18th Youth in Film Awards, Best Young Performer in a Television Series, Best Performance in a TV Comedy: Guest Starring Young Performer
★ (tie) Seth Adkins - Sabrina the Teenage Witch★  tie) Courtney Peldon - Home Improvement


18th Youth in Film Awards, Youth In Film's Special Awards, The Jackie Coogan Award, Outstanding Contribution to Youth Through Motion Pictures
★ The Reppies - For Best Musical and Inspirational Show for Children


18th and Vine – Downtown East, Kansas City
18th and Vine is a neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri. It is internationally recognized as a historical point of origin of jazz music and a historic hub of African-American businesses. Along with Basin Street in New Orleans, Beale Street in Memphis, 52nd Street in New York City, and Central Avenue in Los Angeles, the 18th and Vine area fostered a new style of jazz. Kansas City jazz is a riff-based and blues-influenced sound developed in jam sessions in the district's crowded clubs. Many notable jazz musicians of the 1930s and 1940s lived or got started here, including Charlie Parker. Due to this legacy, U.S. Representative Emanuel Cleaver said 18th and Vine is America's third most recognized street after Broadway and Hollywood Boulevard.


18th and Vine – Downtown East, Kansas City
In 1991, the national historic district encompassing 35 contributing buildings was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2007 the city workhouse castle was added to the Kansas City historical register, having been a correctional facility from 1897 to 1924.


18th and Vine – Downtown East, Kansas City, History
Located just east of Downtown Kansas City, the neighborhood is the metropolitan area's historic center of African American culture. In 1991, the national historic district encompassing 35 contributing buildings was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.


18th and Vine – Downtown East, Kansas City, History
In the 1990s, parts of the film Kansas City were filmed there, and façades left from the movie remained on most of the dilapidated buildings until the end of the decade. Today, the 18th and Vine district includes the Mutual Musicians Foundation, the Gem Theater, the long-time offices of African-American newspaper The Call, the Blue Room jazz club, the American Jazz Museum, the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Smaxx Restaurant, a restaurant inside the Juke House and Blues Club, and  several apartments and condos. The Historic Lincoln Building serves as a hub of professional and business activity in the Black community, restored in the early 1980s by the Black Economic Union of Kansas City.


18th and Vine – Downtown East, Kansas City, History
Six blocks to the north, the former intersection of 12th Street and Vine is the subject of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller's song "Kansas City" in 1952, adapted by Little Willie Littlefield as "Kansas City Lovin'" and adapted by Little Richard, Wilbert Harrison, and the Beatles. 12th Street and Vine Street no longer intersects with 12th Street, as a housing project now stands at the site. The city has since erected a street sign in a park near the housing project to mark the spot where 12th Street once crossed Vine.


18th and Vine – Downtown East, Kansas City, History
The District has long suffered epidemic blight, with huge portions being juggled for decades between unproductive owners and their countless colossal visions and broken promises of rehabilitation. It has been the focus of more than $30 million of civic investment since the late 1980s, but the district's redevelopment has struggled.


18th and Vine – Downtown East, Kansas City, History
In 2001, the Kansas City area manager of Bank of America proposed a $46 million redevelopment of 96 acres of blight across the District but canceled in 2005 ahead of the global crash of 2008, selling much of it to KC native millionaire Ephren W. Taylor II who likened his invisible investments to the comic book antihero The Phantom.


18th and Vine – Downtown East, Kansas City, History
Actually a con artist, Taylor promised in 2006 to develop his large Jazz District property into 42 homes plus a community center of museum in the castle, but was instead convicted of a Ponzi scheme defrauding Black churchgoers of millions of dollars and federally imprisoned. The city workhouse castle entered the Kansas City Register of Historic Places on November 29, 2007. From 2016 to 2020, the city government, community, and corporate investors have conducted many proposals for rehabilitation of the historic blight, including a massive $150 million project pending a federal investigation into corruption.


18th arrondissement of Paris
The 18th arrondissement of Paris (XVIIIe arrondissement) is one of the 20 arrondissements of the capital city of France. In spoken French, this arrondissement is referred to as dix-huitième.


18th arrondissement of Paris
The arrondissement, known as Butte-Montmartre, is located on the right bank of the River Seine. It is mostly known for hosting the district of Montmartre which contains a hill known for its artistic history, the Bateau-Lavoir where Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Amedeo Modigliani lived and worked in early 20th century, the house of music diva Dalida, the Moulin Rouge cabaret, other historic features, and the prominent Sacré Cœur basilica which sits atop the hill.


18th arrondissement of Paris
The 18th arrondissement also contains the North African and African district of Goutte d'Or which is famous for its market, the marché Barbès, where one can find various products from the African continent.


18th arrondissement of Paris, Geography
The land area of this arrondissement is exactly 6.005 km2 (2.319 sq. miles, or 1,484 acres).


