Projectors and learned projects in early modern England

Commenting in 1692 on the “Projecting Humour that now reigns” in England, Daniel Defoe nicknamed the period the “Projecting Age.” He dated its start to c. 1680, even as he conceded that “it had indeed something of life in the time of the late Civil War” as well. Defoe was wrong. Decades earlier both Elizabethan and Jacobean commentators had inveighed against the rampant passion for schemes, a perception increasingly documented by scholars. For the most part, however, the appraisal of early modern projects has been confined to the domain of economic and social history. Monopolies, inventions, plans to ameliorate the condition of the poor and infirm, and schemes guaranteeing the enrichment of the nation, have drawn the attention of historians; only sporadic attention has been paid to the numerous scholarly projects that also proliferated during the same period. My intention here is not to be exhaustive, but to offer a snapshot of the large number of proposals that sought to establish new institutions of higher learning, usually through substantial outlays of public capital.     

生存意识与历史记忆——从小说《生存》到电影《鬼子来了》

中国当代文学在其发展流变中,为抗日战争这段历史的书写提供了另一种可能。本文以尤凤伟的中篇小说《生存》和它的改编剧本,以及姜文据此再度创作和拍摄的电影《鬼子来了》为考察对象,回避其从小说、剧本到电影的流变过程中在文艺样式与拍摄技巧上的特色,而着重从创作主体建立在国族想象上的启蒙立场与文本中阶级意识的隐现上,探讨当前抗战文艺中的历史记忆与现实诉求。     

Two medieval plague treatises and their afterlife in early modern England

This study of an adaptation of the popular John of Burgundy plague treatise by Thomas Moulton, a Dominican friar, ca. 1475, and a translation of the so-called Canutus plague treatise by Thomas Paynell, printed 1534, shows how the medieval traditions they represent were carried forward, well into the sixteenth century, and also subjected to change in light of religious, moral, and medical concerns of early modern England. The former had a long life in print, ca. 1530-1580, whereas Paynell's translation exists in one printed version. Moulton's adaptation differs from its original and from the Canutus treatise in putting great emphasis on the idea that onsets of plague were acts of divine retribution for human sinfulness. In this respect, Moulton reshaped the tradition of the medieval plague treatise and anticipated the religious and social construction of plague that would take shape in the first half of the sixteenth century. Its long history in print indicates that Moulton's treatise expressed the spirit of that construction and probably influenced the construction as well. The contrasting histories of the two treatises attest not only to the dramatic change brought about by religious and social forces in the sixteenth century, but to a growing recognition of the value of the printing press for disseminating medical information-in forms that served social and ideological ends.     

Legitimation and delegitimation in early modern Europe: The case of England

In the year 1640, the government of England was monarchical; and the King that reigned, Charles, the first of that name, holding sovereignty, by right of a descent continued above six hundred years, and from a much longer descent King of Scotland, and from the time of his ancestor Henry II, King of Ireland …     

Religion and revolution in seventeenth-century England

Religion’s centrality to the story of the political turmoils of seventeenth-century England has never been in doubt. This article reviews recent books in the field which offer a series of reflections on the mutual effects of religion and revolution on each other in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and overthrow of James II and VII.     

The Ploughman and the Fairies

THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE BELLA COOLA INDIANS. By FRANZ BOAS. (Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History, Vol. II. Anthropology, I. The Jesup North Pacific Expedition.) Reviewed by E. Sidney Hartland.

MALAY MAGIC: BEING AN INTRODUCTION TO THE FOLKLORE AND POPULAR RELIGION OF THE MALAY PENINSULA. By WALTER WILLIAM SKEAT. With a Preface by CHARLES OTTO BLAGDEN. Pp. 685, 28 plates. Macmillan and Co. 1900. Reviewed by John Abercromby.

ARADIA, OR THE GOSPEL OF THE WITCHES. By CHARLES G. LELAND. Nutt. 3s. 6d.

BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS. LIFE AND CUSTOMS. By the Rev. A. H. SAYCE. (The Semitic Series.) Nimmo.

A SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF ANTHROPOLOGY, AND ETHNOLOGY OF EUROPE. By W. L. RIPLEY. Boston (Mass.). 1899

ALLGEMEINE METHODIK DER VOLKSKUNDE. L. SCHERMANN UND F. S. KRAUSS. Berichte ueber Erscheinungen in den Jahren 1890–97. Erlangen : F. Junge. 1899.

NEUE BEITRāGE ZUR KENTNISS DES VOLKRāTHSELS. R. PETSCH. Berlin: Mayer und Müller. 1899. (Palaestra, No. 4.)

FOLKLORE IN ENGLAND UND AMERIKA. C. KLÖPPER. Dresden: C. A. Koch. 1899. (Neusprachlichle Abhandlungen, No. viii.) Reviewed by Alfred Nutt.

SEGNIUS IRRITANT, OR EIGHT PRIMITIVE FOLKLORE STORIES. By W. W. STRICKLAND. Robert Forder. 1896. Reviewed by M. G.

NORTH-WEST SLAV LEGENDS AND FAIRY STORIES. By the same. A sequel to “Segnius Irritant.” Forder. 1897. Reviewed by M. G.

SOUTH-SLAVONIC FOLKLORE STORIES. With an Introductory Preface. By the same. Forder. 1899. Reviewed by M. G.

LA VEILLÉE : DOUZE CONTES TRADUITS DU ROUMAIN. Par JULES BRUN. Avec une Introduction par Mdlle. LUCILLE KITZO. Paris. Reviewed by M. G.

FOLK-LORE CATALAN. LÉGENDES DU ROUSSILLON. Par HORACE CHAUVET. Paris: J. Maisonneuve. Reviewed by E. Sidney Hartland.

THE TALKING THRUSH AND OTHER TALES FROM INDIA. Collected by W. CROOKE and retold by W. H. D. ROUSE. Illustrated by W. H. ROBINSON. London : J. M. Dent and Co. 1899. Reviewed by E. Sidney Hartland.

SHETLAND FOLK-LORE. By JOHN SPENCE, F.E.I.S. Lerwick: Johnson D. Greig. Reviewed by Florence Peacock.

PEASANT LORE FROM GAELIC IRELAND. Collected by DANIEL DEENEY. David Nutt. 1900.

BLUEBEARD, A CONTRIBUTION TO HISTORY AND FOLKLORE. BEING THE HISTORY OF GILLES DE RETZ OF BRITTANY, FRANCE, WHO WAS EXECUTED AT NANTES IN 1440 A.D., AND WHO WAS THE ORIGINAL OF BLUEBEARD IN THE TALES OF MOTHER GOOSE. By THOMAS WILSON, LL.D. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1899.     

The History of Political Thought as secular genealogy: the case of liberty in early modern England

ABSTRACT

The History of Political Thought originated in, and partially remains an adjunct to the academic study of politics. As such it is not a mere subject matter or authentic tradition of speculation, but a secularising genealogy in some tension with an impulse to rigorous historicity. It provides an under-acknowledged context for the thinkers and concepts placed within it. The difficulties and consequent distortions are illustrated with reference to seventeenth-century discussions of liberty. It is argued that notions of negative liberty and Republican liberty as an ideological alternative are secularising genealogical projections that distort the character of seventeenth-century debate; but that republican liberty can be reformulated in more historically plausible terms as a special case of one of the entailments of contentious office-holding in and beyond a secularised conception of the political. Thomas Hobbes's conceptions of liberty provide a concluding illustration.     

Portuguese coarsewares in early modern England: reflections on an exceptional pottery assemblage from Southampton

Abstract

The study of a large hoard of Merida-type ware from Portugal found during excavation in Southampton prompts an examination of Portuguese pottery in 16th- and 17th-century England, its trade, uses and context.