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Lehndorff readalong
Date: 2020-10-20 07:08 am (UTC)1753, March 20: Lehndorff's hopes about his cousin are fading, and he's seeing the property he was expecting disappear into the hands of his rival. So the One Who Got Away still isn't married yet!
I was very surprised to have missed this, checked in my Lehndorff copy, and immediately realised why I had missed it in my original reading. To wit: the word used here is "Vetter", which means male cousin. The (old fashioned) German word for female cousin is "Base". (Current day German uses the French derived "Cousin" and "Cousine" all the way.) Therefore, I did not connect this with Fräulein du Rosey but assumed Lehndorff had been expecting a legacy. This said, I think you are actually completely correct, and that Schmidt-Lötzen, who, let's not forget, translated this entire text from the French (except for the passages or individual words in German which he always indicates as such), made a mistake in his decyphering of Lehndorff's hand writing. "Cousin" and "Cousine" in a hand written centuries old text are easy to mistake, and it certainly fits if he's talking about the One Who Got Away here.
Reisewitz: loses his head, dumps water on his boyfriend Heinrich instead of on the fire, which gave it time to spread. I guess that shows some priorities!
Reisewitz: Indeed, which is why I find it so unfair Lehndorff keeps bitching about me in Volume 2 and doubts my dedication to the Prince! I may have started to weasel his money away, but I clearly cared for his life! Besides, I'm sure you guessed that Mr. "Beautiful as an angel in his riding pants" kept staring at soaked to the skin Heinrich. "Kept my cool", hah. Yeah, he was "observing", alright. I'd call it drooling.
Omg, it continues. The tears, the speechlessness, the broken heart, the vows of eternal devotion, the sleeplessness!
I know you've told us about this very episode,
Isn't it just? Lehndorff is clearly the contemporary of Lady Mary and Hervey in full Algarotti fever. A Rokoko courtier who doesn't love in hyperbole does not love. But what really makes the passage as more than youthful hormones speaking is the knowledge that thirty years later, he still sounds like that when writing about seeing Heinrich again. (Despite, as you'll see as you continue in 1753, going through his first cycle of "OMG, he doesn't care! It's all over between us, I can see that now!" in the same year which he periodically will keep going through until Hotham arrives.)
Speaking of Fredersdorf the village vs Fredersdorf the person, did you notice the reference to Fredersdorf's fiancee near the end of 1752?
Enlightened Souls
Date: 2020-10-20 08:11 am (UTC)Ruppin, 25. März 1736: "The circumstances of Diaphane or Diablotin have been ordered somewhat for the better, so he can dedicate himself more to philosophy now."
Secondly, trying to track down the poem Luise Gottsched wrote about and to Émiilie, I both was reminded again she was possibly the coolest female figure of the early German Enlightenment (she died in 1763, right after the 7 Years War had ended) and also that Orieux was right, if Émilie had come with Voltaire on his German trip in 1743, she'd have been enthusiastically welcomed. She had fans here! Not least because she was practically the only person who did not see Newton and Leipniz as an either/or and instead worked to unite the approach of both in her theories. No less a person than Christian Wolff said, after reading her "Institutions", that "it is as if I hear myself talk". (Which, okay, ego much, but still.) And he did want to meet her. (He did not want to meet Fritz.) The "Intitutions" made such an impression that Émilie became the first woman to be presented with "Die Münze der Minerva" (Luise Gottsched was the second). As for Luise Gottsched, or "die Gottschedin", as she's nicknamed to differentiate her from her husband, Gottsched the pusher-for-German-language, she was the first female German writer to write comedies and a tragedy, in addition to writing poetry. She translated, among otherworks, Voltaire's Alzire and Zaire as well as Émilie's letter exchange with Mairon (aka the one where Émilie pwned the "now listen, little woman, you don't understand science" Academy Secretary (which btw makes for a wonderful scene in Gundermann's drama about her), which Émilie had published in the next edition of the Institutions; the Gottschedin's German translation of Émilie's Mairon-pwning is here. And she also translated one of Madame de Graffigny's plays. Now because she really wrote a lot, I haven't been able to find more than a quote from the Émilie poem so far, but I did find the Ode to MT she wrote after having been received by her, which is lengthy and contains a passage that can be summarized thusly:
"XXX reason why you're cool, MT: you speak all the languages of the people you rule. Fluently. Including German, so when you meet your subjects, like myself, you can actually talk to them in their own language. Unlike some people who only can sneer."