18th arrondissement of Paris, Demographics
The population of Paris's 18th arrondissement peaked in 1931 with 288,810 inhabitants. Today, the arrondissement remains very dense in population and business activity with 200,631 inhabitants as of the most recent census (2009).


18th arrondissement of Paris, Demographics, Immigration
In 2012, John Henley of The Guardian said the 18th arrondissement was "an area comparable in many ways to London's Tower Hamlets."


18th arrondissement of Paris, Demographics, Immigration
2 An immigrant is a person born in a foreign country not having French citizenship at birth. Note that an immigrant may have acquired French citizenship since moving to France, but is still considered an immigrant in French statistics. On the other hand, persons born in France with foreign citizenship (the children of immigrants) are not listed as immigrants.


18th arrondissement of Paris, Cityscape, Places of interest
The Serbian Orthodox Eparchy of Western Europe has its headquarters in the arrondissement.


18th arrondissement of Paris, Economy
Dailymotion formerly had its headquarters in the arrondissement. In addition, Dargaud also has its headquarters there.


18th century
The 18th century lasted from January 1, 1701 (MDCCI) to December 31, 1800 (MDCCC). During the 18th century, elements of Enlightenment thinking culminated in the American, French, and Haitian revolutions. During the century, slave trading and human trafficking expanded on a global scale. Revolutions began to challenge the legitimacy of monarchical and aristocratic power structures, including the structures and beliefs that supported the slave trade. The British Industrial Revolution began, leading to radical changes in human society and the environment.


18th century
The period is also known as the "century of lights" or the "century of reason". In continental Europe, philosophers dreamed of a brighter age. For some, this dream turned into a reality with the French Revolution of 1789, though this was later compromised by the excesses of the Reign of Terror. At first, many monarchies of Europe embraced Enlightenment ideals, but in the wake of the French Revolution they feared loss of power and formed broad coalitions for counter-revolution.


18th century
18th century music includes works characteristic of the Late Baroque period (including Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel) and the classical period (including Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart).


18th century
The Ottoman Empire experienced an unprecedented period of peace and economic expansion, taking part in no European wars from 1740 to 1768. As a consequence, the empire was not exposed to Europe's military improvements of the Seven Years' War (1756–1763). The Ottoman Empire military may have fallen behind and suffered defeats against Russia in the second half of the century.


18th century
The 18th century also marked the end of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as an independent state. The formerly powerful and vast kingdom, which had once conquered Moscow and defeated great Ottoman armies, collapsed under numerous invasions. Its semi-democratic government system was not robust enough to rival the neighboring monarchies of the Kingdom of Prussia, the Russian Empire and the Austrian Empire which divided the Commonwealth territories between themselves, changing the landscape of Central Europe and politics for the next hundred years.


18th century
European colonization of the Americas and other parts of the world intensified and associated mass migrations of people grew in size as the Age of Sail continued.


18th century
Great Britain became a major power worldwide with the French and Indian War in the 1760s and the conquest of large parts of India, especially Bengal. However, Britain lost many of its North American colonies after the American Revolution and Indian wars. In North America, the defeat of the British resulted in the formation of an independent United States.


18th century
In Central Asia, Nader Shah led successful military campaigns and major invasions, which led to the founding of the Durrani Empire.


18th century
In the Indian subcontinent, the death of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb marked the end of medieval India. It marked the beginning of modern India and the era of extensive European intervention in the subcontinent. The victory of the British East India Company over the Nawab of Bengal and their French allies in the Battle of Plassey caused the deindustrialization of Bengal. The British invasion expanded to cover much of South Asia.


18th century
French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte formed one of the Franco-Indian alliances with the major economic power Kingdom of Mysore, governed by Tipu Sultan and his father Hyder Ali, who pioneered the use of Rocket artillery and the world's first iron-cased rockets, the Mysorean rockets, through the compilation of the Fathul Mujahidin. The Anglo-Mysore Wars were fought and the Treaty of Mangalore was initiated in 1784.


18th century
Western historians have occasionally defined the 18th century otherwise for the purposes of their work. For example, the "short" 18th century may be defined as 1715–1789, denoting the period of time between the death of Louis XIV of France and the start of the French Revolution, with an emphasis on directly interconnected events. To historians who expand the century to include larger historical movements, the "long" 18th century may run from the Glorious Revolution of 1688 to the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 or even later.


18th century BC
The 18th century BC was the century which lasted from 1800 BC to 1701 BC.


18th century BC, Deaths
1883 BC Amum Her Khepesh Ef The son of King Senusret III


18th century BC, Deaths
1764 BC Yarim Lim 1 The Great King of Yamhad


18th century BC in architecture, Buildings and structures, Buildings
This article about history of architecture is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by .


18th century in games
see also: 17th century in games, 19th century in games


18th century in literature
Literature of the 18th century refers to world literature produced during the 18th century.


