginner is probably
selenak's primer on this as a TV show, complete with imagined fanon responses. selenak and mildred_of_midgard have been gracious enough to welcome me to their fandom by telling me all kinds of wacky stories about it. Much of these collected stories, synopses of various interesting bits about these characters, and various research can be found at rheinsberg (which I've linked to copiously in this post).In haste: that is a great promo post! The mountains are calling, so it would be fabulous if Mildred could do the one for our enlightenment crowd (and their love triangles, quadrangles, and other geometric forms *g*). To get people curious about Émilie, I'd like maybe to some of the YouTube vids starring her, say, the trailer and excerpts from "The Marquise du Chatelet defends her life" which I've linked some posts ago, and I recall there is also a very useful YouTube link explaining why Émilie manages to unite both Newtonian and Leipniz ideas in her approach. Haven't yet looked for Lady Mary vids, but I bet there are some.
Go you! :D
Zomg. I'm going to have to work hard to catch up when the time comes!
This totally made me laugh, because reading Le Petit Prince is actually a reaction to knowing I'm going to have to work to catch up with you when you start French :P I figure if I read one page a day, that in fifty days... I'll be approximating what you do in one day :PP
(My French is solid enough, and Prince has simple enough grammar and vocabulary, that even when I was in school I would have been able to read it -- I think it is pretty standard reading curriculum for high school French, and I would have read it in high school had I not moved schools at that point. It's a step down from e.g. Voigt, although I should possibly get a Voigt in French to compare.)
Zomg. I'm going to have to work hard to catch up when the time comes!
This totally made me laugh, because reading Le Petit Prince is actually a reaction to knowing I'm going to have to work to catch up with you when you start French :P I figure if I read one page a day, that in fifty days... I'll be approximating what you do in one day :PP
(My French is solid enough, and Prince has simple enough grammar and vocabulary, that even when I was in school I would have been able to read it -- I think it is pretty standard reading curriculum for high school French, and I would have read it in high school had I not moved schools at that point. It's a step down from e.g. Voigt, although I should possibly get a Voigt in French to compare.)
mildred_of_midgard, can you enter your nominations here?The reason I specifically ask is that you have the key Katte nomination, and this way if anyone else is thinking of nominating in the fandom, they will not have to repeat that nomination, and further will know that it's in the tag set before it comes out. Trying to maximize your chances of getting Katte fic! :)
(Apologies if you already did and my search-fu is not good enough.)
No, I didn't. It's on my list of things to do after work today. Reason I didn't do it yesterday: I got enough sleep yesterday and decided to do things that require more sleep and put off more mechanical things till today, on the assumption that I would not get enough sleep today, which proved to be an accurate prediction.
On that note, odds of me being up to an Enlightenment write-up today are slim. Sorry. :( But I will do the nomination coordination stuff, and put the Oster bio through the translator!
Man, I hope I get enough sleep to write Yuletide fic. The last time I had solid sleep was October of last year, right before Yuletide started. :/
On that note, odds of me being up to an Enlightenment write-up today are slim. Sorry. :( But I will do the nomination coordination stuff, and put the Oster bio through the translator!
Man, I hope I get enough sleep to write Yuletide fic. The last time I had solid sleep was October of last year, right before Yuletide started. :/
Ugh, I'm sorry about the sleep! Take care of that first, of course. No big deal about an Enlightenment writeup, worst thing that happens is I write something that sounds super dumb and you guys edit it :)
I hope you get enough sleep to write Yuletide fic too!
I hope you get enough sleep to write Yuletide fic too!
worst thing that happens is I write something that sounds super dumb and you guys edit it :)
...You might have to do that!
Oster uploaded. Let me know if there are any problems accessing it. Lady Mary correspondence volumes 1-3 on their way to USPS, per tracking info updates. Yuletide nomination coordination done.
Reading of Wilhelmine, vol. 1, not quite finished, but hopefully before bed. Ugh, tired.
I hope you get enough sleep to write Yuletide fic too!
