De Achttiende Eeuw - 2023, Sept 2023

Abstract In April 1799, Amsterdam saw the premiere of De toverfluit, the Dutch translation of Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. The opera had already been introduced in the Dutch capital five years earlier, in the original German. Unlike that earlier performance, the first staging in Dutch occasioned several comments in the literary press. The reviews were invariably critical of the storyline, the characters and the quality of the translat Read More

Abstract The maritime sector was one of the largest employers of the Dutch Republic, with a constant high demand for labor. Life at sea was full of risks, and for sailors, accidents or violent assaults often resulted in permanent physical or mental impairment. The handling of the accident, the aftercare and the way seafarers with permanent disabilities reshaped their lives have hardly been studied. This article shows that socioe Read More

Abstract Around 1820, the French artist Théodore Géricault (1791-1824) painted ten portraits of people who had been committed to asylums. Five of them remain extant. Géricault’s portraits seem to mirror the then common belief that mental illness was detectable in the facial features of the insane. Unlike many other portraits and drawings of that time, however, they were not just a mere registration of objects. Instead, they Read More

Abstract The publication of the ethnographic studies of Engelbert Kaempfer and Pierre de Charlevoix on the Japanese tōdōza, or ‘society of the blind’, allowed a large European readership to become familiar with the self-sufficient and prominent social position of blind persons in the Japanese empire. The spread of knowledge about the tōdōza enabled Europeans to compare the relatively favorable positioning of blind people in Read More

Abstract Hearing difficulties traditionally led to unequal relations and opportunities, often resulting in hidden feelings of sadness and loneliness, as well as discomfort and embarrassment. Yet in the eighteenth century, some people with a hearing difference appear to have been able to cope with these negative feelings by using ear trumpets. This article discusses hardness of hearing and acoustic aids in eighteenth-century po Read More

Abstract Eighteenth-century Britain and the Low Countries witnessed a shift in how small people were approached by the cultural elite. The age-old prejudice that physical disabilities were accompanied by mental disorders was increasingly challenged by medical professors. In educational and literary works, writers tried to instill sympathy for the living conditions of small people. The authors emphasized that, despite their physiq Read More

Abstract Two recent documentary series, Het verhaal van Nederland and Het verhaal van Vlaanderen, both modeled after a Danish example, purport to tell the ‘story’ of The Netherlands and Flanders in ten episodes. In both cases, one episode centers on the eighteenth century. This article discusses the political focus of these episodes, the diverging historical self-perceptions they imply, and the controversies surrounding the series.

Abstract This contribution analyzes how the eighteenth century is used as a narrative strategy in the popular HBO-series Our Flag Means Death (2022-). Set during the Golden Age of Piracy (1650-1730), the series depicts the fortunes of the bumbling, rather unsuccessful ‘gentleman pirate’ Stede Bonnet. Although the show’s creators, David Jenkins and Taika Waititi, drew inspiration from eighteenth-century history, historical Read More