18th century in literature, European literature in the 18th century
European literature of the 18th century refers to literature (poetry, drama, satire, and novels) produced in Europe during this period. The 18th century saw the development of the modern novel as literary genre, in fact many candidates for the first novel in English date from this period, of which Daniel Defoe's 1719 Robinson Crusoe is probably the best known. Subgenres of the novel during the 18th century were the epistolary novel, the sentimental novel, histories, the gothic novel and the libertine novel.


18th century in literature, European literature in the 18th century
18th Century Europe started in the Age of Enlightenment and gradually moved towards Romanticism. In the visual arts, it was the period of Neoclassicism.


18th century in literature, European literature in the 18th century, The Enlightenment
The 18th century in Europe was The Age of Enlightenment and literature explored themes of social upheaval, reversals of personal status, political satire, geographical exploration and the comparison between the supposed natural state of man and the supposed civilized state of man.


18th century in literature, European literature in the 18th century, The Enlightenment
Edmund Burke, in his A Vindication of Natural Society (2000), says: "The Fabrick of Superstition has in this our Age and Nation received much ruder Shocks than it had ever felt before; and through the Chinks and Breaches of our Prison, we see such Glimmerings of Light, and feel such refreshing Airs of Liberty, as daily raise our Ardor for more. "research by Shema Leon Patrick


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1700–1709
1700: William Congreve's play The Way of the World premiered. Although unsuccessful at the time, The Way of the World is a good example of the sophistication of theatrical thinking during this period, with complex subplots and characters intended as ironic parodies of common stereotypes.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1700–1709
1703: Nicholas Rowe's domestic drama The Fair Penitent, an adaptation of Massinger and Field's Fatal Dowry, appeared; it would later be pronounced by Dr Johnson to be one of the most pleasing tragedies in the language. Also in 1703 Sir Richard Steele's comedy The Tender Husband achieved some success.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1700–1709
1704: Jonathan Swift (Irish satirist) published A Tale of a Tub and The Battle of the Books  and John Dennis published his Grounds of Criticism in Poetry. The Battle of the Books begins with a reference to the use of a glass (which, in those days, would mean either a mirror or a magnifying glass) as a comparison to the use of satire. Swift is, in this, very much the child of his age, thinking in terms of science and satire at one and the same time. Swift often patterned his satire after Juvenal, the classical satirist.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1700–1709
He was one of the first English novelists and also a political campaigner. His satirical writing springs from a body of liberal thought which produced not only books but also political pamphlets for public distribution. Swift's writing represents the new, the different and the modern attempting to change the world by parodying the ancient and incumbent. The Battle of the Books is a short writing which demonstrates his position very neatly.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1700–1709
1708: Simon Ockley published an English translation of Ibn Tufail's Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, a 12th-century philosophical novel, as The Improvement of Human Reason: Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan. This was the first English translation directly from the Arabic original.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1700–1709
1711: Alexander Pope began a career in literature with the publishing of his An Essay on Criticism.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1700–1709
1712: French philosophical writer Jean Jacques Rousseau was born on 28 June and his countryman Denis Diderot was born the following year 1713 on 5 October. Also in 1712 Pope published The Rape of the Lock and in 1713 Windsor Forest.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1700–1709
1709: Samuel Johnson was born on 18 September in Lichfield, Staffordshire.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1710–1719
Daniel Defoe was another political pamphleteer turned novelist like Jonathan Swift and was publishing in the early  18th century. In 1719, he published Robinson Crusoe.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1710–1719
1719: Eliza Haywood published Love in Excess, an unusually sympathetic portrayal of a fallen woman.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1710–1719
Also in 1719: Alexander Smith was a biographer who published A Complete History of the Lives and Robberies of the Most Notorious Highwaymen. The book includes heavily fictionalised accounts of English criminals from the medieval period to the eighteenth century.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1720–1729
1726: Jonathan Swift published Gulliver's Travels, one of the first novels in the genre of satire.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1720–1729
1728: John Gay wrote The Beggar's Opera which has increased in fame ever since. The Beggar's Opera began a new style in Opera, the "ballad opera" which brings the operatic form down to a more popular level and precedes the genre of comic operettas. Also in 1728 came the publication of Cyclopaedia, or, A Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences  (folio, 2 vols. ), an encyclopedia by Ephraim Chambers. The Cyclopaedia was one of the first general encyclopedias to be produced in English and was the main model for Diderot's  Encyclopédie (published in France between 1751 and 1766).


