James A. Steintrager
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780231151580
- eISBN:
- 9780231540872
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Columbia University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7312/columbia/9780231151580.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
What would happen if pleasure were made the organizing principle for social relations and sexual pleasure ruled over all? Radical French libertines experimented clandestinely with this idea during ...
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What would happen if pleasure were made the organizing principle for social relations and sexual pleasure ruled over all? Radical French libertines experimented clandestinely with this idea during the Enlightenment. In explicit novels, dialogues, poems, and engravings, they wrenched pleasure free from religion and morality, from politics, aesthetics, anatomy, and finally reason itself, and imagined how such a world would be desirable, legitimate, rapturous—and potentially horrific. Laying out the logic and willful illogic of radical libertinage, this book ties the Enlightenment engagement with sexual license to the expansion of print, empiricism, the revival of skepticism, the fashionable arts and lifestyles of the Ancien Régime, and the rise and decline of absolutism. It examines the consequences of imagining sexual pleasure as sovereign power and a law unto itself across a range of topics, including sodomy, the science of sexual difference, political philosophy, aesthetics, and race. It also analyzes the roots of radical claims for pleasure in earlier licentious satire and their echoes in appeals for sexual liberation in the 1960s and beyond.Less
What would happen if pleasure were made the organizing principle for social relations and sexual pleasure ruled over all? Radical French libertines experimented clandestinely with this idea during the Enlightenment. In explicit novels, dialogues, poems, and engravings, they wrenched pleasure free from religion and morality, from politics, aesthetics, anatomy, and finally reason itself, and imagined how such a world would be desirable, legitimate, rapturous—and potentially horrific. Laying out the logic and willful illogic of radical libertinage, this book ties the Enlightenment engagement with sexual license to the expansion of print, empiricism, the revival of skepticism, the fashionable arts and lifestyles of the Ancien Régime, and the rise and decline of absolutism. It examines the consequences of imagining sexual pleasure as sovereign power and a law unto itself across a range of topics, including sodomy, the science of sexual difference, political philosophy, aesthetics, and race. It also analyzes the roots of radical claims for pleasure in earlier licentious satire and their echoes in appeals for sexual liberation in the 1960s and beyond.
Benjamin J. Kaplan
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198202837
- eISBN:
- 9780191675546
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198202837.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
This chapter summarizes the preceding discusses and presents some concluding thoughts from the author. The final result of the Dutch Reformation was that peculiar combination of severe Calvinism and ...
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This chapter summarizes the preceding discusses and presents some concluding thoughts from the author. The final result of the Dutch Reformation was that peculiar combination of severe Calvinism and religious freedom that characterized the Dutch Republic. Within the Dutch Reformed Church, confessionalism triumphed; in Dutch society as a whole, confessionalization failed. Indeed, one can speak of a trade-off between the two. The more confessional the church became, the less compatible it was with the broader social vision of Dutch regents. Ironically, had Dutch Calvinists been more willing to dilute their confessionalism, they might eventually have come closer to realizing their Dutch New Israel. For in so doing they would certainly have gained more support than they did, both from the regents and from the majority of ordinary lay folk.Less
This chapter summarizes the preceding discusses and presents some concluding thoughts from the author. The final result of the Dutch Reformation was that peculiar combination of severe Calvinism and religious freedom that characterized the Dutch Republic. Within the Dutch Reformed Church, confessionalism triumphed; in Dutch society as a whole, confessionalization failed. Indeed, one can speak of a trade-off between the two. The more confessional the church became, the less compatible it was with the broader social vision of Dutch regents. Ironically, had Dutch Calvinists been more willing to dilute their confessionalism, they might eventually have come closer to realizing their Dutch New Israel. For in so doing they would certainly have gained more support than they did, both from the regents and from the majority of ordinary lay folk.
Benjamin J. Kaplan
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198202837
- eISBN:
- 9780191675546
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198202837.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of the Calvinist–Libertine conflict, which revolved around two points: the character of the Dutch Reformed Church as a religious community and the ...
