Huh. That's in Catt (memoirs, not sure about the diary). Might his source be Catt, directly or indirectly?
Directly. He does say he talked to Catt. And yes, Catt is less than reliable, but Nicolai doesn't know that.
I can see why Nicolai would have to dedicate some page time to eviscerating these English publications.
Quite. BTw, I note that with all his railing against Voltaire the ungrateful wretch, it's half a volume rant about how Fritz would never go for painted porn, but exactly zero comments on the "bottoming for page boys and soldiers" allegation. (As opposed to Zimmermann in his Fragments, who of course has "Fritz wasn't gay!" as the key thesis of the work.
Okay, then I think we have our source for Nicolai. Will take it with a grain of salt pending further evidence. (Naturally, Fritz *wished* he could see his mother and sister after death; whether he actually believed there was a possibility is another question.)
exactly zero comments on the "bottoming for page boys and soldiers" allegation.
Ah good, I was about to ask if Fritz coming to believe in the immortality of the soul was possibly true, because that really went against a lot I thought I understood about him, but if Nicolai got it from Catt :P
If you read Catt's memoirs, you can see him *insisting* repeatedly that there's no way Fritz is really, *really* sure about his convictions (and also that he was totally superstitious, because that's what happens when you don't have religion to show you the light), so *major* grain of salt here, and I said that before we learned anything about Catt's unreliability. (Actually, part of my argument then was that just as I was biased toward hoping Katte was faking, Catt would have been biased toward believing that Fritz would come around to agreeing with Christianity! (I do try to at least be aware of my biases at a scholarly level, though at a fannish level it's no fun not having them.))
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timeasmymeasure
Re: More Nicolai
Date: 2021-02-20 07:41 am (UTC)Directly. He does say he talked to Catt. And yes, Catt is less than reliable, but Nicolai doesn't know that.
I can see why Nicolai would have to dedicate some page time to eviscerating these English publications.
Quite. BTw, I note that with all his railing against Voltaire the ungrateful wretch, it's half a volume rant about how Fritz would never go for painted porn, but exactly zero comments on the "bottoming for page boys and soldiers" allegation. (As opposed to Zimmermann in his Fragments, who of course has "Fritz wasn't gay!" as the key thesis of the work.
Re: More Nicolai
Date: 2021-02-20 01:22 pm (UTC)Okay, then I think we have our source for Nicolai. Will take it with a grain of salt pending further evidence. (Naturally, Fritz *wished* he could see his mother and sister after death; whether he actually believed there was a possibility is another question.)
exactly zero comments on the "bottoming for page boys and soldiers" allegation.
LOLOLOL.
Re: More Nicolai
Date: 2021-02-20 06:21 pm (UTC)I knew you guys would be on top of it! :D
Re: More Nicolai
Date: 2021-02-20 06:26 pm (UTC)