You really can. BTW, footnote for cahn: Lentulus is this guy, not to be confused with Quintus Icilius; the later got that Roman name because Fritz didn't want to admit he'd been wrong, and was also the one sacking Hubertusburg on Fritz' orders; whereas Lentulus was actually called that before Fritz, and at the time Voltaire is writing presumably is most famous to a French audience because he distinguished himself at Rossbach (i.e. famous Prussian victory and infamous French defeat).
Time travelling Fritz: well, as far as the past is concerned, the eras he talks about most in the various memoirs and letters I recall so far are, in reverse order:
- "L'Age de Louis XIV"; presumably not the last 20 years or so, and not Louis' childhood when he was technically King but a civil war was going on, but the twenty years or so after the death of Mazarin when Louis took over government, Versailles got transformed from a royal hunting lodge to a palace which became the lasting envy of Europe, and France became the cultural hotspot of the continent in theatre, literature and music alike
- Renaissance Italy; this one surprised me when I first came across it, and not just because of young Fritz' Anti-Machiavel, but he's actually quite unsarcastically complimentary about the Medici Popes, and of course the rediscovery of the Romans and Greeks and all the exploding visual arts goodness of Leonardo and Michelangelo had much appeal; also I bet he was at least a bit curious about Cesare Borgia
- Rome in the late Republic and in the Augustan Age, but not later than this into the Empire; Fritz imprinted deeply on the wisdom of not just his era that this was the high point of Latin literature and boasted of the most interesting characters to boot
(For all that Fritz got compared to Hadrian (by Manteuffel) and Trajan (by Nicolai), I actually don't think he'd have wanted to visit the later Empire, not even to meet rl Antinous. It wasn't considered as interesting in his era as it is today.)
- Alexander: no, I don't think so. As far as Greece is concerned, he'd probably want to meet Socrates, Plato et all and go for the age of Pericles instead.
- Trojan War: a must. I'm actually not sure whether Fritz thought it was a myth or a historical event, but he would want to visit and pay his respects to Achilles and Patroclos
And since people of his era knew nothing about Egyptian history but what they learned from Herodot, I doubt any of the Pharaos would make it on Fritz' time travel list.
Future: oh dear. The French Revolution happening wouldn't have suprised him (he, like a good deal of his contemporaries, could see the signs), but the massive changes it left behind not just in France, the huge cultural shifts sweeping out all his own favourites (classical French drama and poetry, pre-Gluck opera) and bringing in all he'd either ignored or actively fought towards the end of his life, and the fact that this wasn't an one generation fad but would remain the standard, that Shakespeare rather than Corneille and Racine would remain the classic dramatist international literature would either imitate, be influenced by or work against, but in any case never, ever ignore; I can't see him being other than horrified, at least in initially, unless we're not talking about 1770s Fritz, who writes that letter to Voltaire, but much younger and a bit more flexible Fritz. Also, the 19th century with its moral conservatism and rise and rise and RISE in nationalism wouldn't have sat that well with him, even if it came with Prussia leaving Austria in the dust and the Hohenzollern ending up as Emperors. I think he might have appreciated Bismarck on the fellow Magnificent Bastard level (and hey! a long term relation of Katte, no less!), but the smug Bürgerlichkeit and claim of Moral Superiority of the later 19th century German Empire would have reminded him of Dad ("am deutschen Wesen soll die Welt genesen", WTF?), and Victorian England wasn't much better. As for the Canadian Savages...
20th Century: Mildred covered this one right at the start of our salon. I would hope he'd feel a least a bit guilty if he arrived a bit earlier, i.e. in WWI, and was aware whose fault it was that Willy thought winning a multi front war was just the ticket and so was invading countries as a "preventive measure".