Fingers crossed! I should add that the bulk of RMSE writing happened in a brief period when I was getting adequate sleep, only during the day, and writing at night. Since that's not very lucrative, I've switched to being awake during the day, putting in as many hours at work as I can, and hoping my brain gets the message about sleeping at night sooner or later.
...You might have to do that!
Oster uploaded. Let me know if there are any problems accessing it. Lady Mary correspondence volumes 1-3 on their way to USPS, per tracking info updates. Yuletide nomination coordination done.
Reading of Wilhelmine, vol. 1, not quite finished, but hopefully before bed. Ugh, tired.
I hope you get enough sleep to write Yuletide fic too!
Fingers crossed! I should add that the bulk of RMSE writing happened in a brief period when I was getting adequate sleep, only during the day, and writing at night. Since that's not very lucrative, I've switched to being awake during the day, putting in as many hours at work as I can, and hoping my brain gets the message about sleeping at night sooner or later.
Re: Hervey's Memoirs: King Lear's Family has nothing on this
mildred_of_midgard
2020-09-24 12:45 am (UTC)(link)
Meaning: he probably knew about Fritz favoring the Scottish Keiths, who actually were Jacobites, and the story of sending George Keith as ambassador to Versailles despite the insult to uncle G2. Maybe when that happened G2 said something like "typical! I bet his mother put him up to it!" and thus the English court, unfamiliar with SD as a person for the most part, drew this "aha! SD the Jacobite!" conclusion.
Yeah, this strikes me as being akin to Thiébault claiming FW totally wanted one son to be HRE and the other King in Prussia! It makes perfect sense if you don't know just how relentlessly committed FW was to his religious beliefs.
Speaking of SD's politics, I keep seeing in places like Ziebura and Oster that she was disappointed that Fritz didn't let her influence him politically. Is there evidence for this, or just an assumption?
Algarotti: might reconsider Lady Mary as an option, because Hervey vs Fritz of Prussia is bound to get way uglier than his rl triangle. Or maybe he elopes with Andrew Mitchell. :)
Ha. I advise eloping. The farther the better.
Lady Mary: Will go to Japan as long as you're coming too!
what does Fritz of Prussia do the first time G2 disses the Best of All Mothers in his presence?
I did think of that when I was writing that up, and I'm not sure. Part of it depends on what G2 says, and how G2 responds when Fritz starts defending her, and I just don't know.
Yeah, this strikes me as being akin to Thiébault claiming FW totally wanted one son to be HRE and the other King in Prussia! It makes perfect sense if you don't know just how relentlessly committed FW was to his religious beliefs.
Speaking of SD's politics, I keep seeing in places like Ziebura and Oster that she was disappointed that Fritz didn't let her influence him politically. Is there evidence for this, or just an assumption?
Algarotti: might reconsider Lady Mary as an option, because Hervey vs Fritz of Prussia is bound to get way uglier than his rl triangle. Or maybe he elopes with Andrew Mitchell. :)
Ha. I advise eloping. The farther the better.
Lady Mary: Will go to Japan as long as you're coming too!
what does Fritz of Prussia do the first time G2 disses the Best of All Mothers in his presence?
I did think of that when I was writing that up, and I'm not sure. Part of it depends on what G2 says, and how G2 responds when Fritz starts defending her, and I just don't know.
Re: Hervey's Memoirs: King Lear's Family has nothing on this
mildred_of_midgard
2020-09-24 12:48 am (UTC)(link)
as long as the King of GB is also the Elector of Hannover, it means that Britain as a state is beholden to him.
(Sidenote: could be that MT's Dad was thinking that, but as we know, it didn't work out that way once G2's government teamed up with Fritz in 1756...)
Yeeeeahh. Turns out the Elector of Brandenburg wasn't all that beholden in 1740, and even in the 1730s, only sort of! (Ask Stanislaus.)
the summit we want to see is FW and G2 as adults clashing as a spectacle to all and sunder.
