Enlightened Nightscapes: Critical Essays on the Long Eighteenth-Century Night

278 Pages·2023·35.93 MB·English

by  Pamela E. Phillips

Enlightened Nightscapes
This volume brings together eleven case studies that address how the
night became visible in the long and global eighteenth century through
different mediums and in different geographical contexts.
Situated on the eve of the introduction of artificial lighting, the long
eighteenth century has much to say about night’s darkness and brilliance.
The eighteenth century has been bound up epistemologically with images
of light, reason, and order. Night and day, light and darkness, reason and
mystery, however, are not necessarily at odds in the eighteenth century. In
their analysis of narratives, poetry, urban spaces, music, the visual arts,
and geological phenomena, the essays provide various frameworks to
examine the representation, treatment, and meaning of the enlightened
night.
The transnational and multidisciplinary nature of the volume presents
a survey of the research currently being done in the field of the long
eighteenth-century night. This collection contributes to an ongoing exer-
cise that questions the accepted definitions of the Enlightenment, and by
bringing Eighteenth-Century Studies into dialogue with Night Studies, it
enriches the critical conversation between these lines of research.
Pamela F. Phillips is Professor of Hispanic Studies at the University of
Puerto Rico, Río Piedras.
Routledge Studies in Eighteenth-Century Cultures and
Societies
Series Editors: Elaine Chalus and Deborah Simonton
The long eighteenth century sits as a pivotal point between the early-
modern and modern worlds. By actively encouraging an international
focus for the series over all, both in terms of wide-ranging geographical
topics and authorial locations, the series aims to feature cutting-edge
research from established and recent scholars, and capitalize on the
breadth of themes and topics that new approaches to research in the
period reveal. This series provides a forum for recent and established
historians to present new research and explore fresh approaches to cul-
ture and society in the long eighteenth century. As a crucial period of
transition, the period saw developments that shaped perceptions of the
place of the individual and the collective in the construction of the mod-
ern world. Eighteenth-Century Cultures and Societies is a series that is
globally ambitious in scope and broad in its desire to publish cutting-
edge research that takes an innovative, multi-vocal and increasingly
holistic approach to the period. The series will be particularly sensitive to
questions of gender and class, but aims to embrace and explore a variety
of fresh approaches and methodologies.
Venanzio Rauzzini and the Birth of a New Style in English Singing
Scandalous Lessons
Brianna E. Robertson-Kirkland
Cultural Histories of Law, Media and Emotion
Public Histories
Edited by Katie Barclay and Amy Milka
Enlightened Nightscapes
Critical Essays on the Long Eighteenth-Century Night
Edited by Pamela F. Phillips
Gender, Mediation and Popular Education in Venice (1760–1830)
Susan Dalton
Letters and the Body, 1700–1830
Writing and Embodiment
Edited by Sarah Goldsmith, Sheryllynne Haggerty and Karen Harvey
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.
com/Routledge-Studies-in-Eighteenth-Century-Cultures-and-Societies/
book-series/RSECCS
Enlightened Nightscapes
Critical Essays on the Long
Eighteenth-Century Night
Edited by Pamela F. Phillips
Cover Image: Alexander Lauréus: A Woman with A Lantern, sign.
1818, Nationalmuseum (Photograph: Hans Thorwid), Stockholm,
Sweden, public domain.
First published 2023
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an
informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Pamela F. Phillips;
individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Pamela F. Phillips to be identified as the author of the
editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters,
has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and
recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
ISBN: 978-0-367-52967-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-52969-7 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-07996-5 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003079965
Typeset in Sabon
by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)
Contents
List of Illustrations vii
List of Contributors x
Acknowledgments xiii
1 Introduction 1
PAMELA F. PHILLIPS
PART I
Nighttime Experiments 25
2 Libertine Nocturnes, or The Many Marvels of the
Enlightened Night 27
MARINE GANOFSKY
3 Abysms on Open View: Terrestrial Expressions of
Preternatural Darkness and Heavenly Night 48
KEVIN L. COPE
4 “One Thousand Divine Truths”: Night, Darkness and
the Sublime in the Poetry of Juan Meléndez Valdés 73
MATTHIEU P. RAILLARD
5 Shadowed Celebration: Goethe’s Klassische
Walpurgisnacht and Creative Profusion 89
JEFFREY BELLOMI
vi Contents
PART II
Nocturnal Visions 107
6 Francisco de Goya’s Sleep of Reason and Other States of
Somnolence in the Caprichos 109
ANA RUEDA
7 The Other Side of Night: Enlightened Dreaming in
Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve’s Beauty and the
Beast (1740) 131
VALENTINE BALGUERIE
8 Fire at Bedtime, or the Dangers of Sleep in
France (1700–1830) 150
FLORENCE FESNEAU
PART III
Nocturnal Sights and Sounds 175
9 Early to Bed: Sleep, Artificial Light, and Entertainment
in Eighteenth-Century Istanbul 177
AVNER WISHNITZER
10 The Uncertainty of Evening in Seduction Narratives of
the Early Republic 199
SARAH CULLEN