The quote from the Gottschedin's poem to Émiilie which I did find already goes thusly: „Du, die Du jetzt den Ruhm des Vaterlandes stützest,
Frau, die Du ihm weit mehr als tausend Männer nütztest,
Erhabne Chatelet, o fahre ferner fort
Der Wahrheit nachzugehn.“
Ii.e. "On whom the fame of the fatherland rests now/ Woman who is of more use to it than a thousand men/ Noble Chatelet, oh, do continue/ To seek out truth!"
Now from these lines it's not apparant whether Luise Gottsched means by the Vaterland Émilie's patrie or her own country (perhaps because Émilie is rehabilitating Leipniz who gets attacked internationally now by Newtonians), which is one of many reasons why I want to read the complete poem, but under the assumption that she means France, let's see :
You who provides your country's claim to fame
More so than thousands of the men whom I could name,
Woman! Oh noble Chatelet, proceed
To seek the truth, wherever it may lead!
no subject
Date: 2020-10-20 01:23 pm (UTC)Re: Lehndorff readalong
Date: 2020-10-20 01:33 pm (UTC)Oh, damn, you're right! *facepalm* That's embarrassing. The problem is they're the same in English, so in my head it comes out the same. ;)
But yes, you're also right that the -e would be easy to miss in French, and given the timing (even though it's a little bit later than we had guessed, it's still earlier than 1755), I think this makes the most sense as the du Rosey cousin(e).
ETA: In conclusion, it's good that a non-fluent German is rereading last year's salon material, not only because I go slowly, but because I make possibly felicitous mistakes! (I mean, it's improbable that in the early 1750s he lost the wealth of 2 cousins, one male and one female, to a hated rival, right?)
which he always indicates as such)
Indeed, and
Besides, I'm sure you guessed that Mr. "Beautiful as an angel in his riding pants" kept staring at soaked to the skin Heinrich. "Kept my cool", hah. Yeah, he was "observing", alright. I'd call it drooling.
ROFL. That's it, somebody's got to write crackfic. I notice *two* of you requested Heinrich for Yuletide, so plenty of opportunities. :P
Speaking of Fredersdorf the village vs Fredersdorf the person, did you notice the reference to Fredersdorf's fiancee near the end of 1752?
Of course!
Fanart requests
Date: 2020-10-20 02:37 pm (UTC)A few steps to the side, Fritz visits the Antinous statue! (About which I have also written fic, lol.)
Mimi burning the manuscript of Suhm's translation of Wolff and celebrating madly over the ruins! No, I don't know what species of monkey she is. My current favorite (as a wild animal, not as a pet!) is the capuchin, but that's a New World monkey, and I don't know how common that would have been in Europe in the time. A vervet is at least a smallish Old World monkey, and common as a pet now (which I repeat is a bad idea!), although again, I'm not sure about the 18th century.
Yes, I'm trying to help you improve your animal drawing skills. :D :D
Happy to trade ego boosts in return for art!
Re: Fanart requests
Date: 2020-10-20 02:48 pm (UTC)And if we're making fic-related requests, I'm eying Old Fritz meeting MT's ghost in his Sanssouci study in the last of my Five Ways Frederick the Great and Maria Theresia did not meet, as well as Heinrich visiting a dying Wilhelmine shortly after AW's death
and being talked out of strangling Fritz the next time they meet.Re: Fanart requests
Date: 2020-10-20 03:06 pm (UTC)There are plenty of monkeys in contemporary art; not least, the monkeys on the wall of the so-called Voltaire room in Sanssouci! But don't ask me for more examples--I'm supposed to be working for the next few hours, and then I have a German quota to meet, lol.
