Enthusiasm and Enlightenment in Europe, 1650-1850

Enthusiasm and Enlightenment in Europe, 1650-1850





These essays on the shifting content and value attached to "enthusiasm" treat a particular historical question and at the same time pose a general challenge to our methodological expectations. The contributors (Peter Fenves, Jan Goldstein, Lawrence E. Klein, Jon Mee, J. G. A. Pocock, Mary D. Sheriff, and Anthony J. La Vopa) study the discourses of religion, psychology, aesthetics, politics, and philosophy in which "enthusiasm" figured as a key term--often a pejorative by which various forms of orthodoxy sought to establish their authority, sometimes a desideratum attached to intellectual, spiritual, or artistic inspiration. By tracing these often parallel discourses in France, Germany, and England, the essays establish the value of a transnational framework for the issues of secularization and modernity, one that draws on the perspectives of intellectual as well as social and political history.









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