Ritchie Robertson
Auteur van The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790
Over de Auteur
Ritchie Robertson is Professor of German at Oxford University and Fellow of St. John's College.
Fotografie: via The British Academy
Werken van Ritchie Robertson
The German-Jewish Dialogue: An Anthology of Literary Texts, 1749-1993 (Oxford World's Classics) (1999) 27 exemplaren
The "Jewish Question" in German Literature, 1749-1939: Emancipation and Its Discontents (1999) 14 exemplaren
The Yiddish presence in European literature : inspiration and interaction : selected papers arising from the Fourth and… (2005) 3 exemplaren
Der Proceß (Interpretation) Kafka 1 exemplaar
A Case of Hysteria: Dora 1 exemplaar
'Nobel bodies' in TLS 5298, 15 Oct 2004 1 exemplaar
Gerelateerde werken
A Hunger Artist and Other Stories (Oxford World's Classics) (2012) — Introductie, sommige edities — 41 exemplaren
Rethinking lessing's laocoon : antiquity, enlightenment, and the 'limits' of painting and poetry (2017) — Medewerker — 4 exemplaren
Tagged
Algemene kennis
- Gangbare naam
- Robertson, Ritchie
- Officiële naam
- Robertson, Ritchie Neil Ninian
- Geboortedatum
- 1952
- Geslacht
- male
- Nationaliteit
- UK
- Land (voor op de kaart)
- UK
- Beroepen
- Professor of German, Oxford
- Organisaties
- Oxford University
- Prijzen en onderscheidingen
- Fellow, British Academy
Leden
Besprekingen
The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790 door Ritchie Robertson
*3.5
The Enlightenment: The Pursuit of Happiness, 1680-1790 by Ritchie Robertson is a very clearly written look at this important period with a shift of emphasis from the pursuit of knowledge to the pursuit of happiness.
This is as much a history as it is a work about the philosophical works of the time. Robertson offers excellent readings of the major works as well as many of the minor works, but most importantly he weaves these ideas into the history. Many books will touch on events in illustrating the importance of these works, but they often concentrate on one or two major events that most clearly show whatever aspect of the work they are emphasizing. Robertson certainly chooses events that support his readings but he chooses far more widely than most.
The idea of happiness needs, for the reader, to be separated from what we often think of as happiness in contemporary society. Happiness now is largely commodified and measured in luxury and/or leisure time and objects. Happiness during the Enlightenment(s) was far more concerned with making life better for more people, making the world so that everyone might find some enjoyment from their time here.
I don't know that the general idea of happiness being an important element in what Enlightenment thought was about is entirely new, I seem to remember Pagden touching on the same basic theme, though perhaps without using the word happiness as much. But Robertson makes a much stronger case through both textual analysis and historical interpretation. As such, this book stands alone in my reading in broadening my concept of what the thinkers of the time were seeking and trying to accomplish.
I would highly recommend this to readers regardless of their background in Enlightenment texts. I think Robertson explains the works well enough for anyone to grasp the main ideas and situate those ideas in the bigger picture. For those who haven't read many of the works I also think this will help you to decide which texts you might find interesting and which you might want to skip. For those who have read many of the works I think reading any good interpretations is beneficial in that it makes us think and revisit what we may have taken for granted or forgotten. We don't have to agree to get value from reading this, though I think it is hard to find fault in most of what is presented.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (meer)
This is as much a history as it is a work about the philosophical works of the time. Robertson offers excellent readings of the major works as well as many of the minor works, but most importantly he weaves these ideas into the history. Many books will touch on events in illustrating the importance of these works, but they often concentrate on one or two major events that most clearly show whatever aspect of the work they are emphasizing. Robertson certainly chooses events that support his readings but he chooses far more widely than most.
The idea of happiness needs, for the reader, to be separated from what we often think of as happiness in contemporary society. Happiness now is largely commodified and measured in luxury and/or leisure time and objects. Happiness during the Enlightenment(s) was far more concerned with making life better for more people, making the world so that everyone might find some enjoyment from their time here.
I don't know that the general idea of happiness being an important element in what Enlightenment thought was about is entirely new, I seem to remember Pagden touching on the same basic theme, though perhaps without using the word happiness as much. But Robertson makes a much stronger case through both textual analysis and historical interpretation. As such, this book stands alone in my reading in broadening my concept of what the thinkers of the time were seeking and trying to accomplish.
I would highly recommend this to readers regardless of their background in Enlightenment texts. I think Robertson explains the works well enough for anyone to grasp the main ideas and situate those ideas in the bigger picture. For those who haven't read many of the works I also think this will help you to decide which texts you might find interesting and which you might want to skip. For those who have read many of the works I think reading any good interpretations is beneficial in that it makes us think and revisit what we may have taken for granted or forgotten. We don't have to agree to get value from reading this, though I think it is hard to find fault in most of what is presented.
Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley.… (meer)
1 
pomo58 | 2 andere besprekingen | Sep 29, 2020 |
pomo58 | 2 andere besprekingen | Sep 29, 2020 | 
This work provides an excellent, concise introduction to Franz Kafka and his works. Chapter 1, "Life and Myth," is biographical, and contrasts Kafka with the heavily layers of mythology built up around him. Chapter 2, "Reading Kafka," offers perspectives on his writings and literary reputation. Chapters 3 and 4 are titled "Bodies" and "Institutions" respectively, and Chapter 5, "The Last Things". The text is supplemented with numerous photographs. My copy of this book is full of my own marginal notes, underlinings, and bent-down page corners, as its a work I feel compelled to return to for its insights. For readers disinclined to tackle Stach's massive 3- volume biography, and the voluminous and impenetrable critiques of Kafka's writing, I highly recommend this work.… (meer)
2 danielx | Feb 20, 2019 |
danielx | Feb 20, 2019 | 
This Very Short Introduction does exactly what a VSI should do. It introduces the reader to its subject and explains why it is significant, and it’s pitched at a non-academic audience in accessible language and with a coherent organisation of the content. Ritchie Robertson’s Goethe, a Very Short Introduction made me want to drop what I’m currently reading and find out more about this great German writer.
Goethe (Wikipedia Commons)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was a celebrity novelist at the age of 25! His debut novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther (see my review) was an early example of the Sturm und Drang literary movement, but today its passionate evocation of hopeless young love would place it on the YA shelves (and the film studios would option it and he’d have a mega advance to set him up for life). But as Robertson explains in the preface, there is a lot more to Goethe than Werther.
Writing on the great issues of his time…
Goethe looks like a respectable German intellectual in the portrait on my blog but he was actually quite the non-conformist in some ways. Robertson says that it’s wrong to think of him as a distant and, nowadays unexciting Victorian sage, and also as a serene Olympian figure above ordinary human passions. [*chuckle* Robertson, being an Oxford scholar, does not mean athletic; he means Olympian as in the Greek gods]. Goethe had to work hard at controlling his turbulent emotional experience and #scandal! he shacked up with his lady friend for many years instead of marrying her. But politically he was deeply conservative, and indeed his refusal, when he was in a position of power, to reform the death penalty for infanticide, led directly to the execution of a young woman. His literature, taken as a whole, reveals these contradictions, his irritation with petty restrictions, his questing nature and his reflections on the rapidly changing world he lived in. Robertson says that he was:
Lionised in Germany now, Goethe was not so popular in his own day.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/12/14/goethe-a-very-short-introduction-by-ritchie-...… (meer)
Goethe (Wikipedia Commons)Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was a celebrity novelist at the age of 25! His debut novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther (see my review) was an early example of the Sturm und Drang literary movement, but today its passionate evocation of hopeless young love would place it on the YA shelves (and the film studios would option it and he’d have a mega advance to set him up for life). But as Robertson explains in the preface, there is a lot more to Goethe than Werther.
Writing on the great issues of his time…
… Goethe produced masterpieces in almost every genre: poems on the largest and smallest scale, plays and novels in varied kinds, autobiography, aphorisms, essays, literary and art criticism. (p.xiii)…
Goethe looks like a respectable German intellectual in the portrait on my blog but he was actually quite the non-conformist in some ways. Robertson says that it’s wrong to think of him as a distant and, nowadays unexciting Victorian sage, and also as a serene Olympian figure above ordinary human passions. [*chuckle* Robertson, being an Oxford scholar, does not mean athletic; he means Olympian as in the Greek gods]. Goethe had to work hard at controlling his turbulent emotional experience and #scandal! he shacked up with his lady friend for many years instead of marrying her. But politically he was deeply conservative, and indeed his refusal, when he was in a position of power, to reform the death penalty for infanticide, led directly to the execution of a young woman. His literature, taken as a whole, reveals these contradictions, his irritation with petty restrictions, his questing nature and his reflections on the rapidly changing world he lived in. Robertson says that he was:
… … deeply marked by living through the French revolution and the twenty-plus years of war that followed it. Intellectually, he was shaped by the Enlightenment, and by its commitment to understanding the world by means of empirical and historical study, though he rejected the egalitarianism and irreligion of the Enlightenment’s radical wing. (p. xiv)…
Lionised in Germany now, Goethe was not so popular in his own day.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2017/12/14/goethe-a-very-short-introduction-by-ritchie-...… (meer)
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