Re: Fanart requests
Date: 2020-10-20 04:57 pm (UTC)I started painting Fredersdorf today! The background is done and I'll do my best not to screw up the face tomorrow :D after asking my boss, i ended up opting for acrylic paint after all. He'll probably get a glossy varnish though, so he'll look real fancy (provided I don't mess up). One thing I'm already liking way more about this one after my last acrylic piece is the size! The Katte picture is 60x60cm and this one is only 24x30. That makes handling it a whole lot easier and I can actually work at a desk instead of covering my apartment in old newspapers and crouching on the floor :'D
I just read a somewhat mean sounding article about how no portrait ever got Fritz's nose right, so as soon as I'm done with my exam next week (this class has been over since late June, I don't remember shit, shoot me), I'll probably do some digital sketches of Fritz with the death mask as a reference to figure out how to portray him at different ages. I feel like that might be fun and I want to get the nose right :'D Might combine that with drawing him with Heinrich. Just a small-ish (meaning: non-shaded) digital piece to get a grip on how to draw their uniforms.
Re: Enlightened Souls
Date: 2020-10-21 01:11 am (UTC)Nice, thank you! Headcanon that in 1736 he became the envoy formerly known as Diablotin, as Fritz shifted to calling him Diaphane. ;) (For which readers of my fic know what my headcanon is.)
Now because she really wrote a lot, I haven't been able to find more than a quote from the Émilie poem so far
See Fritzian Library, Contemporary Documents, Gottsched_Chatelet_Zwo_Schriften.pdf. I agree it was not trivial to find! 11 tabs and 15 minutes later, here you go. :) (That's much more than usual, though nothing beats Peter Keith's eulogy--that one was crazy and only a fic would have made me put in that much effort.)
I didn't mean it as a request for you to find them for me! Just that whenever I'm like "I've never seen X," I know that it is just a matter of time before you find stuff for me :D
See,
Anyway, I look forward to further findings on the Gottsched/Châtelet front!
Re: Fanart requests
Date: 2020-10-21 01:22 am (UTC)Wouldn't want you to be bored!
Seriously, anything you draw will be awesome, but if you ask for suggestions
with the death mask as a reference
I did notice the nose in the death mask is rather more prominent than in the portraits! I could see toning it down a bit. Plus which, I don't think he sat for many portraits, so being mean to the artists is a little unfair, lol. (As Voltaire would point out, you have to stop talking, and that's hard. :P)
Assorted replies
Date: 2020-10-21 01:36 am (UTC)Awwww that other Fritz+dog one! And hee to the Katte and Fredersdorf :D (Ah, now, is it plausible Schwerin sent Fredersdorf? Should we have put that in?) :D
I mean, we sort of did. We went with one of the two backstories:
- Fredersdorf was pulled out of Schwerin's regiment to entertain Fritz. (Whether it was at Schwerin's order--I *think* I've seen this somewhere semi-reliable, but we just don't know.)
- They met at the university student performance at Frankfurt an der Oder (which we know happened, but we don't know whether Fredersdorf was there).
And I had Fredersdorf mention that he played the oboe in Schwerin's regiment (check and you'll see it's there), which is as much mention of Schwerin as I felt fit in this fic. I did consider more, but couldn't figure out how to work it in, so I think it's fine?
OKAY CONSIDER YOURSELF YELLED AT. YOU ARE HERE TO DO GERMAN NOT TO DO RESEARCH OR LOOK AT PICTURES OF DOGS even if they are really cute and awesomely drawn dogs. YOU HAD A QUOTA AND YOU DID NOT MAKE IT.
For those new here, I've asked
(They are cute and awesomely drawn!)
lol forever to him being confused about Voltaire and Fritz, that's all of us Lehndorff
Lol yes.
I knoooow, this is why Lehndorff 2 is on my list, but I can't quite handle the font yet, and I'll be surprised if Google can handle it well enough that I'll be able to give
It's OK -- I would love to read it if there were a good font, but if not I will just be happy with you reading it :)
I knooow, but it's got so much great Heinrich sparkly hearting! If I can't render it into something readable for you, I will try to annotate it for you, even though it'll be 2021 at this rate.