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1720–1729
1729: Jonathan Swift published A Modest Proposal, a satirical suggestion that Irish families should sell their children as food. Swift was, at this time, fully involved in political campaigning for the Irish.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1730–1739
1731: George Lillo's play The London Merchant was a success at the Theatre-Royal in Drury Lane. It was a new kind of play, a domestic tragedy, which approximates to what later came to be called a melodrama.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1730–1739
1738: Samuel Johnson published London, a poem in imitation of Juvenal’s Third Satire. Like so many poets of the 18th century Johnson sought to breathe new life into his favorite classical author Juvenal.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1740–1749
1740: Samuel Richardson's Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded was published and the Marquis de Sade was born.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1740–1749
1744: Alexander Pope died, and in 1745 Jonathan Swift died.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1740–1749
1746: Tobias Smollett's first poem "The Tears of Scotland", about the Battle of Culloden, was published.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1740–1749
1748: John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (popularly known as Fanny Hill), arguably the first work of pornographic prose, was published. Also in 1748, Tobias Smollett's first picaresque quasi-autobiographical novel The Adventures of Roderick Random was published.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1740–1749
1749: Henry Fielding's The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling was published. His sister Sarah Fielding also published The Governess, the first full-length novel written for children.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1750–1759
1751: Thomas Gray wrote Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1750–1759
Also in 1751, Denis Diderot began the Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Over the next three decades Encyclopédie attracted, alongside of those from Diderot, notable contributions from other notable intellectuals of the 18th century including Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Louis de Jaucourt.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1750–1759
1755: Samuel Johnson completed his influential Dictionary of the English Language, sometimes published as Johnson's Dictionary and at the time, a huge improvement on previously-available dictionaries. It was a daunting task which took nine years in all, two years of preparation and seven years of research and writing.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1760–1769
1764: Horace Walpole published The Castle of Otranto (initially under a pseudonym and claiming it to be a translation of an Italian work from 1529); the first gothic novel.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1770–1779
1771: Tobias Smollett published his epistolatory novel, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker just three months before his death.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1770–1779
1773: Oliver Goldsmith's play She Stoops to Conquer, a farce, was performed in London.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1770–1779
1776: The United States Declaration of Independence was created and ratified.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1770–1779
1777: The play The School for Scandal, a comedy of manners by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, was first performed in Drury Lane.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1770–1779
1779–1781: Samuel Johnson wrote and published Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets. This compilation contains short biographies of 52 influential poets (most of whom lived in the 18th century) along with critical appraisals of their works. Most notable are Alexander Pope, John Dryden, John Milton, Jonathan Swift, and Joseph Addison.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1780–1789
1785: William Cowper published The Task, a volume of poetry in blank verse.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1780–1789
1786: Robert Burns published Poems Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect. The mood of literature was swinging toward more interest in diverse ethnicity. Beaumarchais' The Marriage of Figaro (La Folle journée ou Le Mariage de Figaro) was adapted into a comic opera composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1780–1789
1789: The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, one of the first slave narratives to have been widely read in historical times, was published. Also in 1789, James Fenimore Cooper was born on 15 September.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1790–1799
1794: Ann Radcliffe published her most famous Gothic novel, The Mysteries of Udolpho.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1790–1799
1795: Samuel Taylor Coleridge met William Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy. The two men published a joint volume of poetry, Lyrical Ballads (1798), which became a central text of Romantic poetry.


18th century in literature, English literature in the 18th century by year, 1790–1799
1796: Matthew Lewis published his controversial, anti-catholic gothic novel The Monk and Charlotte Smith published her novel Marchmont. Also in 1796, Mary Hays published her outspoken novel  Memoirs of Emma Courtney.


18th century in literature, Other Literature in the Eighteenth Century by Year, 1700-1739
From 1704 to 1717, Antoine Galland published the first European translation of the One Thousand and One Nights (also known as The Arabian Nights in English). His version of the tales appeared in twelve volumes and exerted a huge influence on subsequent European literature and attitudes to the Islamic world. Galland's translation of the Nights was immensely popular throughout Europe, and later versions of the Nights were written by Galland's publisher using Galland's name without his consent.


18th century in literature, Other Literature in the Eighteenth Century by Year, 1700-1739
In 1731, Manon Lescaut, a French novel by the Abbé Prévost that narrates the love affairs of an unmarried couple and inaugurates one of the most common themes of the literature of the time: the sentimental story, taking into account for the first time the female point of view and not only the courtship and the conquest or the failure of man.


18th century in literature, Other Literature in the Eighteenth Century by Year, 1740–1769
1752, Micromégas, a satirical short story by Voltaire,  features space travellers visiting earth. It is one of the first stories to feature several elements of what will later become known as science fiction. Its publication at this time is also indicative of the trend toward scientific thinking that characterizes the Enlightenment.


18th century in literature, Other Literature in the Eighteenth Century by Year, 1740–1769
1759 Voltaire's Candide/Optimism was published. On November 10, Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller is born.


18th century in literature, Other Literature in the Eighteenth Century by Year, 1740–1769
1761 Jean Jacques Rousseau's Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse was published.


18th century in literature, Other Literature in the Eighteenth Century by Year, 1770–1800
1772 March 10: Karl Wilhelm Friedrich von Schlegel was born.


18th century in literature, Other Literature in the Eighteenth Century by Year, 1770–1800
1774 Goethe wrote The Sorrows of Young Werther, a novel which approximately marks the beginning of the Romanticism movement in the arts and philosophy. A transition thus began, from the critical, science inspired, enlightenment writing to the romantic yearning for forces beyond the mundane and for foreign times and places to inspire the soul with passion and mystery.


