Montesquieu and England:
Enlightened Exchanges 1689–1755
Ursula Haskins Gonthier
The Enlightenment World
978 1 85196 997 5: 234x156mm: £60.00/$99.00
978 1 85196 691 2
Gonthier sets Montesquieu’s work in the context of early eighteenth-century Anglo-French relations. She takes a comparative approach to show how Montesquieu’s engagement with English thought and writing persisted throughout his writing career. He was particularly influenced by the social and political theories of Hobbes and Locke, the writings of the Earl of Shaftesbury, Francis Hutcheson, and essays that appeared in Addison and Steele’s Spectator and Bolingbroke’s Craftsman. Gonthier argues that Montesquieu’s work as a site of intellectual and cultural exchange between England and France during the early Enlightenment.
Readership
Eighteenth-Century Studies, History of Ideas, Cultural History
Contents
Chapter 1: Cross-Channel currents: Lettres persanes (1721)
Chapter 2: Literary migrations: Voyages en Europe (1728–31)
Chapter 3: Reconsidering Rome: Considérations sur les […] Romains (1734)
Chapter 4: Cosmopolitan constitutionalism: L’Esprit des lois (1748)
Chapter 5: Aesthetic alliances: Essai sur le goût (c.1753–55)