Social Notes: Oscar Wilde,Francis Bacon,and the Medium of Aphorism

This paper reads Oscar Wilde's aphoristic style in terms of the note-taking practices he develops as an undergraduate at Oxford. It treats his use of small, mobile pieces of language as a strategy for dealing with methodological uncertainty in a time of curricular upheaval. His trademark style is perhaps best understood as a form of social notation, whereby pieces of information behave as actors seeking sociality and recombination, rather than placement in systematic arrangements. One significant unpublished source – the ‘Notebook on Philosophy’ – discloses Wilde's engagement with a surprising aphoristic precursor, Francis Bacon, who deploys the form for similar purposes. In modelling a form of non-teleological informational assembly, Wilde's notebooks also body forth the utopian social life he conceives in his later critical writings.     

Rational Dissent,Unitarianism, and the Closure of the Northampton Academy in 1798

The decision by the Coward Trustees to close their academy at Northampton in June 1798 has generally been attributed to the prevalence of Unitarianism amongst the students. The reasons are more complex. Neither John Horsey, the theological tutor, nor the students at the time of the closure were Unitarian, though the latter were probably not Calvinists either. The appointment of David Savile, a zealous Calvinist, as assistant tutor by the trustees was a poor choice and led directly to the end of the academy. Closer investigation shows that the trustees differed little in their religious opinions from either Horsey or the students. The closure of the academy at Northampton can be used to identify the growing tensions within rational dissent as a result of the emergence of a more militant Unitarianism. It also proved to have extremely serious consequences for the future training of ministers for liberal dissent     

Simon de Montfort,Earl of Leicester,and the utility of sanctity in thirteenth-century England

Almost immediately after his death, Simon de Montfort, the leader of the Barons' Revolt against Henry III, was revered as a saint. Despite the received historical opinion that his cult was local, furtive, and brief, it actually received support throughout England, from the noble and clerical ranks as well as from the peasantry, and lasted into the reign of Edward I. The manifestations of Earl Simon's cult reveal that his revolt was popular as well as noble, that even illegal cults could be profitable for their home shrines, in this case the abbey of Evesham, and that sanctifying a rebel leader was an effective way of justifying both the continuation of a revolt and sympathy for the defeated rebels, in this case the Disinherited. On the hagiographical level, Montfort's cult shows the incredibly rich diversity of expression of devotion in medieval cults, and the more practical concerns with advertisement and profit. On the political level, the cult proves once again that the king did not control all means of political discourse. The merger of political and religious authority, the importance of which has been often demonstrated in studies of the king's touch and the laudes ceremonials, affected rebel leaders as well as kings.