11 “Like a Night Without Darkness”: Music and
Nightscape in the Early Piano Nocturne (1810–1830) 218
KATELYN CLARK
12 The Haunted Industrialized Nightscape: Factories, Mills,
and Ironworks at Night 234
BRIDGET M. MARSHALL
Selected Bibliography 252
Index 258
Illustrations
Figures
1.1 William Hogarth, Night (The Four Times of Day), 1738 5
1.2 Joshua Reynolds, Cupid as Link Boy, 1774 6
1.3 Antoine Jean Duclos, Le Bal Paré, 1774 7
1.4 Anne Claude Philippe de Tubières, comte de Caylus,
Lantern Seller, 1737 12
2.1 Jean-Baptiste-Blaise Simonet, after Pierre-Antoine
Baudouin, La Soirée des Thuileries, 1774 31
2.2 Benoît Louis Prévost, after Charles Cochin, Frontispiece
of Diderot and d’Alembert’s Encyclopédie, ou
Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des
métiers (detail), 1764 (pinx), 1772 (sculpt) 37
3.1 William Westall, Entrance to Yordas Cave, 1818 52
3.2 William Westall, Yordas Cave, Looking Towards the
Entrance, (1818) 53
3.3 Pierre-Jacques Volaire, Eruption of Vesuvius in 1717
with view of Portici, 1777 62
3.4 Joseph Wright of Derby, Eruption of Vesuvius (also
known as Vesuvius from Portici and Vesuvius in
Eruption) (circa 1774–1776) 63
3.5 Anonymous, 18th century. Fan Design with Eruption of
Vesuvius and Three Views 64
6.1 Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Imitator. Las lavanderas
(The Washerwomen), late 19th or early 20th century 111
6.2 Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Mujer dormida
(Sleeping Woman). 1790–1793 112
6.3 Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746–1828), El
Sueño, c.1800 113
6.4 Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, A woman attacking a
sleeping man; page 87 from the ‘Images of Spain’ album
(F), ca.1812–1820 114
viii Illustrations
6.5 Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, El sueño de la razón
produce monstruos (The Sleep of Reason Produces
Monsters), Plate 43 from Caprichos, 1797–1799 116
6.6 Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Despacha, que
dispiertan (Be Quick, They Are Waking Up), Plate 78
from Caprichos, 1799 118
6.7 Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Duendecitos
(Hobgoblins), Plate 49 from Caprichos, 1799 118
6.8 Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Las rinde el Sueño
(Sleep Overcomes Them), Plate 34 from Caprichos,
1799 120
6.9 Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Ya es hora (It’s time),
Plate 80 from Caprichos, 1799 121
6.10 Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Dispierta dando
patadas (He Wakes up Kicking: A Man on the Floor
Kicking His Legs after Waking From a Nightmare),
folio 13 from the Witches and Old Women Album ‘D’,
ca.1819–1823 122
6.11 Francisco de Goya y Lucientes. Preparatory sketches for
El sueño de la razón produce monstruos (The Sleep of
Reason Produces Monsters) (c. 1799): Idioma universal.
El Autor soñando (Universal Language. The Author
Dreaming), 1797 124
6.12 Francisco de Goya y Lucientes. Preparatory sketches for
El sueño de la razón produce monstruos (The Sleep of
Reason Produces Monsters) (c. 1799): El sueño de la
razón produce monstruos (The Sleep of Reason
Produces Monsters), 1796–1797 124
6.13 Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, Dónde vá mama?
(Where Is Mommy Going?), Plate 65 from Caprichos,
1797–1799 127
7.1 Henry Justice Ford, “The Beast Scaring Beauty’s Father” 135
7.2 Jacques François Blondel, View of The Fireworks on
August 29th, 1739: The Final Blaze, 18th century 137
7.3 Henry Justice Ford, “Beauty Dreaming”, in The Blue
Fairy Book 143
8.1 Simon Thomassin after Jean-François Huguet, Partie de
l’incendie de la Ville de Rennes vue de la place du Palais
(Part of the Fire in the City of Rennes Seen from the
Place du Palais), 1721 153
8.2 Claude-Joseph Vernet, Incendie Nocturne (Night Fire),
1748 155
8.3 Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Le feu aux poudres (Match to
Powderkeg), 1763–1764 157
Illustrations ix
8.4 Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Ma Chemise brûle! (Burn my
shirt!), 1788 159
8.5 Augustin-Claude-Simon Le Grand after Jean-Honoré
Fragonard, Ma Chemise brûle! (Burn my shirt!), 1789 160
8.6 Michel-Honoré Bounieu, Avis aux lecteurs (Notice to
Readers), c.1785 161
8.7 Jean-Marie Mixelle after L. F. Labrousse, Un enfant de
neuf ans sauve, au milieu des flammes, sa sæur encore
au berceau (A Nine-year-old Child saves his Baby-Sister
from the Midst of the Flames), 1796 163
8.8 L. F. Labrousse, Courage et humanité du Capitaine
Soyer (Captain Soyer’s Courage and Humanity), 1798 165
8.9 L. F. Labrousse, Dévouement des Cnd Nélié, Beckers,
&c, &c. Le péril n’est rien quand il faut sauver ses
semblables (Devotion of CO Nélié, Beckers, etc.
Danger is nothing when you must save your fellow
men), circa 1800 166
8.10 Louis Philibert Debucourt, L’Incendie (The Fire), 1804 167
9.1 An Iftar meal at the grand vizier’s palace, late eighteenth
century. Huge candles illuminate the hall, and additional
candles are placed on the tables 1790 182
9.2 Armenians playing cards in candlelight, Istanbul, 1730s 184
9.3 A glimpse of tavern life. The poet ͑Atạ ̄ʾı,̄ himself not a
drinker, is shown conversing with a dervish on the left 186
11.1 John Field, Premier Nocturne, H. 24, mm. 1–4 223
11.2 John Field, Second Nocturne, H. 25, mm. 81–92 223
11.3 Frédéric Chopin, Nocturne, Op. 9, no. 1, mm. 1–4 224
11.4 Frédéric Chopin, Nocturne, Op. 9, no. 2, mm. 1–4 225
12.1 Arkwright’s Cotton Mills, 1790s (oil on canvas),
Wright of Derby, Joseph (1734–97) 242
12.2 Coalbrookdale by Night, Philippe Jacques de
Loutherbourg, 1801 245
Table
9.1 A Comparison of Candle Costs Between Istanbul and
London 181