Enlightenment Literature Research Articles

The Epistolary Story in Haskalah Literature: Isaac Euchel's "Igrot Meshulam"

This study of the epistolary genre in Hebrew Haskalah literature examines several epistolary pieces published in Hameʾasef , the journal of German Haskalah. In particular, it looks at Isaac Euchel's "Igrot Meshulam ben Uriyah Haʾeshtemoi," considered the first epistolary writing in modern Hebrew belle lettres . Past literary criticism attributed Euchel's piece to the influence of Montesquieu's Lettres Persanes . I argue that many of the arguments for such an influence are based on a superficial resemblance of the two works, and I suggest that such similarities exist in other literary works belonging to the genre of epistolary writing and to Enlightenment literature in general, which are in effect literary conventions of the genre. A number of representative works in the epistolary, psuedo-oriental genre published prior to 1721—the publication date of Lettres Persanes —as well as works published subsequently, such as The Jewish Spy, Turkish Spy , and Chinese Spy , were studied to see whether the alleged similarities could be found in these works as well. The result undermines the theory of an exclusive dependence of "Igrot Meshulam " on Montesquieu and shows its possible affinity to other epistolary writings. More importantly, the writer argues that Euchel's non-fictional epistolary work, "Igrot Yitsḥaq Eichel Letalmido Michal Friedländer," which was also published in Hameʾasef , sheds more light on the fictional work.

Moshe Pelli. Kinds of Genre in Haskalah Literature: Types and Topics. Israel: Hakkibutz Hameuchad Publishing House, 1999. xxv (English), 357 pp. (Hebrew).

Moshe Pelli, one of the major scholars of Hebrew Haskalah (Enlightenment) literature in our time and one of the major contributors to Hebrew culture in America, presents in this book the fruits of his twenty-five years of study of the major genres in this literature. Previously published articles have been rewritten by Pelli for this book.

Women Reading Corneille: Feminist Psychocriticisms of 'Le Cid'. by Claire L. Carlin. (Contemporary Critical Concepts and Pre- Enlightenment Literature). New York, Peter Lang, 2000. 165 pp.

Women Reading Corneille: Feminist Psychocriticisms of 'Le Cid'. by Claire L. Carlin. (Contemporary Critical Concepts and Pre- Enlightenment Literature). New York, Peter Lang, 2000. 165 pp.

The Scottish Enlightenment and the Readers of Late Georgian Lancaster: ‘Light in the North’

THE RELATIONSHIP between the Scottish Enlightenment and English provincial society has never been adequately gauged. A persuasive study by Anand Chitnis in 1986 first explored, as its title suggests, the connections between The Scottish Enlightenment and Early Victorian English Society. This revealed many physicians and other graduates whose nineteenth-century careers south of the Border reflected the achievements of Scotland's famous universities over the previous century nicely illustrating the impact of Dugald Stewart, Sir William Hamilton, Edinburgh's medical educators, and the Edinburgh Review. But Chitnis concentrated exclusively upon a cohort of professionals who had themselves been taught in Scotland (many of them, indeed, were native Scots); and he focused also upon a period substantially later than the 'high' Scottish Enlightenment of the later eighteenth century. In effect, his study incorporated a substantial time-lag and a special focus whose value was that it served to confirm what had always been suspected about the profound impact of 'the Scotch philosophy' on Western institutional development by the 1820s and 1830s. But the consequence of this approach, as well as of other recent research, is that it is probably true to say that we presently know rather more about the influence of Scottish Enlightenment literature on early American political culture and on the nineteenth-century American colleges even perhaps on Aujklarung Germany than about its contemporary success with late Georgian provincial English readers. 1

Polish Baroque and Enlightenment Literature: An Anthology

Polish Baroque and Enlightenment Literature: An Anthology

The Rise of the Historical Novel. Volume Two. The Enlightenment and Scottish Literature

The Rise of the Historical Novel. Volume Two. The Enlightenment and Scottish Literature

Review. The Attraction of the Contrary: Essays on the Literature of the French Enlightenment. Rex, Walter E.

Review. The Attraction of the Contrary: Essays on the Literature of the French Enlightenment. Rex, Walter E.

The Literature of Enlightenment: Technical Periodicals and Proceedings in the 17th and 18th Centuries

Technical periodicals and proceedings have been important instruments for transmitting news about scientific and technological discoveries for more than 300 years. The first such publications appeared amidst the birth of modem science when, for the first time, emphasis was placed on experiment as the basis for advancement of knowledge. Discussed in this article are the origin of the technical periodical and proceedings and their characteristics up to the end of the 18th century and the analysis of the writing style in an important technical paper written by Isaac Newton and published in 1672.

Recent Contributions to Retrospective Greek Bibliography

In his recent study of publishing in eighteenth-century Russia, Gary Marker has called attention to the importance of publication and distribution of the printed word as one measure of the reception of Western thought into Eastern Europe. For historians of the Balkans, no less than for Russian specialists, a crucial aid in this type of study has been the publication of systematic retrospective national bibliographies. Nowhere in the Balkans has this concern for retrospective bibliographical control been so closely linked with historical scholarship as in Greece. Even before the monumental publication of Émile L. J. Legrand's multivolume Bibliographic hellénique, modern Greek historical and philological study was closely linked to bibliographical coverage of Greek imprints during the Turcocratia. Since World War II, this concern for retrospective national bibliography has been closely identified with the study of the Neo-Hellenic Enlightenment and Greek literature from the fall of Byzantium to the modern period.

The Beginning of the Epistolary Genre in Hebrew Enlightenment Literature in Germany: The Alleged Affinity Between Lettres Persanes and 'Igrot Meshulam

The Beginning of the Epistolary Genre in Hebrew Enlightenment Literature in Germany: The Alleged Affinity Between Lettres Persanes and 'Igrot Meshulam

Aloys Blumauer and the Literature of Austrian Enlightenment

Aloys Blumauer and the Literature of Austrian Enlightenment