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 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)