Lecture 2: Ancients and Moderns: a Contrapuntal Enlightenment?
The battle of the books between the ancients and the moderns at the turn of the eighteenth century provides a useful point of departure, not least because the quarrel raged on both sides of the Channel. How far did the pioneering scholarship of the Modern Richard Bentley shape a more distinctively critical and philological Enlightenment in England? On the other hand, their cultural conservatism notwithstanding, were the Ancients necessarily an anti-Enlightenment party?
Date: 26 January 2023, 17:00 (Thursday, 2nd week, Hilary 2023)
Venue: Examination Schools, 75-81 High Street OX1 4BG
Venue Details: South School
Speaker: Professor Colin Kidd (Wardlaw Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews)
Organising department: Faculty of History
Part of: The James Ford Lectures in British History 2023 - Peculiarities of the English Enlightenment: Ancients, Moderns and Pagan Pasts
Booking required?: Not required
Audience: Public
Editor: Belinda Clark