Lisa Jardine
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199698233
- eISBN:
- 9780191803772
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199698233.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 17th-century and Restoration Literature
This chapter focuses on the ‘irregular life’ of Sir Constantijn Huygens, secretary and adviser to William of Orange of the United Provinces of the Netherlands. More precisely, it examines Huygens’s ...
More
This chapter focuses on the ‘irregular life’ of Sir Constantijn Huygens, secretary and adviser to William of Orange of the United Provinces of the Netherlands. More precisely, it examines Huygens’s role in important cultural moments, as well as whole movements in artistic taste, in both Britain and the Netherlands. It looks at the Prince of Orange’s arrival in London in late 1670 after Charles II’s signing of the secret Treaty of Dover with Louis XIV against the Dutch that same year, with emphasis on Huygens’s involvement in these events. It also considers the implications of Huygens’s two separate ‘lives’ for writing his biography, or life writing, that does not cross national boundaries.Less
This chapter focuses on the ‘irregular life’ of Sir Constantijn Huygens, secretary and adviser to William of Orange of the United Provinces of the Netherlands. More precisely, it examines Huygens’s role in important cultural moments, as well as whole movements in artistic taste, in both Britain and the Netherlands. It looks at the Prince of Orange’s arrival in London in late 1670 after Charles II’s signing of the secret Treaty of Dover with Louis XIV against the Dutch that same year, with emphasis on Huygens’s involvement in these events. It also considers the implications of Huygens’s two separate ‘lives’ for writing his biography, or life writing, that does not cross national boundaries.
Jürgen Pieters
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748615889
- eISBN:
- 9780748652020
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748615889.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter addresses the significance of Constantijn Huygens and Peter Paul Rubens. Conversation with the dead is a dialogue of the special sort that thrives upon the separation of its ...
More
This chapter addresses the significance of Constantijn Huygens and Peter Paul Rubens. Conversation with the dead is a dialogue of the special sort that thrives upon the separation of its participants, on the physical absence of one or both parties, and on the structural impossibility of real-life interaction which follows from the dead's particular modus vivendi. Rubens' painting, which represents the head of Medusa, belongs to a long narrative tradition of which early traces can be found in Homer. The French critic Alain Michel briefly touches upon the figure of Medusa in the opening pages of La parole et la beauté. Furthermore, the chapter explores Shelley's 1819 poem on the Medusa painting that he saw in the Uffizi in Florence, which he believed to be by Leonardo. Shelley wrote that although the woman's head is no longer attached to its trunk, there is still life in death.Less
This chapter addresses the significance of Constantijn Huygens and Peter Paul Rubens. Conversation with the dead is a dialogue of the special sort that thrives upon the separation of its participants, on the physical absence of one or both parties, and on the structural impossibility of real-life interaction which follows from the dead's particular modus vivendi. Rubens' painting, which represents the head of Medusa, belongs to a long narrative tradition of which early traces can be found in Homer. The French critic Alain Michel briefly touches upon the figure of Medusa in the opening pages of La parole et la beauté. Furthermore, the chapter explores Shelley's 1819 poem on the Medusa painting that he saw in the Uffizi in Florence, which he believed to be by Leonardo. Shelley wrote that although the woman's head is no longer attached to its trunk, there is still life in death.
Jürgen Pieters
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780748615889
- eISBN:
- 9780748652020
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748615889.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter discusses the importance of Petrarch, Machiavelli, Sir Philip Sidney, and Constantijn Huygens in the early-modern period. Stephen Greenblatt's description of his own work as stemming ...
More
This chapter discusses the importance of Petrarch, Machiavelli, Sir Philip Sidney, and Constantijn Huygens in the early-modern period. Stephen Greenblatt's description of his own work as stemming from a desire to converse with the past is related to a fundamental critique of Old Historicism. The chapter confronts Greenblatt's reflections upon the conversation with the dead with those of a number of others who famously made use of the concept before him. In the Defence of Poesy, Sidney asserts that the essence of poetry (its ‘cause’) is not to be found in the ornamental function of verse. Huygens was a man of both politics and letters. A brief analysis of some of his writings on painting is also presented. The Platonic background of Huygens' logic is obvious: painters only occupy themselves with the outward appearance of reality, with ‘shadows and dreams’, not with the inner truth of nature.Less
This chapter discusses the importance of Petrarch, Machiavelli, Sir Philip Sidney, and Constantijn Huygens in the early-modern period. Stephen Greenblatt's description of his own work as stemming from a desire to converse with the past is related to a fundamental critique of Old Historicism. The chapter confronts Greenblatt's reflections upon the conversation with the dead with those of a number of others who famously made use of the concept before him. In the Defence of Poesy, Sidney asserts that the essence of poetry (its ‘cause’) is not to be found in the ornamental function of verse. Huygens was a man of both politics and letters. A brief analysis of some of his writings on painting is also presented. The Platonic background of Huygens' logic is obvious: painters only occupy themselves with the outward appearance of reality, with ‘shadows and dreams’, not with the inner truth of nature.
Jacqueline Broad (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- September 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780190673321
- eISBN:
- 9780190673369
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190673321.003.0002
- Subject:
- Philosophy, History of Philosophy
This chapter contains a selection of the private correspondence of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, as well as several epistles taken from her published works. It includes Cavendish’s ...
More
This chapter contains a selection of the private correspondence of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, as well as several epistles taken from her published works. It includes Cavendish’s letters to and from the Dutch diplomat Constantijn Huygens, the English philosopher Walter Charleton, the Cambridge Platonist Henry More, and the philosopher-theologian Joseph Glanvill, spanning the period from 1655 to 1668. It begins with an introductory essay by the editor, situating the letters and epistles in the context of Cavendish’s wider philosophy, and in the context of early modern debates concerning matter and motion. The topics of the letters range from issues to do with experimental science, the constitution of material things, and the nature of reason to the existence of space and belief in witches and demons and spirits in nature. The text includes editorial annotations to assist the reader’s understanding of early modern words and ideas.Less
This chapter contains a selection of the private correspondence of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, as well as several epistles taken from her published works. It includes Cavendish’s letters to and from the Dutch diplomat Constantijn Huygens, the English philosopher Walter Charleton, the Cambridge Platonist Henry More, and the philosopher-theologian Joseph Glanvill, spanning the period from 1655 to 1668. It begins with an introductory essay by the editor, situating the letters and epistles in the context of Cavendish’s wider philosophy, and in the context of early modern debates concerning matter and motion. The topics of the letters range from issues to do with experimental science, the constitution of material things, and the nature of reason to the existence of space and belief in witches and demons and spirits in nature. The text includes editorial annotations to assist the reader’s understanding of early modern words and ideas.