I only know he was a non-noble actor-playwright at the court of Louis XIV., which makes me assume the same thing. :) Checking on his German wiki entry, I see it also claims Alceste in The Misanthrope is the most autobiogrophical of his characters.
Heee, called it!
Re: Lehndorff readalong
Date: 2020-10-21 01:39 am (UTC)I know humans are prone to seeing patterns where none exist (the technical term is pareidolia), but that's a heck of a coincidence.
Re: Lehndorff readalong
Date: 2020-10-21 03:10 am (UTC)Let me know how much you want to do per week,
Re: Lehndorff readalong
Date: 2020-10-21 04:23 am (UTC)It looks like if I read slowly so I can do some of it in German, I can get through about 6 months a day, so let's say... 4 years in a week :) I know it depends largely on how much he writes per year, but I'm going to assume that it is at least roughly constant -- and in fact as far as my personal idiosyncratic reading is concerned, it probably is, because if he starts writing paragraphs and paragraphs then I just skip directly to English and read it faster :P
Re: Lehndorff readalong
Date: 2020-10-21 04:55 am (UTC)1750: 6 pages
1751: 7 pages
1752: 15 pages
1753: 100 pages
1754: 60 pages
1755: 52 pages
1756: 80 pages
1757: 65 pages
1758: 30 pages
1759: 33 pages
1760: 5 pages
1761: 11 pages
1762: 1 page
1763: 24 pages
1764: 2 pages
1765: 6 pages
1766: 5 pages
1767: 3 pages
1768: 2 pages
1769-1775: 10 pages
:P
Re: Lehndorff readalong
Date: 2020-10-21 05:15 am (UTC)Years are WAY easier for me than pages, so...
-by the end of this weekend I should be at the end of 1754
-by the end of next weekend I should be at the end of 1756
-the week after that, the end of 1761
-then I should be done
...let's see how far I get this week. I am not sure how rough that is in either direction! if I get stuck on German I may be reading a lot more in English (and so get more read), whereas if I start reading more in German I may be a lot slower than that!
Anyway, right now I'm at 25 May 1753, so you can track :)
Advocatus diaboli
Date: 2020-10-21 05:40 am (UTC)Re: Lehndorff readalong
Date: 2020-10-21 05:50 am (UTC)Now as I said before, on the one hand, I understand, because the original volume was published to give readers a best of selection and overview, evidently not anticipating the eager reaction, and of course publishing with pre WWI censorship laws still in place. But I'm still surprised more of, say, Lehndorff's 1754 peacetime Prussian court stories made the cut than of his later 7 Years Wars entries, when those are reports on the biggest national drama.
Re: Enlightened Souls
Date: 2020-10-21 06:29 am (UTC)Mairan: Madame Marquise,
though you somehow found yourself published on the topc of Force Vive, you rush to judgment like any woman confronted with ideas beyond her skill. My dear, you simply do not understand my mathematics, nor did you properly read my own writing as you misquote me throughout. I would be happy to guide you through my reasoning, if you would permit me at your little Leipniz academy in the fields. But as my equations prove there is no need to square force: Newton is right, Leipniz is wrong, and you, my dear, are out of your element. All you need to do, Madame, is to read, and reread, and perhaps you could bring us something worth our time.
Émilie: Monsieur,
I am sorry to play the mother to your wandering child, but it is, after all, the instinct of my sex to correct a failure in order to educate. ON the point of my misquoting your work. I have included a table listing exact references, so you can stop misquoting me. And I attached complete solutions to all aforementioned problems. I can walk you through the difficult bits. Force vive is the only theory that explains the Dutch experiments on velocity. so I suggest that you keep reading for you've obviously got some catching up to do. Yours humbly, la Marquise.
Now, Luise Gottsched:
Preface: Dear readers, you might wonder why I, who usually write and translate poetry and drama, am now branching out to science, and why you should care about a French academic quarrell. The reasons are obvious.
1.) Émilie du Chatelet rocks.
2.) The great Leipniz is our homeboy, and keeps constantly being denigrated by French Descartes fans who don't want to admit a German advanced beyond their guy, and use Newton as a strawman argument. Reading a Frenchwoman school these chauvinistic Frenchmen and defend our guy is immensely satisfying on every level.