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This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of the Calvinist–Libertine conflict, which revolved around two points: the character of the Dutch Reformed Church as a religious community and the relation between that church and the rest of Dutch society. To oversimplify a bit, one can say that the Calvinists prevailed on the first point, the Libertines on the second. The Dutch Reformed Church became a thoroughly Calvinist, thoroughly disciplined entity; Dutch society as a whole did not. The chapter then sets out the purpose of this book, which is to present a more comprehensive, integrated interpretation of the Calvinist–Libertine conflict in the Netherlands; and it does so by placing the conflict in an international context. Rather than viewing it as an isolated phenomenon unique to the Dutch, as has so often been done, it argues that it was in fact a local manifestation of a much broader struggle between the champions and opponents of confessionalism. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less
This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of the Calvinist–Libertine conflict, which revolved around two points: the character of the Dutch Reformed Church as a religious community and the relation between that church and the rest of Dutch society. To oversimplify a bit, one can say that the Calvinists prevailed on the first point, the Libertines on the second. The Dutch Reformed Church became a thoroughly Calvinist, thoroughly disciplined entity; Dutch society as a whole did not. The chapter then sets out the purpose of this book, which is to present a more comprehensive, integrated interpretation of the Calvinist–Libertine conflict in the Netherlands; and it does so by placing the conflict in an international context. Rather than viewing it as an isolated phenomenon unique to the Dutch, as has so often been done, it argues that it was in fact a local manifestation of a much broader struggle between the champions and opponents of confessionalism. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.
Benjamin J. Kaplan
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198202837
- eISBN:
- 9780191675546
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198202837.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
This prologue recounts the course of the early Reformation in Utrecht and the beginnings of the Calvinist–Libertine conflict there. It then focuses on the religious issues that divided Calvinists and ...
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This prologue recounts the course of the early Reformation in Utrecht and the beginnings of the Calvinist–Libertine conflict there. It then focuses on the religious issues that divided Calvinists and Libertines from one another, not only in Utrecht but throughout the Netherlands.Less
This prologue recounts the course of the early Reformation in Utrecht and the beginnings of the Calvinist–Libertine conflict there. It then focuses on the religious issues that divided Calvinists and Libertines from one another, not only in Utrecht but throughout the Netherlands.
Benjamin J. Kaplan
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198202837
- eISBN:
- 9780191675546
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198202837.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
This chapter sets the Calvinist–Libertine conflict in a specific social context. It examines Utrecht's social structures and analyses the composition of the two religious parties there. From this ...
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This chapter sets the Calvinist–Libertine conflict in a specific social context. It examines Utrecht's social structures and analyses the composition of the two religious parties there. From this analysis emerges an explanation as to why the Calvinist–Libertine conflict attained such unequalled vehemence in Utrecht.Less
This chapter sets the Calvinist–Libertine conflict in a specific social context. It examines Utrecht's social structures and analyses the composition of the two religious parties there. From this analysis emerges an explanation as to why the Calvinist–Libertine conflict attained such unequalled vehemence in Utrecht.
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226857923
- eISBN:
- 9780226857954
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226857954.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
This chapter, which examines the concept of the so-called libertine masculinity in late Imperial China by analyzing pornographic novels of the period, traces the rise and decline of the narrative ...
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This chapter, which examines the concept of the so-called libertine masculinity in late Imperial China by analyzing pornographic novels of the period, traces the rise and decline of the narrative trope of the libertine and highlights the changing standards of masculinity from the late Ming to the mid-Qing periods. It describes the protagonists and the narrative of several pornographic fictions including A Crazed Lady, The Plum in the Golden Vase, and A Libertine's Story.Less
This chapter, which examines the concept of the so-called libertine masculinity in late Imperial China by analyzing pornographic novels of the period, traces the rise and decline of the narrative trope of the libertine and highlights the changing standards of masculinity from the late Ming to the mid-Qing periods. It describes the protagonists and the narrative of several pornographic fictions including A Crazed Lady, The Plum in the Golden Vase, and A Libertine's Story.