18th century in literature, Other Literature in the Eighteenth Century by Year, 1770–1800
Also in 1774 Alberto Fortis published his travel book Viaggio in Dalmazia ("Journey to Dalmatia") and started Morlachism.


18th century in literature, Other Literature in the Eighteenth Century by Year, 1770–1800
1776 Ignacy Krasicki published the first novel in Polish, The Adventures of Mr. Nicholas Wisdom.


18th century in literature, Other Literature in the Eighteenth Century by Year, 1770–1800
1778 Death of Voltaire. Death of Jean Jacques Rousseau 2 July. Two major contributors to Diderot's  Encyclopédie  died in the same year.


18th century in literature, Other Literature in the Eighteenth Century by Year, 1770–1800
1784 Denis Diderot died 31 July. Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot have all died within a period of a few years and French philosophy had thus lost three of its greatest enlightened free thinkers. Rousseau's thinking on the nobility of life in the wilds, facing nature as a naked savage still had great force to influence the next generation as the romantic movement gained momentum. Beaumarchais wrote The Marriage of Figaro. Maria and Harriet Falconar publish Poems on Slavery. The anti-slavery movement was growing in power and many poems and pamphlets were published on the subject.


18th century in literature, Other Literature in the Eighteenth Century by Year, 1770–1800
1791 Dream of the Red Chamber was published for the first time in movable type format.


18th century in philosophy
This is a timeline of the 18th century in philosophy


18th century in the United States
The 18th century in the United States refers to the period in the United States from 1701 through 1800 in the Gregorian calendar. For articles on this period, see:


18th government of Turkey
The 18th government of Turkey (16 January 1949 – 22 May 1950) was a government in the history of Turkey. It is also called the Günaltay government.


18th government of Turkey, Background
Hasan Saka of the Republican People's Party (CHP), who was the previous prime minister, resigned on 14 September 1949. President İsmet İnönü, upon the suggestion of Hilmi Uran, the secretary general of his party, assigned Şemsettin Günaltay as the new prime minister. Günaltay was a scholar of religion, philosophy and history. A scholar of religion as the prime minister of a party which was known to be the champion of secularism was quite unexpected.


18th government of Turkey, The government
In the list below, the  cabinet members who served only a part of the cabinet's lifespan are shown in the column "Notes".


18th government of Turkey, Aftermath
Günaltay resigned after his party lost the general elections held on 14 May 1950. The next government was founded by Adnan Menderes of the Democrat Party.


18th meridian east
The meridian 18° east of Greenwich is a line of longitude that extends from the North Pole across the Arctic Ocean, Europe, Africa, the Atlantic Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and Antarctica to the South Pole.


18th meridian east
The 18th meridian east forms a great circle with the 162nd meridian west.


18th meridian east, From Pole to Pole
Starting at the North Pole and heading south to the South Pole, the 18th meridian east passes through:


18th meridian west
The meridian 18° west of Greenwich is a line of longitude that extends from the North Pole across the Arctic Ocean, Greenland, Iceland, the Atlantic Ocean, the Canary Islands, the Southern Ocean, and Antarctica to the South Pole.


18th meridian west
The 18th meridian west forms a great circle with the 162nd meridian east.


18th meridian west, From Pole to Pole
Starting at the North Pole and heading south to the South Pole, the 18th meridian west passes through:


18th parallel north
The 18th parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 18 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane. It crosses Africa, Asia, the Indian Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, Central America, the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean.


18th parallel north
At this latitude the sun is visible for 13 hours, 13 minutes during the summer solstice and 11 hours, 3 minutes during the winter solstice.


18th parallel north, Around the world
Starting at the Prime Meridian and heading eastwards, the parallel 18° north passes through:


18th parallel south
The 18th parallel south is a circle of latitude that is 18 degrees south of the Earth's equatorial plane. It crosses the Atlantic Ocean, Africa, the Indian Ocean, Australasia, the Pacific Ocean and South America.


18th parallel south, Around the world
Starting at the Prime Meridian and heading eastwards, the parallel 18° south passes through:


18th station
18th is an 'L' station on the CTA's Pink Line. It is located at 1710 West 18th Street in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. The station is decorated with colorful murals painted by local artists from Pilsen.


18th station, History
18th station opened on April 28, 1896, as part of the Metropolitan West Side Elevated Railroad's Douglas Park branch. From May 1991 until March 1993, the original station was demolished and rebuilt. On June 25, 2006, the 18th station, along with all other stations on the 54th/Cermak branch of the Blue Line, became part of the Pink Line.


18th station, History
Rather than continuing east on the Blue Line through the Dearborn subway to O'Hare north of the Polk station, trains run north over a section of track on Paulina Avenue and then run on the same tracks as the Green Line west of the Ashland station before circling clockwise around the Loop and returning to 54th/Cermak via the same route.


