Enlightenment virtue, 1680-1794

Author(s)

• Fowler, J. E. (James E.)
• Ganofsky, Marine

Bibliographic Information

Enlightenment virtue, 1680-1794

edited by James Fowler and Marine Ganofsky

（Oxford University studies in the Enlightenment, 2020:03）

Liverpool University Press on behalf of Voltaire Foundation, University of Oxford, c2020

Note

Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Description

In a speech delivered in 1794, roughly one year after the execution of Louis XVI, Robespierre boldly declared Terror to be an 'emanation of virtue'. In adapting the concept of virtue to Republican ends, Robespierre was drawing on traditions associated with ancient Greece and Rome. But Republican tradition formed only one of many strands in debates concerning virtue in France and elsewhere in Europe, from 1680 to the Revolution. This collection focuses on moral-philosophical and classical-republican uses of 'virtue' in this period - one that is often associated with a 'crisis of the European mind'. It also considers in what ways debates concerning virtue involved gendered perspectives. The texts discussed are drawn from a range of genres, from plays and novels to treatises, memoirs, and libertine literature. They include texts by authors such as Diderot, Laclos, and Madame de Stael, plus other, lesser-known texts that broaden the volume's perspective. Collectively, the contributors to the volume highlight the central importance of virtue for an understanding of an era in which, as Daniel Brewer argues in the closing chapter, 'the political could not be thought outside its moral dimension, and morality could not be separated from inevitable political consequences'.

Table of Contents

List of figures Acknowledgements List of abbreviations James Fowler and Marine Ganofsky, Introduction: virtue and the secular turn, 1680-1794 Michael Moriarty, Virtue before the Enlightenment Nicholas Treuherz, Vertu et Lumieres: Bayle's 'virtuous atheist' and its afterlives James Fowler, Secular virtue: echoes of Shaftesbury in Diderot Alicia C. Montoya, From the religious virtues to Enlightenment virtue Ioana Galleron, Bernard-Joseph Saurin, the comedie de moeurs and the civic function of plays Karen Nehlsen Manna, Acting honnete: effeminacy, masculinity and the ethos of social virtue in Enlightenment comedy Jean-Alexandre Perras, The softness of the petit-maitre and the decay of virtus Mathilde Chollet, 'La vera nobilta non consiste in altro che nella virtu': a woman's view on virtue, or Henriette de Marans's nobility Marine Ganofsky, Virtue and invisibility: libertine variations on the myth of Gyges Lydia Vazquez, Female virtue and bliss in the eighteenth century Pierre Saint-Amand, The politics of virtue: Reflexions sur le proces de la reine by Mme de Stael Patrice Higonnet, Robespierre's virtue in Marx and Tocqueville Daniel Brewer, Virtue and the ethics of the virtual Summaries List of works cited Index

by "Nielsen BookData"

Details

• NCID: BB30435524
• ISBN:
  • 9781789620412
• Country Code: uk
• Title Language Code: eng
• Text Language Code: eng
• Place of Publication: Oxford
• Pages/Volumes: xiii, 282 p.
• Size: 24 cm
• Parent Bibliography ID:
  • BB14748970