It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a woman in possession of a love of history, must be in want of a blog.
While British troops were away fighting the French during the Napoleonic Wars, a concerted war effort was being carried out on the home front. These years saw a proliferation of anti-Napoleonic propaganda in many forms. The government needed to whip up patriotic fervour not only to promote a general spirit of resistance against the French, but …
Continue reading The ‘Corsican Monster’ in British caricature
The 19th century witnessed the rise of the celebrity musician. Previously, musicians were wholly dependent on aristocratic or ecclesiastical patrons, and their output was determined by the wishes of these sometimes despotic individuals. Bach, for instance, was a mere Kapellmeister, and Haydn was not much more than a court servant. Even Mozart was unhappily dependent …
Continue reading ‘Lisztomania’: Franz Liszt, sex, and celebrity
"For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten". Ecclesiastes 9:5 How will we be remembered we die? Will we be remembered at all? These are questions which occupied minds in early modern England just as …
Continue reading “Teaching marble to lie”: Remembering the dead in early modern monuments