18th-Century Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 35

[cahn]

In the previous post Charles II found AITA:

Look, I, m, believe in live and let live. (And in not going on my travels again. Had enough of that to last a life time.) Why can't everyone else around me be more chill? Instead, my wife refuses to employ my girlfriend, my girlfriend won't budge and accept another office, my brother is set on a course to piss off everyone (he WILL go on his travels again), and my oldest kid shows signs of wanting my job which is just not on, sorry to say. And don't get me started about Mom (thank God she's living abroad). What am I doing wrong? AITA?

Comments

Re: Colonel John O'Sullivan's memoirs

[selenak]

The memoirs sound captivating indeed. The third person writing is interesting, given that Lord Hervey does that, too, in his memoirs, which when I read them I assumed to be a personal choice, but maybe it was a custom among the English speaking/writing mid 18th century memoirists? (By contrast, the German-French - i.e. by Germans, written in French - memoirs from the same era or slightly earlier I knew are written in the first person.)

O'Sullivan and Lord George Murray had a mutual hate-on for each other, so reading this book one does not get a very good impression of Lord George.

Without knowing anything about their beyond what you've told us, this sounds familiar from memoirs, diaries and letters reading. (I'm thinking Lehndorff and each and every single one of one of Heinrich's boyfriends. Some of whom were indeed all he accused them of being, but not all, and he did have an obvious bias.)

Spelling: I sympathize, from reading stuff like King Friedrich Wilhelm's last will or letters for Mildred, all written in badly spelled and grammatically uncertain Rokoko German. The advantage for me of those contemporaries writing in French is that their letters and other documents usually are to be found in a modern German translation. Otoh, I noticed that for English written 18th century books like the earlier mentioned Hervey memoirs, Lady Mary's letters, or Boswell's diaries, the spelling seems to be pretty much modern standard, leaving historic pecularities like 'Tis aside. Now this could be because the modern editors of Hervey, Boswell and Lady Mary updated their original spellings, but then there are the Andrew Mitchell papers, which were edited and published just a century later by a mid-Victorian and also use pretty much the spelling and grammer still used today. Conclusion: English standardized earlier than German.

As for BPC:s actual lover during the '45--I just want to tell Clementina Walkinshaw to run…

Having listened to The Stuarts recently, I do, too. But he and O'Sullivan definitely sound slash worthy.

Re: Colonel John O'Sullivan's memoirs

[luzula]

Hands hurt; voice not working! /o\ Reply later.

Re: Colonel John O'Sullivan's memoirs

[mildred_of_midgard]

but maybe it was a custom among the English speaking/writing mid 18th century memoirists? (By contrast, the German-French - i.e. by Germans, written in French - memoirs from the same era or slightly earlier I knew are written in the first person.)

Didn't Fritz, though? I always assumed these people were following Caesar's example. Especially since both Fritz and O'Sullivan are writing about military matters.

It's worth noting that James Keith's military memoirs were first-person, though.

Re: Colonel John O'Sullivan's memoirs

[luzula]

My thought was that perhaps the memoirs were in third person because someone else commissioned the narrative, and he wanted them to sound less personal. I've read/skimmed several other 18th c memoirs or diaries in English, and I've never seen one in third person before.

Yes, 18th c English is quite easy to read! I read a 1690's book and that was easy too. The main differences I've seen are:
- capitalization of nouns (could there be an influence from German??)
- partly different contractions ('tis, 'twill, 'twould, but I'll and you'll etc are also very common. Contractions seem to get less common in writing in the early 19th c? Austen doesn't use them even in dialogue, while I often see them used in non-fiction published texts in the 18th c.)
- sometimes but not always use of the long s
- occasional differences in spelling
- differences in apostrophe use (walk'd, tho')
- shortened forms of words/names (Wm for William, etc, often with the last letter raised up)