Would pay for tickets. Would bring popcorn.
(Sidenote: could be that MT's Dad was thinking that, but as we know, it didn't work out that way once G2's government teamed up with Fritz in 1756...)
Yeeeeahh. Turns out the Elector of Brandenburg wasn't all that beholden in 1740, and even in the 1730s, only sort of! (Ask Stanislaus.)
the summit we want to see is FW and G2 as adults clashing as a spectacle to all and sunder.
Would pay for tickets. Would bring popcorn.
This is where I admit my German is still at the stage where a lot of this happens:
A word: *is German*
Me: I know that's a compliment. Which compliment, I forget, but that's good enough. Moving on!
That kind of plowing ahead when it's "good enough" is why my German is progressing so quickly: I trust that my future self will know the things my present self doesn't, and so far that's working out as planned. But it does mean things like tone are a little harder to pick up on at this stage.
Also, the tone of the English translation is partly masked by the translator's choice to render it in English that is not only a hundred years old now, but was an artificially lofty, learned style even then: the English of a great many Classical translations that were trying to be as stilted as possible (some much worse than the Wilhelmine edition I'm using) and that the modern-day Classics student gets stuck with, because they're public domain and easily accessible.
"Contributed to render me acquainted with the usages of society" is not how anyone talks now, not even my dissertation advisor, who has the most Latinate English of anyone I've ever known, and if you read other stuff from a hundred years ago, you can tell the man on the street wasn't talking like that back then, either. You had to learn to write like that.
So unfortunately I have to make a conscious effort to see past it and perceive a tone other than "sounds really stilted to the modern ear."
I can tell you the sarcasm comes through in both translations! Yesterday I got to the Wusterhausen part, and it was full of complimentary words, immediately after a description of just how terrible it was. "Such was the delightful place we were staying at. This is what the glamorous front hall looked like." That sort of thing. :D
A word: *is German*
Me: I know that's a compliment. Which compliment, I forget, but that's good enough. Moving on!
That kind of plowing ahead when it's "good enough" is why my German is progressing so quickly: I trust that my future self will know the things my present self doesn't, and so far that's working out as planned. But it does mean things like tone are a little harder to pick up on at this stage.
Also, the tone of the English translation is partly masked by the translator's choice to render it in English that is not only a hundred years old now, but was an artificially lofty, learned style even then: the English of a great many Classical translations that were trying to be as stilted as possible (some much worse than the Wilhelmine edition I'm using) and that the modern-day Classics student gets stuck with, because they're public domain and easily accessible.
"Contributed to render me acquainted with the usages of society" is not how anyone talks now, not even my dissertation advisor, who has the most Latinate English of anyone I've ever known, and if you read other stuff from a hundred years ago, you can tell the man on the street wasn't talking like that back then, either. You had to learn to write like that.
So unfortunately I have to make a conscious effort to see past it and perceive a tone other than "sounds really stilted to the modern ear."
I can tell you the sarcasm comes through in both translations! Yesterday I got to the Wusterhausen part, and it was full of complimentary words, immediately after a description of just how terrible it was. "Such was the delightful place we were staying at. This is what the glamorous front hall looked like." That sort of thing. :D
I figure if I read one page a day, that in fifty days... I'll be approximating what you do in one day :PP
Heee. Well, I do have a lot of *time* on my hands, and I'm more committed to making this happen now, it's true. :)
I just know there's a good chance I'll never be this motivated to study French or German again, and if I get my reading skills to a reasonable place now, then I can hopefully *maintain* them such that I can use them for other things. Like especially in Classics, there's a bunch of stuff I want to read in German, but not badly enough to study German for. But with reading group, and gossip, and so forth, now's the time!
I think it is pretty standard reading curriculum for high school French
So I gather, but as you know, I went to an unacademic high school, and after I took all the French that was offered, we still weren't reading anything. We were still just doing textbook exercises consisting of individual sentences, Duolingo-style.
