Perfect Settings Research Articles

Preface

Preface Many eighteenth-century travelogues were composed by sedentary voyagers who described monuments unseen and merely imagined. The authors, comfortably ensconced in their armchairs, could voy­ age as easily in space as in time, visiting civilizations past and future as well as the old and new worlds. At times the travels became tales of high adventure or quixotic quests for earthly El Dorados, perfect Gothic settings, or Greek ruins. Their popularity signals a thirst for knowledge, an anxiety to learn what lay beyond the new horizons opened by scientific, philosophic, literary, geographic and even his­ toriographic explorers. The travelers returned, whether from their Grand Tour, their visits to the stars, the microscopic world, or their mental outings, with a new perspective and looked at themselves and their contemporary civilization with a critical eye. If a cantankerous and real Smollett could complain of European bridges, an ingenuous and fictitious Persian or Turk could certainly satirize the court and Church. If the peregrinations of a stationary voyager could describe the unknown, then the migrations of an atom through a salad, a duck and a Dutch mariner, the perambulations of a mouse, the ad­ ventures of a pincushion, corkscrew or ostrich feather of quality could also reveal truths about European life. This simultaneous in­ troversion and extroversion characterizes the eighteenth century. Discovery of new, exotic domains and definition of the familiar, both, self and society, were part of the spirit of the Englightenment. The studies in this volume reflect the development of this period of civilixi xii / Preface zation, catching the myriad rays of refracted light from an extremely wide range of angles. The essays open new horizons on our past and offer the modern reader a voyage of discovery in many disciplines. Some of the articles are expansive, reviewing the general trends and themes of the age and relating them to each other and the broader development of history, literature, science, and philosophy. Other essays are introspective, redefining specific works and theories and viewing them both as they were and as they were seen to be. Some provide fresh insights into familiar works, and others bring us new in­ formation with which to correct our views. Like eighteenth-century travelogues, these essays invite us to share new perspectives. This volume of Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture is a collection of essays selected from submissions which were first presented at the national and regional conferences of the American Society for Eigh­ teenth-Century Studies in 1977-78. The variety of critical ap­ proaches and diversity of topics represent the wide-ranging concerns and activities of this interdisciplinary society. The bicentenaries of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Tetens are commemorated in these pages. The establishment of a new regional society, the Northeast American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, is reflected in the choice of essays in which the scholarship of this group is represented. The an­ nual prize article usually appears in this publication. Its absence is ascribable to the excellence of another of the society’s publications Eighteenth-Century Studies, which had the honor of publishing the essay in volume ten (Fall, 1976). The pleasure and profit of reading Judith Colton’s prize article, “Merlin’s Cave and Queen Caroline: Garden Art as Political Propaganda,” is thus easily available to all readers, who will certainly join us in congratulating the author, Dr. Colton. This volume begins with a view of perfection. Regina Janes de­ scribes Burke’s History of Hindostan as a vision of an imaginary yet practical utopia in which the spirit of liberty reigns. Philip Stewart’s essay which follows treats a similar theme. He shows how Prevost’s utopian images fit the social and theoretical structure defining such a dream and how they paradoxically contain within them their own negation. Preface / xiii From the impossibility of perfection, we travel to reality and a group of papers which illustrate aspects of eighteenth-century life, common concerns at that time which are too rarely considered to­ day. Ruth Perry sets Mary Astell’s views on chastity against the physical and philosophical background of her times, providing both a realistic picture and much useful information. Mary Gallagher treats the problems of politics (Church vs. State...