And all three were new to me, too, since Pleschinski didn't include them - because of thematic repetition I suppose, and he's certainly right about that, but they are still very enjoyable just for the way they talk to each other.
footnote for Cahn: Lentulus is this guy
Ah, yes, right. And Guibert = a French officer and military writer who'd just visited Fritz, observed him during military drills, and impressed him with his knowledge of tactics etc. He even wrote a journal and I loved this take on Fritz:
Guibert first saw the king at the parade on June 16th: "On horseback one would think he was a centaur," he notes in his diary [...] June 19th: “Bought his image: true to the clothes, the costume; small sword of copper; cane decorated with diamonds; also always has several very rich snuffboxes with him, pulling out three or four different ones while I was chatting with him; has thousands of them in store, a strange contrast to his simplicity otherwise. I come back to his picture: resembles him, as they say, when he is at the head of his troops, but doesn't resemble the prince who spoke to me at all. Result of the peculiar changeability of his physiognomy: it caresses to the right and threatens to the left. This changeability is present in his mind, in his character, in an abundance of details of his behavior; It is never the same, you never know what it will be: but this bizarness, these apparent inconsistencies always have a principle. If one could observe him closely, one would find the origin of ideas that sometimes makes him act the opposite. Marquis d'Argens said that he had never seen anyone whose inconsistencies were more consistent and considered."
Yeah, the height of French culture (from his perspective) or some classical period would have been my first two guesses as well, but I wouldn't have been able to narrow down the latter. And I guess there's a difference between him wanting to take a time-travel trip to a certain period and feeling like he should have been born at another point in time. The latter also depends on when he's talking and if he's thinking more about culture and Rheinsberg-like living or about making a name for himself. Re: France - time-travel trip to Louis XIV's heyday, totally, but when it comes to actually being born earlier, I can't really imagine that he'd have wanted to live before Voltaire...
Renaissance = new to me and surprises me as well. (I don't think he was interested in Renaissance art all that much, was he?)
My skeptical reaction to "born too early" taken at face value in 1773 was based on older, set-in-his-ways Fritz indeed, because my impression was that he didn't have particularly bright expectations for the future, especially when it comes to cultural aspects. This might be a slightly skewed impression, though, and I don't actually know if he thought (or wanted) that enlightenment ideas would evolve and improve things, also in terms of religious institutions for example, and if he would have been interested in seeing any of it.
There is undeniably that. To misquote the Master on the Doctor from Doctor Who, "a universe without Voltaire does not bear thinking". And while an era after Voltaire would still provide Fritz with Voltaire's books to read, it wouldn't provide him with Voltaire himself to argue with and write love letters to, so anything but time travel with a return ticket is out of the question. :)
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Speaking of out of context quotes...
Date: 2021-04-12 07:37 am (UTC)Time travelling Fritz: well, as far as the past is concerned, the eras he talks about most in the various memoirs and letters I recall so far are, in reverse order:
- "L'Age de Louis XIV"; presumably not the last 20 years or so, and not Louis' childhood when he was technically King but a civil war was going on, but the twenty years or so after the death of Mazarin when Louis took over government, Versailles got transformed from a royal hunting lodge to a palace which became the lasting envy of Europe, and France became the cultural hotspot of the continent in theatre, literature and music alike
- Renaissance Italy; this one surprised me when I first came across it, and not just because of young Fritz' Anti-Machiavel, but he's actually quite unsarcastically complimentary about the Medici Popes, and of course the rediscovery of the Romans and Greeks and all the exploding visual arts goodness of Leonardo and Michelangelo had much appeal; also I bet he was at least a bit curious about Cesare Borgia
- Rome in the late Republic and in the Augustan Age, but not later than this into the Empire; Fritz imprinted deeply on the wisdom of not just his era that this was the high point of Latin literature and boasted of the most interesting characters to boot
(For all that Fritz got compared to Hadrian (by Manteuffel) and Trajan (by Nicolai), I actually don't think he'd have wanted to visit the later Empire, not even to meet rl Antinous. It wasn't considered as interesting in his era as it is today.)
- Alexander: no, I don't think so. As far as Greece is concerned, he'd probably want to meet Socrates, Plato et all and go for the age of Pericles instead.
- Trojan War: a must. I'm actually not sure whether Fritz thought it was a myth or a historical event, but he would want to visit and pay his respects to Achilles and Patroclos
And since people of his era knew nothing about Egyptian history but what they learned from Herodot, I doubt any of the Pharaos would make it on Fritz' time travel list.
