I've started the G3 biography and the author reminds us that everyone is emo in the 18th century so the whole "my dearest friend!" and "OMG, am crushed, want to die!" effusive style of everyone and their valet in their correspondances always has to be taken with a pinch of salt. (And happens before the 19th century decided that manly men don't cry.) For the 18th century, it might be worth adding that it was an English hobby to poke fun at foreign formality of manners as a political game, i.e. meant either anti-French or anti-(Hannover)German, depending whom they're describing and who the enemy of the day is. See also the Liliputians as a satire on (Hannover)Germans and so forth. Mind you, the irony is, talking of national stereotypes, that while the overly mannered French courtier certainly shows up in German fiction as well (18th century or later), I don't think I've come across Brits renowned for being particularly informal before salon and reading Lehndorff etc., because by the 19th century, if a stereotyped English person shows up they're bound to be incredibly formal and stiff lipped as well. Not in the 18th century for. The most memorable fictional Brit in an 18th century bit of fiction is probably Lady Milford from Kabale und Liebe, and she's the Duke's mistress who wants an exit via marriage to our hero (who is in love with someone else).
(Wihelmine has her own opinions on English manners, but those are unique to her circumstances, i.e. being endlessly drilled and taught with the sole aim to find favour in front of English eyes as a child and being increasingly resentful about it, so I don't think she describes English manners as informal in her memoirs. She's a bit satiric about their haughtiness and how the highest compliment they can pay you being that you're just like an Englishwoman. But that's all SD's fault.)
because by the 19th century, if a stereotyped English person shows up they're bound to be incredibly formal and stiff lipped as well.
Yeah, I also came across the following passage in my research on English manners. It's circa 1717, right after Hanoverian G1 lands on the throne and brings some Germans with him, and xenophobia is in full swing:
If the German presence furthered the process of English self-definition, the Hanoverians had their own views on the identity and character of their hosts. Friedrich Wilhelm von der Schulenburg, who served the King as Kammerherr for the first five years of his reign, was a particularly close and wry observer of the English scene. What stands out in his accounts is the perceived impulsiveness and emotionalism of his hosts. The John-Bull-like stolidity and reserve of later myth were not much in evidence. Schulenburg repeatedly refers to ‘la chaleur angloise’; he found James Stanhope, the chief minister, particularly hot-headed. He also considered the English congenitally fickle. He believed that the ‘humour of the English’ was such that ‘one cannot count on them from one day to another’. On another occasion, when discussing the Earl of Sunderland, he refers once again to ‘the inconstancy of the English, on whom one cannot count from one day to the next’. Later he attributed the English taste for masques to their ‘changeante’ disposition. This picture of a garrulous and fickle English elite casts an interesting light on widespread contemporary English perceptions of English taciturnity and stolidity.
Perfidious Albion is consistent throughout the ages, though!
(Wihelmine has her own opinions on English manners, but those are unique to her circumstances, i.e. being endlessly drilled and taught with the sole aim to find favour in front of English eyes as a child and being increasingly resentful about it, so I don't think she describes English manners as informal in her memoirs. She's a bit satiric about their haughtiness and how the highest compliment they can pay you being that you're just like an Englishwoman. But that's all SD's fault.)
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timeasmymeasure
Re: English manners
Date: 2025-01-02 02:32 pm (UTC)(Wihelmine has her own opinions on English manners, but those are unique to her circumstances, i.e. being endlessly drilled and taught with the sole aim to find favour in front of English eyes as a child and being increasingly resentful about it, so I don't think she describes English manners as informal in her memoirs. She's a bit satiric about their haughtiness and how the highest compliment they can pay you being that you're just like an Englishwoman. But that's all SD's fault.)
Re: English manners
Date: 2025-01-02 02:36 pm (UTC)Yeah, I also came across the following passage in my research on English manners. It's circa 1717, right after Hanoverian G1 lands on the throne and brings some Germans with him, and xenophobia is in full swing:
If the German presence furthered the process of English self-definition, the Hanoverians had their own views on the identity and character of their hosts. Friedrich Wilhelm von der Schulenburg, who served the King as Kammerherr for the first five years of his reign, was a particularly close and wry observer of the English scene. What stands out in his accounts is the perceived impulsiveness and emotionalism of his hosts. The John-Bull-like stolidity and reserve of later myth were not much in evidence. Schulenburg repeatedly refers to ‘la chaleur angloise’; he found James Stanhope, the chief minister, particularly hot-headed. He also considered the English congenitally fickle. He believed that the ‘humour of the English’ was such that ‘one cannot count on them from one day to another’. On another occasion, when discussing the Earl of Sunderland, he refers once again to ‘the inconstancy of the English, on whom one cannot count from one day to the next’. Later he attributed the English taste for masques to their ‘changeante’ disposition. This picture of a garrulous and fickle English elite casts an interesting light on widespread contemporary English perceptions of English taciturnity and stolidity.
Perfidious Albion is consistent throughout the ages, though!
Re: English manners
Date: 2025-01-05 06:02 am (UTC)(Wihelmine has her own opinions on English manners, but those are unique to her circumstances, i.e. being endlessly drilled and taught with the sole aim to find favour in front of English eyes as a child and being increasingly resentful about it, so I don't think she describes English manners as informal in her memoirs. She's a bit satiric about their haughtiness and how the highest compliment they can pay you being that you're just like an Englishwoman. But that's all SD's fault.)
:( Poor Wilhelmine.