We did The Little Prince in eleventh-grade *English*. Not that we weren't also doing more complicated English prose, but we certainly were not in a position to read that in French. To the extent that I can make heads or tails of French for Frederician purposes, it's because I'm generally good at languages and picked some things up here and there since then, not because my high school French got me up to being able to read entire paragraphs. (Because why send your intellectually talented, ambitious, and frustrated daughter to decent schools, when you could tell her the quality of her education doesn't matter and send her to some of the lowest-ranked ones in two of the lowest-ranked states for education in the US. Though at least no one beat me for studying Latin! Poor Fritz.)
But now I have a method! And I have plans! But before then, I have a long reading list for German. Plus hopefully Yuletide. So you should have more than 50 days to practice. :)
Actually, what with Yuletide, I might actually not start French until next year. We'll see. I did tell Royal Patron we're not starting Greek as soon as I'd originally projected, what with me getting serious about German, then RMSE happening, possibly Yuletide, and hopefully French, lol.
Heee. Well, I do have a lot of *time* on my hands, and I'm more committed to making this happen now, it's true. :)
I just know there's a good chance I'll never be this motivated to study French or German again, and if I get my reading skills to a reasonable place now, then I can hopefully *maintain* them such that I can use them for other things. Like especially in Classics, there's a bunch of stuff I want to read in German, but not badly enough to study German for. But with reading group, and gossip, and so forth, now's the time!
I think it is pretty standard reading curriculum for high school French
So I gather, but as you know, I went to an unacademic high school, and after I took all the French that was offered, we still weren't reading anything. We were still just doing textbook exercises consisting of individual sentences, Duolingo-style.
We did The Little Prince in eleventh-grade *English*. Not that we weren't also doing more complicated English prose, but we certainly were not in a position to read that in French. To the extent that I can make heads or tails of French for Frederician purposes, it's because I'm generally good at languages and picked some things up here and there since then, not because my high school French got me up to being able to read entire paragraphs. (Because why send your intellectually talented, ambitious, and frustrated daughter to decent schools, when you could tell her the quality of her education doesn't matter and send her to some of the lowest-ranked ones in two of the lowest-ranked states for education in the US. Though at least no one beat me for studying Latin! Poor Fritz.)
But now I have a method! And I have plans! But before then, I have a long reading list for German. Plus hopefully Yuletide. So you should have more than 50 days to practice. :)
Actually, what with Yuletide, I might actually not start French until next year. We'll see. I did tell Royal Patron we're not starting Greek as soon as I'd originally projected, what with me getting serious about German, then RMSE happening, possibly Yuletide, and hopefully French, lol.
OK! I have to finish up some stuff for work tonight, but I'll try to do something along this line tomorrow if you don't get to it by then. (gah, one of these days I will actually say something coherent about the last part of Wives! Maybe.) Same with Oster, which I probably also won't get to tonight.
Hm. Do you think your body finds daytime a better time to sleep?
Hm. Do you think your body finds daytime a better time to sleep?
Mes amies, new problem: I jiust woke up to see Morbane is okay with the Eurpean Enlightenment Fandom per se,but not with thei title and wants it narrowed down as the current title „covers an extreme swathe of geography and time“.
So, seeing as the characters we nominated, except for Algarotti, are French and English, what do you say to „Franco-British Enlightenment“? „French.Enlightenment“ won‘t cover Lady Mary and Hervey, and I do want the title to reflect it‘s more than France as a location.
ETA: Hang on, we could narrow it down by profession: How about "European Scientists and Writers of the Enlightenment RPF"? (With Mme de Pompadour and Richelieu qualifying as patrons of same.)
So, seeing as the characters we nominated, except for Algarotti, are French and English, what do you say to „Franco-British Enlightenment“? „French.Enlightenment“ won‘t cover Lady Mary and Hervey, and I do want the title to reflect it‘s more than France as a location.
ETA: Hang on, we could narrow it down by profession: How about "European Scientists and Writers of the Enlightenment RPF"? (With Mme de Pompadour and Richelieu qualifying as patrons of same.)