18th station, History
In 2016, the Chicago Central Area Commission's proposed the construction of the Connector Transitway which would terminate at 18th.


18th station, History
In 2020, parts of the 1998 murals created by local artists were removed after they had been vandalised, after which the CTA has worked with the local community to restore the murals.


18th-century American piracy of British literature
18th-century American piracy of British literature refers to the practice of reprinting British books in the United States without the permission of the original author or publisher.


18th-century American piracy of British literature
Plagiarism is traditionally defined as “the process of copying another person's idea or written work and claiming it as original” This definition applies to many aspects of written work in today’s world and has serious consequences if found guilty of committing it, but this idea has not always been in place. During the 18th century, it was extremely common for British Literature to be reprinted across the Atlantic Ocean in America without any acknowledgment or payment given to the original author.


18th-century American piracy of British literature
This form of plagiarism, referred to as literary piracy, was not an easy action to control because of the immense distance between the two countries, and the lack of any real international law which would work to protect the original authors in England. It was not until 1988 that these international laws were truly set in place and able to be enforced with any form of consistency.


18th-century American piracy of British literature, Early piracy
Although it is now believed to be a crime, plagiarism has not always been considered a negative action. Thoughts, ideas, and writing were considered public property, not something an individual was able to claim as their own The ”borrowing” from others was thought of as a form of learning and was encouraged as an opportunity to enhance one's work. It was used as a stepping stone during the creative process. In order to create new stories, plots, and characters for a narrative, it was only natural for authors to look at what others before them had done.


18th-century American piracy of British literature, Early piracy
The difference between this recycling of ideas and copying is that an author will add original material to the inspiration, not simply recopy what came prior. Borrowing was deemed acceptable if it is only part of the final result and has a distinct twist from the original piece. A prime example of accepted plagiarism can be found in Shakespeare, who “borrowed” from other authors and playwrights of his day in order to create almost all of his now famous plays. The term plagiarism originally comes from the Latin word for thief, in this case, a literary thief.


18th-century American piracy of British literature, Establishment of copyright laws
London was the first city where authors were able to rightly protect themselves and their ideas after the first copyright law, known as the Statute of Anne,  passed in 1710. The specific purpose of this statute was “the encouragement of learned men to compose and write useful books”. This act not only protected authors in Britain, it also worked to protect the authors who had works being brought across the Atlantic to be reprinted without receiving any compensation for their literature.


18th-century American piracy of British literature, Establishment of copyright laws
In 1880 the first international copyright laws were proposed by Mr. Edward Thorton in order to prevent this piracy from occurring and establishing consequences if it did (5). This treaty gave British authors protection in America and vice versa, allowing for consequences to follow the rules for the country of original publication. Pirated copies of novels and musical pieces were prohibited. It took over 100 years after these laws were proposed for the United States to fully cooperate with them.


18th-century American piracy of British literature, International piracy
During the 18th century, the plagiarists and literary thieves (pirates) would bring British novels back to America, reprint them (with the original author’s name in order to escape incrimination, but still using another author's work for their own personal gain), and yet never give the original author any compensation for their work. This system fell into place largely because the nation did not have any real individual literary identity at that point in time.


18th-century American piracy of British literature, International piracy
During that period, the United States was still in the early stages of its independent development as a nation and most of what the new American public was comfortable with involved British culture and ideas. These pirated novels had already established a reputation and success in England and were therefore not a risk to publishers in the States, who already knew that there would likely be a success in the New World. In some cases, these pirated novels were more accessible in America than they were to the British where they were originally printed. Although novels were a large portion of the pirated works from England, magazines, and newspapers were included in the stolen works as well.


18th-century American piracy of British literature, International piracy
One primary example can be seen in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, a magazine that was aimed at women and attempted to create a patriotic attitude in the developing nation. Harper’s ideas and strategies involved exposing these women to the British form of "elevated" culture in an effort to increase the standard and quality of the new American literature, which would result from the British inspiration they provided in their magazine. It was formerly believed that because of America's lack of a social class system, there would be no real need for a strong literary tradition.


18th-century American piracy of British literature, International piracy
Harper's tried to expose the British tradition in order to facilitate growth for the American tradition. They sold for a low cost because there was no compensation being paid to the original authors back in England for the sole purpose of exposing every educated person in the new American public to "the unbounded treasures of the periodical literature of the present day".


18th-century American piracy of British literature, International piracy
The important thing was not the actual content of the magazines or their national origin but more about how much circulation and exposure these pieces received. This feeling of inspiration eventually backfired when the American authors were intimidated by the intense connection and dependence on British authors and did not produce many. Eventually, the resentment for the lack of Americanism led to a change in Harper's to include more national, not international, authors. This change never really paid off and the magazine did not see the same amount of success and profit that it received from the British pirated material.


18th-century French art
18th-century French art was dominated by the Baroque, Rocaille and neoclassical movements.


