The Latin Language and the Enlightenment: (2023:07 Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment)

The long eighteenth century is often seen as the age ‘when Europe spoke French’. After all, many of the leading figures of the Enlightenment were French and even a good number of authors in other countries chose this language to reach an audience beyond the borders of their homeland. Latin may have served a similar purpose in the Renaissance, but by the eighteenth century its importance quickly declined. This view is simplistic and misleading and this volume seeks to refute it. The essays presented in this book demonstrate Latin continued to play a highly important role during the long eighteenth century, both within Europe and in interactions between the ‘West’ and the rest of the world. It sheds light on the reasons why Latin remained a key factor in eighteenth-century culture, as well as the contexts in which it was used. In so doing, this volume makes a significant contribution to current debates on the nature of the Enlightenment and its place in global history.

Table of Contents:
List of figures and tables I. Introduction FLORIS VERHAART, Introduction: Latin and the Enlightenment LAURENCE BROCKLISS, The empire of Latin II. Constructing Identity FLORIS VERHAART, A Humanist Identity in an Enlightened Age: Neo-Latin Poetry, Canon Building, and the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns in the Dutch Republic SIMON WIRTHENSOHN, Enlightened tendencies in eighteenth-century school theatre: the dramatic oeuvre of Joseph Resch ANDREW LAIRD, Creole Latin legacies and the European Enlightenment STEFAN TILG, Latin public, Latin literature, and Latin nationalism in eighteenth-century Hungary III. Authority KATHERINE A. EAST, Locating Latin in the heterodox exchanges of Enlightenment England: Toland and his critics JOHN T. GILMORE, ‘Non interpres, sed poeta’: William Jones and his ‘Ode Sinica’ IV. Development of new ideas and knowledge MALIKA BASTIN-HAMMOU, The uses of Latin in Madame Dacier’s Greek scholarship: a story of emancipation MATTHEW FOX, Latin Critical Theory in the Early Eighteenth Century NICHOLAS MITHEN, Vico among the critics: Latin and philology in the gestation of the Scienza Nuova ALESSANDRO OTTAVIANI, Mapping diseases and dissecting landscapes: Giovan Battista Morgagni’s Latin prose from the Adversaria anatomica ot the Epistolae Aemilianae V. Diffusion of Ideas ESTELLE HAAN, Humanism and scientific invention in the Neo-Latin poetry of  Enlightenment England SCOTT MANDELBROTE, Newton in Latin: An Enlightenment Author and his European Audience JAN PAPY, Lecture notes from Leuven University 1750-1793: The Scientific Enlightenment in the Eighteenth-Century Classroom? ELENA DAHLBERG, Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Latin Dissertations from Sweden, ca. 1755–1815 DANIEL WENDT, Ab omni verborum obscoenitate purgata? Latin obscenities, audiences, and humanism in the French Enlightenment Author biographies Summaries Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Floris Verhaart is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Warwick. His research comprises the history of early modern Europe, as well as Neo-Latin Studies. His publications include Classical Learning in Britain, France, and the Dutch Republic (1690-1750): Beyond the Ancients and the Moderns (Oxford, 2020). Laurence Brockliss is emeritus professor of early modern French History at the University of Oxford whose principal area of research is the Republic of Letters and the Enlightenment. His books in the field include French Higher Education in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Oxford, 1987) and Calvet’s Web: Enlightenment and the Republic of Letters in Eighteenth-Century France (Oxford, 2002).