Future: oh dear. The French Revolution happening wouldn't have suprised him (he, like a good deal of his contemporaries, could see the signs), but the massive changes it left behind not just in France, the huge cultural shifts sweeping out all his own favourites (classical French drama and poetry, pre-Gluck opera) and bringing in all he'd either ignored or actively fought towards the end of his life, and the fact that this wasn't an one generation fad but would remain the standard, that Shakespeare rather than Corneille and Racine would remain the classic dramatist international literature would either imitate, be influenced by or work against, but in any case never, ever ignore; I can't see him being other than horrified, at least in initially, unless we're not talking about 1770s Fritz, who writes that letter to Voltaire, but much younger and a bit more flexible Fritz. Also, the 19th century with its moral conservatism and rise and rise and RISE in nationalism wouldn't have sat that well with him, even if it came with Prussia leaving Austria in the dust and the Hohenzollern ending up as Emperors. I think he might have appreciated Bismarck on the fellow Magnificent Bastard level (and hey! a long term relation of Katte, no less!), but the smug Bürgerlichkeit and claim of Moral Superiority of the later 19th century German Empire would have reminded him of Dad ("am deutschen Wesen soll die Welt genesen", WTF?), and Victorian England wasn't much better. As for the Canadian Savages...
20th Century: Mildred covered this one right at the start of our salon. I would hope he'd feel a least a bit guilty if he arrived a bit earlier, i.e. in WWI, and was aware whose fault it was that Willy thought winning a multi front war was just the ticket and so was invading countries as a "preventive measure".
Re: Speaking of out of context quotes...
Date: 2021-04-12 08:08 pm (UTC)And all three were new to me, too, since Pleschinski didn't include them - because of thematic repetition I suppose, and he's certainly right about that, but they are still very enjoyable just for the way they talk to each other.
footnote for Cahn: Lentulus is this guy
Ah, yes, right. And Guibert = a French officer and military writer who'd just visited Fritz, observed him during military drills, and impressed him with his knowledge of tactics etc. He even wrote a journal and I loved this take on Fritz:
Guibert first saw the king at the parade on June 16th: "On horseback one would think he was a centaur," he notes in his diary [...] June 19th: “Bought his image: true to the clothes, the costume; small sword of copper; cane decorated with diamonds; also always has several very rich snuffboxes with him, pulling out three or four different ones while I was chatting with him; has thousands of them in store, a strange contrast to his simplicity otherwise. I come back to his picture: resembles him, as they say, when he is at the head of his troops, but doesn't resemble the prince who spoke to me at all. Result of the peculiar changeability of his physiognomy: it caresses to the right and threatens to the left. This changeability is present in his mind, in his character, in an abundance of details of his behavior; It is never the same, you never know what it will be: but this bizarness, these apparent inconsistencies always have a principle. If one could observe him closely, one would find the origin of ideas that sometimes makes him act the opposite. Marquis d'Argens said that he had never seen anyone whose inconsistencies were more consistent and considered."
Yeah, the height of French culture (from his perspective) or some classical period would have been my first two guesses as well, but I wouldn't have been able to narrow down the latter.
And I guess there's a difference between him wanting to take a time-travel trip to a certain period and feeling like he should have been born at another point in time. The latter also depends on when he's talking and if he's thinking more about culture and Rheinsberg-like living or about making a name for himself.
Re: France - time-travel trip to Louis XIV's heyday, totally, but when it comes to actually being born earlier, I can't really imagine that he'd have wanted to live before Voltaire...
Renaissance = new to me and surprises me as well. (I don't think he was interested in Renaissance art all that much, was he?)
My skeptical reaction to "born too early" taken at face value in 1773 was based on older, set-in-his-ways Fritz indeed, because my impression was that he didn't have particularly bright expectations for the future, especially when it comes to cultural aspects. This might be a slightly skewed impression, though, and I don't actually know if he thought (or wanted) that enlightenment ideas would evolve and improve things, also in terms of religious institutions for example, and if he would have been interested in seeing any of it.
Re: Speaking of out of context quotes...
Date: 2021-04-14 05:06 am (UTC)but when it comes to actually being born earlier, I can't really imagine that he'd have wanted to live before Voltaire...
Ha! Agreed.
Re: Speaking of out of context quotes...
Date: 2021-04-14 05:35 am (UTC)