18th-century French art, History
In France, the death of Louis XIV in September 1715 led to a period of licentious freedom commonly called the Régence. The heir to Louis XIV, his great grandson Louis XV of France, was only 5 years old; for the next seven years France was ruled by the regent Philippe II of Orléans. Versailles was abandoned from 1715 to 1722. Painting turned toward "fêtes galantes", theater settings and the female nude. Painters from this period include Antoine Watteau, Nicolas Lancret and François Boucher. One of the best places in the UK to see examples of French visual and decorative arts of the Rococo and neoclassical periods is in the Wallace Collection, a free national gallery in London.


18th-century French art, History
The Louis XV style of decoration (although already apparent at the end of the last reign) was lighter: pastels and wood panels, smaller rooms, less gilding and fewer brocades; shells and garlands and occasional Chinese subjects predominated. Rooms were more intimate. After the return to Versailles, many of the baroque rooms of Louis XIV were redesigned. The official etiquette was also simplified and the notion of privacy was expanded: the king himself retreated from the official bed at night and conversed in private with his mistress.


18th-century French art, History
The latter half of the 18th century continued to see French preeminence in Europe, particularly through the arts and sciences, and the French language was the lingua franca of the European courts. The French academic system continued to produce artists, but some, like Jean-Honoré Fragonard and Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, explored new and increasingly impressionist styles of painting with thick brushwork. Although the hierarchy of genres continued to be respected officially, genre painting, landscape, portrait and still life were extremely fashionable.


18th-century French art, History
The writer Denis Diderot wrote a number of times on the annual Salons of the Académie of painting and sculpture and his comments and criticisms are a vital document on the arts of this period.


18th-century French art, History
One of Diderot's favorite painters was Jean-Baptiste Greuze. Although often considered kitsch by today's standards, his paintings of domestic scenes reveal the importance of Sentimentalism in the European arts of the period (as also seen in the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Samuel Richardson.)


18th-century French art, History
One also finds in this period a kind of Pre-romanticism. Hubert Robert's images of ruins, inspired by Italian capriccio paintings, are typical in this respect. So too the change from the rational and geometrical French garden (of André Le Nôtre) to the English garden, which emphasized (artificially) wild and irrational nature. One also finds in some of these gardens curious ruins of temples called follies.


18th-century French art, History
The middle of the 18th century saw a turn to Neoclassicism in France, that is to say a conscious use of Greek and Roman forms and iconography. In painting, the greatest representative of this style is Jacques-Louis David who, mirroring the profiles of Greek vases, emphasized the use of the profile; his subject matter often involved classical history (the death of Socrates, Brutus). The dignity and subject matter of his paintings were greatly inspired by Nicolas Poussin in the 17th century.


18th-century French art, History
The Louis XVI style of furniture (once again already present in the previous reign) tended toward circles and ovals in chair backs; chair legs were grooved; Greek inspired iconography was used as decoration.


18th-century French art, History
French neoclassicism would greatly contribute to the monumentalism of the French revolution, as typified in the structures La Madeleine church (begun in 1763 and finished in 1840) which is in the form of a Greek temple and the mammoth Panthéon (1764–1812) which today houses the tombs of great Frenchmen. The rationalism and simplicity of classical architecture was seen — in the Age of Enlightenment — as the antithesis of the backward-looking Gothic.


18th-century French art, History
The Greek and Roman subject matters were also often chosen to promote the values of republicanism. One also finds paintings glorifying the heroes and martyrs of the French revolution, such as David's painting of the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat.


18th-century French art, History
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, a student of David's who was also influenced by Raphael and John Flaxman, would maintain the precision of David's style, while also exploring other mythological (Oedipus and the sphinx, Jupiter and Thetis) and oriental (the Odalesques) subjects in the spirit of Romanticism.


18th-century French literature
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18th-century French literature
18th-century French literature is French literature written between 1715, the year of the death of King Louis XIV of France, and 1798, the year of the coup d'État of Bonaparte which brought the Consulate to power, concluded the French Revolution, and began the modern era of French history.


18th-century French literature
This century of enormous economic, social, intellectual and political transformation produced two important literary and philosophical movements:  during what became known as the Age of Enlightenment, the Philosophes  questioned all existing institutions, including the church and state, and applied rationalism and scientific analysis to society; and a very different movement, which emerged in reaction to the first movement; the beginnings of Romanticism, which exalted the role of emotion in art and life.


18th-century French literature
In common with a similar movement in England at the same time, the writers of 18th century France were critical, skeptical and innovative. Their lasting contributions were the ideas of liberty, toleration, humanitarianism, equality, and progress, which became the ideals of modern western democracy.