Edited 2020-09-24 05:45 (UTC)
Speaking of SD's politics, I keep seeing in places like Ziebura and Oster that she was disappointed that Fritz didn't let her influence him politically. Is there evidence for this, or just an assumption?
I've seen this, too, starting with good old Preuß and Koser, but never with a footnote saying "see letter X" or "memoirs y", or "ambassadorial report Z". So until I see a citation, I'm going with "assumption", based on the fact that SD had these political battles with FW for all those years and, I suspect, also a very 19th century moralistic desire to see her punished in some fashion. "She got what she wanted, only to find out her son wasn't her puppet at all but his father's worthy successor and our national hero!", that kind of thing. (Because SD is the outright villain in Der Vater, that's certainly how this novel plays it.) But, you know, I never had the impression SD cared about Prussian politics as such, other than "English marriages for my kids, Grumbkow & Seckendorff defeated". The marriages were none-issues by the time Fritz became King, Grumbkow was dead, and Seckendorff far away, and Fritz made it very clear that SD, not EC was the first lady of Prussia, so my impression was she revelled in this and was otherwise an admiring mother (to Fritz) applauding his mighty deeds, bossy only when it came to his wardrobe.
I've seen this, too, starting with good old Preuß and Koser, but never with a footnote saying "see letter X" or "memoirs y", or "ambassadorial report Z". So until I see a citation, I'm going with "assumption", based on the fact that SD had these political battles with FW for all those years and, I suspect, also a very 19th century moralistic desire to see her punished in some fashion. "She got what she wanted, only to find out her son wasn't her puppet at all but his father's worthy successor and our national hero!", that kind of thing. (Because SD is the outright villain in Der Vater, that's certainly how this novel plays it.) But, you know, I never had the impression SD cared about Prussian politics as such, other than "English marriages for my kids, Grumbkow & Seckendorff defeated". The marriages were none-issues by the time Fritz became King, Grumbkow was dead, and Seckendorff far away, and Fritz made it very clear that SD, not EC was the first lady of Prussia, so my impression was she revelled in this and was otherwise an admiring mother (to Fritz) applauding his mighty deeds, bossy only when it came to his wardrobe.
Two useful links:
Émilie du Chatelet: ca twelve minutes vid about Émilie and why she's cool, and
Clips from the play about her, "The Marquise du Chatelet defends her life tonight".
Émilie du Chatelet: ca twelve minutes vid about Émilie and why she's cool, and
Clips from the play about her, "The Marquise du Chatelet defends her life tonight".
Oh! I quite like "European scientists and writers." (I suppose that if we HAD to we could even just say "writers" or maybe "authors," since Emilie and Algarotti also wrote books... but that might be pushing it.)
I like it better than Franco-British, as I would love for it to be open to scientists/writers of other countries, like say Euler! :D
I like it better than Franco-British, as I would love for it to be open to scientists/writers of other countries, like say Euler! :D
I spent all my free time today reading German, after not reading much in the past few days. and got through the first 52 pages! That's up through "A conflict is looming." Definitely easier reading than the Wilhelmine memoirs. I'm thinking of reading this book first, then picking up volume 2 of the memoirs.
No comments tonight, as it's my bedtime, and alsocahn could use some time to catch up. ;)
Good luck with the Enlightenment nominations, guys! Sorry I'm not more help, but, you know, German and sleep. #priorities But I'm following the developments and silently cheering you on.
No comments tonight, as it's my bedtime, and also
cahn could use some time to catch up. ;)Good luck with the Enlightenment nominations, guys! Sorry I'm not more help, but, you know, German and sleep. #priorities But I'm following the developments and silently cheering you on.
Thank you!!