3.) On that note, I am so, so, SO sick of being constantly patronized to by SOME PEOPLE both as a German and a woman. This Mairan sounds like a complete ass, see pages X, Y and Z of my translation. Schadenfreude is also a German word, assholes. Émilie provided me with a lot of it, and I wanted to share.
4.) She's absolutely right about the living force.
Dedicatory poem: Émilie du Châtelet, you rock my world! You have a mind that seeks out all the challenges. Forgive me for a lengthy aside owed to all the constant dissings from your countrymen and certain of their imitators in my part of the world. Firstly, It's stupid to judge scientists by where there are from, but let's be honest here, three quarters of the Leipniz bashing is because he's not French. Contrary to what we're constantly told, though, I don't think we Germans are inferior in thought, deeds or language, and you know what, French people, constantly bragging about your superiority from a hundred years ago just shows you're not so hot now. Ahem. Sorry, Émilie. It just occurs to me that you might be surprised a poem to you disses your countrymen. I don't mean like that! It's just, I have issues. We all do, due to all the - anyway. I think we can agree that it's not the national heritage that makes a scientist great or small but their own efforts. If you were from Germany, or if you founded your own nation in this wonderful sounding place Cirey, you could not be better or worse than you are by your own rights. France, on the other hand, can be grateful it has you, for you are worth more than a thousand of the men currently trumpeting their fame. Please, continue to seek out the truth, inspire the rest of us doing likewise by your courage, and accept your wonderful, clever words clothed in this German dress, yours fannishly, Luise Gottsched.
Re: Lehndorff readalong
Date: 2020-10-21 06:46 am (UTC)*nods* My thinking precisely, and yes, your slow and methodic reading continues to yield amazing results!
re: Missing endnotes - can sometimes be illuminating, though, as when Lehndorff, in the middle of the "worst day of my life/what a man/in pagan times they'd have made him a god!" outbursts mentions that he went home and "wrote a sad letter to a certain person". The footnote says this was Countess Bentinck, whom he not a page earlier has cautioned himself to end hanging out with because she's in Fritz disgrace. Clearly, being in the pining-for-Heinrich club together overrode courtier caution. :)
(Btw, if you're wondering how Schmidt-Lötzen knew this was Countess Bentinck, remember that older Lehndorff at some point in his mid 60s evidently went through his early diaries and added some clarifying remarks like that.)
Re: Lehndorff readalong
Date: 2020-10-21 01:45 pm (UTC)Re: Lehndorff readalong
Date: 2020-10-21 03:44 pm (UTC)And, lol, I just remembered you were way ahead of me and was trying to catch up, and I see I went too far :D
Re: Fanart requests
Date: 2020-10-21 04:46 pm (UTC)My dude. He is TWO YEARS OLD in this painting, what was Pesne supposed to do!? I am pretty sure that his face changed a little between 2 and 74 :'D
Speaking of painting, an update from the Fredersdorf front: I fucked up big time and now I have to redo the entire face because I'm a dumbass who thought "Hm, this tone doesn't look right, let's go over it with a transparent layer" when not all tones were laid down yet and the colour was actually correct in context. So then he was half orange and then I didn't manage to get the right colour again and now I've painted over everything below the eyes which makes it look like he's wearing some creepy facemask and I am about ready to a) cry, b) burn everything I've made and c) condemn acrylic paints to hell where they belong :'D
The next piece I make is gonna be in anything but acrylic, I feel like I could do better by glueing together last week's newspapers than by painting skin in acrylic.
Re: Lehndorff readalong
Date: 2020-10-21 07:08 pm (UTC)More comments coming this weekend; Krockow practice for me until then. I suggest you go back and reread some German between now and then. ;)
"Geburtstag": a relevant word for me today!
Re: Lehndorff readalong
Date: 2020-10-21 07:37 pm (UTC)Alles Gute zum Geburtstag! :) (okay, yes, I did look that up, it not being something Lehndorff feels the need to say to his diary)