cahn | 18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 34

You're viewing

cahn's journal
Create a Dreamwidth Account Learn More

Reload page in style: site light

And including Emperor Joseph II!

from Derek Beales: Joseph II, Volume 2: Against the World, 1780 - 1790:

Joseph's alleged comment to Mozart about the Entführung, "Too many notes", has been taken as evidence of his ignorance. But he probably said something like, "Too beautiful for our ears, and monstrous many notes." It is always necessary to bear in mind, when appraising the emperor's remarks, his peculiar brand of humor or sarcasm. He was usually getting at someone. And he did not use the royal "we". The ears in question were those of the Viennese audience, whom he was mocking for their limited appreciation of Mozart's elaborate music.

(though not gonna lie, I think it is a LOT of notes)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

selenak

It's also a genuinely sad experience to read these many Wilhelmine letters from her last years in a row, knowing exactly where things would lead and that she and Fritz would never see each other again. :(((

Not that Scherben des Glücks is a stellar novel, but I can understand the author's impulse of letting dying Wilhelmine and about-to-lose-a-battle Fritz meet in a shared dream one last time.

The Don Quixote-Sancho-Pansa passage is lovely, as is her calling her mule Rosinante. Incidentally: is Don Quixote among the books listed for Sanssouci? (I'm also curious whether Wilhelmine and Fritz read it as adults or whether they managed as teenagers.)

I'd forgotten that 1756 was also the year of Ulrike's attempted coup, which has Wilhelmine worried as well: I hope, my dear brother, that your advice will get her out of trouble.
Fritz: I tried, she wouldn't listen, it's not my fault, her liveliness ran away with her and now she's sending me Great Jeremiads.

As I recall from Ziebura's AW biography, once the war had started Ulrike could not resist an "I told you so" letter where she pointed out that if Fritz had supported her attempt to become absolute Queen, she could have prevented Sweden from entering the league against him.

Fritz: You know all the consideration that I need in this affair, and how little I ought to appear in it: the slightest wind of it in England might ruin everything. [...] Anyway, I rely on you. To whom could I better entrust the interests of a country that I must make happy than to a sister whom I adore, and who, although much more accomplished, is un autre moi-même?

[Heinrich: !?]

LOL. Thrifty Fritz, reuser of accolades, strikes again! (See also him writing the same letter to Algarotti and Duhan when becoming King.)

Voltaire: given her attitude towards other Fritzian boyfriends, it never fails to amuse me how much of a shipper Wilhelmine is re Fritz/Voltaire, complete with telling both guys the other one is truly sorry, is pining for him and has turned over a new leaf, honest!

He speaks of you as a lover of his mistress,

We all noticed, Wilhelmine! And since this is an undoctored letter, the comparison is all the more valuable.

From:

felis

is Don Quixote among the books listed for Sanssouci? (I'm also curious whether Wilhelmine and Fritz read it as adults or whether they managed as teenagers.

It shows up in the catalogue twice, one 1733 edition and the other one from 1741. Crown Prince Fritz definitely uses Don Quichotte references in various letters during the 1730s and while I suspect it was well-known enough to be used as a reference without having read it, I'd still wager they both did so pretty early.

how much of a shipper Wilhelmine is re Fritz/Voltaire

Ha, yes. I guess it helped that she and Voltaire had their own relationship as well, that Voltaire seemed to genuinely like her for her, visited and entertained her both in Bayreuth and when she was in Berlin at the same time, and just generally made her laugh, which is something she did not get enough of I'd say.

We all noticed, Wilhelmine!

:D I'm also amused by the casting, what with Fritz getting the mistress role.

From:

selenak

Fritz as the mistress:

Voltaire: Well, even in my memoirs, I cast him as the sorceress Alcina!

Ha, yes. I guess it helped that she and Voltaire had their own relationship as well, that Voltaire seemed to genuinely like her for her, visited and entertained her both in Bayreuth and when she was in Berlin at the same time, and just generally made her laugh, which is something she did not get enough of I'd say.

True. All the other boyfriends weren't people she was friends with, or interested in on their own account.

(I do regret Voltaire didn't manage to persuade Francoise de Graffigny to go to Bayreuth and become Wilhelmine's intellectual lady in residence there!)

Don Quixote: ah, thank you. You know, these days I would assume anynone referring to the Don and to Sancho is either going by pop culture osmosis or by virtue of the musical The Man of La Mancha, but in the 18th century, my money is more on actual reading.

From:

mildred_of_midgard

Royal Patron would like you to know that he has read Don Quixote in Spanish. :) Most of my knowledge comes from him summarizing it to me a couple years ago, though I was also assigned Man of La Mancha to read in high school.

I'm not planning to read it. You know how I am about literature. ;)

From:

mildred_of_midgard

I was going to say, Fritz refers to himself as a Don Quixote a *lot* in the Catt memoirs. And possibly also correspondence during the Seven Years' War? I forget. But definitely someone he liked to cast himself as. When not casting himself as Dulcinea. ;)

From:

selenak

To be fair, (P)RussianPete is responsible for the Dulcinea casting. :)

Thinking back to other Fritz references of literary characters as himself, there is of course Orpheus, also in the 7 Years War, and in 1743 when Voltaire leaves him to meet up with Émilie again, Dido (with voltaire as Aeneas, something I would have missed if you hadn't pointed out the Virgil quote). And speaking of Voltaire, then there's the time he compared himself to Jupiter and voltaire to Danae when pushing him to show up already in 1750, and Voltaire wrote back "your aged Danae loves Jupiter and his his gold".