(Also, hmm, I just went to look for what we were naming this and morbane seems to think it's still too broad. I wonder if we should maybe even just go with "Francesco Algarotti's friends and lovers," lol.Mods don't have to know that this is still extremely broad Though since no one but us will have heard of Algarotti, I actually kind of wonder whether we should put Voltaire in the title (something like "Voltaire's friends" or "Two degrees from Voltaire"??) -- that way other people will be interested as well, and I think most of the people we are trying to nominate could be connected to him in some way?)
FANDOM NAME: whatever we end up naming it
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT:
The Age of Enlightenment was a time in the 18th Century when philosophers and scientists got very excited about reason! science! liberty! and other such matters. [this is the bit that sounds dumb to me, please fix this]
There were some very interesting and cool people who were part of this movement. My favorite is Émilie du Châtelet, who was super awesome. She was Voltaire's lover, but she could run circles around him in terms of science and mathematical prowess. Her mathematics tutor wrote to a friend when he first began giving lessons to her and to Voltaire that she was 'altogether remarkable,' while he could not even make the other understand what mathematics was. She couldn't find a good textbook to teach her son physics, so she just wrote her own! She wrote a translation/analysis of Newton's Principia (and was correcting the proofs while recovering from childbirth, and sent them off a day before she died) that was so great that it is still the standard in France today.
She was part of a larger group of people who were also really interesting (though Émilie is my fave). [Depending on whether we're calling out the relationship to Voltaire] Voltaire is, of course, fascinating: he was always there for the underdog, although if you weren't an underdog you were likely to feel the sting of his pen! Francesco Algarotti was a polymath and dabbled in all kinds of different things, including having sex with... quite a lot of people! Including a love triangle with the writer Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the politican and writer Lord Hervey (who also got embroiled in other political-sexual scandals related to the royal family).
Basically, this whole thing is a giant soap opera, with Émilie as the Mary Sue super-heroine, only she's actually real :D
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): I'll put in the clips here, as well as link to the rheinsberg post, but I need to sleep now so will do it tomorrow, or after we find a name for our fandom...
(Also, hmm, I just went to look for what we were naming this and morbane seems to think it's still too broad. I wonder if we should maybe even just go with "Francesco Algarotti's friends and lovers," lol.
FANDOM NAME: whatever we end up naming it
WHAT MAKES IT GREAT:
The Age of Enlightenment was a time in the 18th Century when philosophers and scientists got very excited about reason! science! liberty! and other such matters. [this is the bit that sounds dumb to me, please fix this]
There were some very interesting and cool people who were part of this movement. My favorite is Émilie du Châtelet, who was super awesome. She was Voltaire's lover, but she could run circles around him in terms of science and mathematical prowess. Her mathematics tutor wrote to a friend when he first began giving lessons to her and to Voltaire that she was 'altogether remarkable,' while he could not even make the other understand what mathematics was. She couldn't find a good textbook to teach her son physics, so she just wrote her own! She wrote a translation/analysis of Newton's Principia (and was correcting the proofs while recovering from childbirth, and sent them off a day before she died) that was so great that it is still the standard in France today.
She was part of a larger group of people who were also really interesting (though Émilie is my fave). [Depending on whether we're calling out the relationship to Voltaire] Voltaire is, of course, fascinating: he was always there for the underdog, although if you weren't an underdog you were likely to feel the sting of his pen! Francesco Algarotti was a polymath and dabbled in all kinds of different things, including having sex with... quite a lot of people! Including a love triangle with the writer Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the politican and writer Lord Hervey (who also got embroiled in other political-sexual scandals related to the royal family).
Basically, this whole thing is a giant soap opera, with Émilie as the Mary Sue super-heroine, only she's actually real :D
WHERE CAN I FIND IT?(optional): I'll put in the clips here, as well as link to the rheinsberg post, but I need to sleep now so will do it tomorrow, or after we find a name for our fandom...
I did consider "Six Steps of Francesco Algarotti" as an alternative label. :) "Age of Voltaire" - which the Engligthenment is actually referred to in France - might do, BUT I've also just mustered a defense based on precedent and connection for the current label in my reply to Morbane, which also features cross connections for the characters we've nominated, check it out. :)
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