Eighteenth-Century Reading Group, Wednesday 1 February 2017, 12-2pm

Birkbeck Eighteenth-Century Research Group: Reading Group

Wednesday 1 February 2017, 12.00-2.00pm

Keynes Library, 43 Gordon Square

National and Cosmopolitan Antiquities in the Late Eighteenth Century (Irish, Scottish, German, Russian)

Readings chosen and introduced by:

Alexis Wolf (PhD candidate, English and Humanities, Birkbeck)

Catherine Angerson (PhD candidate, Cultures and Languages, Birkbeck)

The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, Royal Charter (1783), pp. 2-5.

Matthew Guthrie, Dissertations sur les antiquities de Russie (1795), pp. 6-15.

Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova and Martha Bradford, Memoirs of Princess Daschkaw, Lady of Honour to Catherine II (1840), pp. 16-21.

Johann Gottfried Herder, ‘Extract from a Correspondence on Ossian and the Songs of Ancient Peoples’ (Auszug aus einem Briefwechsel über Ossian und die Lieder alter Völker) (1773) available online in German: http://www.zeno.org/Literatur/M/Herder,+Johann+Gottfried/Theoretische+Schriften/Von+deutscher+Art+und+Kunst/1.+Auszug+aus+einem+Briefwechsel

Gottfried August Bürger, Outpourings from the Heart on Folk Poetry (Herzensausguß über Volkspoesie) (1776) available online in German: https://www.uni-due.de/lyriktheorie/texte/1776_buerger.html

(English translations available)

Alexis Wolf will introduce the writings of Anglo-Irish sisters Martha and Katherine Wilmot, who travelled to Russia between 1803-1808 to live as the guests of Princess Yekaterina Dashkova, a major figure in the Russian Enlightenment, and recorded observations about the customs and songs of Russian peasants, relating them to Dissertations Sur Les Antiquities de Russie (1785) by Matthew Guthrie, a Scottish physician resident in St Petersburg and a Correspondent Member of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, whose Charter is also included in the reading pack. The transnational practice of the Irish women and the Scottish doctor in Russia will be compared to German reflections on the poetry of Ossian through texts by Herder and Bürger introduced by Catherine Angerson.

To request copies of the readings, please email Luisa Calè, l.cale@bbk.ac.uk