Academic literature on the topic '1729-1797 Views on French Revolution'

One of the best known compositions from Robert Schumann's "song year" of 1840 is the ballad "Die beiden Grenadiere," op. 49, no. 1, to a poem by Heinrich Heine (1797-1856). Any work about Napoleon, in any genre, was inevitably politically charged, both at the time Heine wrote his poem (perhaps in 1821, after hearing the news of the former emperor's death on 5 May 1821) and the date of its most famous musical setting (at the beginning of the decade when Germany was edging towards revolutionary outbreak). What impelled this 21st-century investigation of the song was curiosity about its confusing initial gesture in the piano, a tonic six-four chord as an anacrusis, leading to unharmonized tonic pitches on the downbeat of measure 1. Speculation about Schumann's intention led to an investigation of both men's attitudes towards Napoleon, especially the aftermath of his downfall. That Heine venerated Napoleon (who emancipated the Jews) cannot be doubted, but Heine, given to paradox and contradiction, was no hagiographer. His poem is as much literary as it is political, with its borrowings from Des Knaben Wunderhorn and Herder's translation of the Scottish ballad "Edward." The First Empire, like all empires, is not merely historical fact but a confabulation of poetic legends. Heine's underlying concern, I would argue, was not Bonapartism per se but rising German nationalism of the sort he found ominous and that Schumann, to some as yet ill-defined degree, supported. But composer and poet both associated Napoleon with the ideals of the French Revolution in the days before it and the emperor succumbed to what is darkest in human nature. In my opinion, Schumann understood Heine's delineation of nationalistic fanaticism and found apt musical gestures for that understanding. Here, I trace the composer's lifelong sense of identification with Napoleon and the compositional decisions that tell of a political point of view in "Die beiden Grenadiere."

Même si le débat britannique sur la Révolution française a eu une courte vie (1789-1795), il a profondément influencé les grands esprits en Europe tout au long du XIXe siècle. Pourquoi la Révolution a-t-telle eu lieu en France ? La Révolution, est-elle venue dans la continuité de l’indépendance américaine et de la révolution glorieuse britannique ou représente-t-elle une rupture dans le cours de l’histoire à l’époque moderne ? Autrement dit, peut-on mieux comprendre les répercussions de la Révolution à l’échelle européenne sous le prisme du discours politique britannique ? Nous essaierons de répondre à ces questions en reconstruisant l’échange philosophique entre les défenseurs et les détracteurs de la Révolution. Si Edmund Burke s’est opposé radicalement à la Révolution dès 1789 en mettant l’accent sur les dérives violentes de l’expérience révolutionnaire française, certains autres philosophes des Lumières comme Paine, Wollstonecraft ou Godwin ont mis l’accent sur l’aspect novateur et progressiste des revendications de la Révolution française comparée aux révolutions du monde anglo-saxon. Dans cette thèse, nous tenterons de mettre en dialogue les arguments principaux de la querelle philosophico-politique autour de la Révolution française, dans l’objectif de mieux comprendre l’esprit du débat britannique sur la Révolution
Even though the British debate on the French Revolution was short lived (1789-1795), it deeply influenced many great Europe an thinkers throughout the 19th century. Why did the Revolution take place in France? Did the Revolution come as a continuation of American independence and the British glorious revolution, or does it represent a more radical break in the course of modern history ? Can we better understand the repercussions of the Revolution on a European scale through the prism of British political discourse? We will try to answer these questions by reconstructing the philosophical exchange between the defenders and the refractors of the Revolution. If Edmund Burke radically opposed the Revolution from 1789 by emphasizing the violent consequences of the French revolutionary experience, some other Enlightenment philosophers such as Paine, Wollstonecraft or Godwin emphasized the progressive and innovative demands of the French Revolution compared to the revolutions of the Anglo-Saxon world. In this thesis, we will try to bring into dialogue the main arguments of the philosophical-political quarrel concerning the French Revolution, with the aim of better understanding the spirit of the British debate on the Revolution

La pensée politique moderne a admis la dichotomie entre réforme et révolution. Le réformisme en a fait un principe qui domine actuellement les esprits. Mais la politique n’est-elle pas irrémédiablement partagée entre révolution et réforme ? La politique de Kant constitue un paradigme idéal pour poser le problème du rapport entre réforme et révolution. A l’initiative de Burke, l’opposition moderne entre réforme et révolution se forme à cette époque en réaction aux révolutions en Europe. Kant accepte bien l’opposition entre la réforme entreprise par le souverain et la révolution accomplie par le peuple. Mais sa sympathie bien connue pour la Révolution française l’amène à élaborer une politique pragmatique qui prend en compte les conditions historico-politiques de l’application des principes républicains défendus par la Révolution. Animé par un esprit révolutionnaire, le réformisme kantien entend réussir le processus politique de la républicanisation par le moyen de la réforme, tout en rendant justice à la nécessité du processus naturel de la révolution qui réagit à l’oppression de la liberté. Selon le philosophe de la Révolution, la réforme (révolutionnaire) accomplit la révolution. Pour le montrer, il faut réinscrire la politique de Kant dans son temps. La partie I en précise le contexte historique et sémantique : la réfutation kantienne du droit de rébellion est dirigée contre les monarchomaques ; l’articulation kantienne de la réforme à la révolution s’inscrit dans la lignée du consensus entre réforme et révolution mise en place par les Lumières. La partie II retrace la mise en place de la dichotomie « réformiste » entre réforme et révolution par les burkiens allemands : ils opposent à la violence destructrice de la Révolution l’option d’une réforme conservatrice qui se contente d’améliorer ponctuellement les institutions monarchiques. Kant, en revanche, se révèle être le théoricien secret d’une réforme révolutionnaire qui bouleverse le système monarchique de fond en comble : pour le montrer, la partie III décrypte l’esprit révolutionnaire de sa politique
Modern political thought has admitted the dichotomy between reform and revolution. Reformism has turned it into a principle that currently dominates our minds. But isn't politics irremediably torn between reform and revolution?Kant's politics is an ideal paradigm to pose the problem of the relation between reform and revolution. At Burke's initiative, the modern opposition between reform and revolution is formed at that time as a reaction to the revolutions in Europe. Kant accepts the opposition between reforms adopted by the sovereign and the revolution done by the people. But his well-known sympathy for the French Revolution leads him to elaborate a pragmatic political philosophy that takes into account the historico-political conditions of the implementation of the republican principles defended by the Revolution. Stimulated by a revolutionary spirit, Kantian reformism means to successfully establish the political process of republicanisation thanks to reform, while doing justice to the necessity of the natural process of the revolution which reacts to the oppression of liberty. According to the philosopher of the Revolution, (revolutionary) reform accomplishes the revolution.So as to show it, one must place Kant's politics in his time. Part I makes clear its historical and semantic context: the Kantian refutation of the right to rebel is directed against the Monarchomachists; the Kantian way of articulating reform to revolution is inscribed in the tradition of a consensus between reform and revolution implemented by the Enlightenment. Part II charts the creation of the 'reformist' dichotomy between reform and revolution by German Burkians: rather than the destructive violence of the Revolution, they opted for a conservative reform that managed only to bring about ad hoc improvements to the monarchic institutions. Kant, on the contrary, turns out to be the secret theoretician of a revolutionary reform which totally upsets the monarchic system: to show this, part III deciphers the revolutionary spirit of his political thought