18th-century French literature, Context
The 18th century saw the gradual weakening of the absolute monarchy constructed by Louis XIV. Its power slipped away during the Regency of Philippe d'Orléans, (1715–1723) and the long regime of King Louis XV, when France lost the Seven Years' War with England, and lost much of its empire in Canada and India. France was forced to recognize the growing power of England and Prussia. The Monarchy finally ended with King Louis XVI, who was unable to understand or control the forces of the French Revolution. The end of the century saw the birth of the United  States, with the help of French ideas and military forces;  the declaration of the French Republic in 1792, and the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, setting the stage for the history of modern France


18th-century French literature, Context
The 18th century also brought enormous social changes to France;  an enormous growth in population;  and, even more important, the growth of the wealthy class, thanks to new technologies (the steam engine, metallurgy), and trade with France's colonies in the New World and India. French society was hierarchal with the Clergy (First Estate) and Nobility (Second Estate) at the top and The Third Estate who included everyone else.


18th-century French literature, Context
Members of the Third Estate, especially the more wealthy and influential, began to challenge the cultural and social monopoly of the aristocracy; French cities began to have their own  theaters, coffee houses and salons, independent of the aristocracy. The Rise of the Third Estate was influential in the overthrow of the monarchy in the French Revolution in 1789.


18th-century French literature, Context
French thinking also evolved greatly, thanks to major discoveries in science by Newton, Watt, Volta, Leibniz, Buffon, Lavoisier, and Monge, among others, and their rapid diffusion throughout Europe through newspapers, journals, scientific societies, and theaters.


18th-century French literature, Context
Faith in science and progress was the driving force behind  the first French Encyclopedia of Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert. The authority of the Catholic Church was weakened, partly by the conflicts between high and low clergy, partly by the conflict between the State and  Jesuits, who were finally expelled from the Kingdom in 1764. The Protestants achieved legal status in France in 1787. The church hierarchy was in continual battle with the Lumieres, having many of their works banned, and causing French courts to sentence a Protestant, Jean Calas, to death in 1762 for blasphemy, an act which was strongly condemned by Voltaire.


18th-century French literature, Context
The explorations of the New World and the first encounters with American Indians also brought a new theme into French and European Literature; exoticism, and the idea of the Noble Savage, which inspired such works as Paul et Virginie by Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre. The exchange of ideas with other countries also increased. British ideas were particularly important, particularly such ideas as constitutional monarchy and romanticism, which greatly influenced French writers, particularly in the following century.


18th-century French literature, Context
The visual arts of the 18th century were highly decorative and oriented toward giving pleasure, as exemplified by the Regency Style and Louis XV Style, and the paintings of François Boucher, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Watteau and Chardin, and portrait painters Quentin de La Tour, Nattier and Van Loo. Toward the end of the century, a  more sober style appeared, aimed at illustrating scenery, work, and moral values  exemplified by Greuze, Hubert Robert and Claude Joseph Vernet. The leading figures in French music were François Couperin and Jean-Philippe Rameau, but they were overshadowed by other European composers of the century, notably Vivaldi, Mozart Haendel, Bach, and Haydn.


18th-century French literature, Context
For art and architecture in the 18th century, see French Rococo and Neoclassicism


18th-century French literature, The Philosophes and the literature of ideas
Continuing the work of the so-called "Libertines" of the 17th century, and the critical spirit of such writers as Bayle and Fontenelle, (1657–1757), the writers who were called the lumières denounced, in the name of reason and moral values, the social and political oppressions of their time. They challenged the idea of absolute monarchy and demanded a social contract as the new basis of political authority, and demanded a more democratic organization of central power in a constitutional monarchy, with a separation of powers among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government (Montesquieu, Diderot, and Rousseau.) Voltaire fought against the abuses of power by the government, such as censorship and letters of cachet, which allowed imprisonment without trial, against the collusion of the church and monarchy, and for an "enlightened despotism" where kings would be advised by philosophers.


18th-century French literature, The Philosophes and the literature of ideas
These writers, and others such as the Abbé Sieyès, one of the main authors of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, became known as the philosophes. They came from the wealthy upper class or Third Estate, sought a society founded upon talent and merit, rather than a society based on heredity or caste. Their ideas were strongly influenced by those of John Locke in England. They introduced the values of liberty and equality which became the ideals of the French Republic founded at the end of the century.


18th-century French literature, The Philosophes and the literature of ideas
They defended the freedom of conscience and challenged the role of religious institutions in society. For them, tolerance was a fundamental value of society. When the Convention placed the ashes of Voltaire in the Pantheon in Paris, they honored him as the man who "taught us to live as free men."


18th-century French literature, The Philosophes and the literature of ideas
While the philosophes had widely different approaches, they all had as a common objective, both for humanity and for individuals, the ideal of happiness (bonheur). Some, like Rousseau, dreamed of the happiness of the noble savage, rapidly disappearing;  others, like Voltaire, sought happiness in a life of the worldly pursuit of refinement. The philosophes were optimists, and they saw their mission clearly; they did not simply observe, but agitated ceaselessly for the achievement of their goals.


18th-century French literature, The Philosophes and the literature of ideas
The important works of the philosophes belonged to a variety of different genres, such as the tale illustrating a particular philosophical point;(Zadig (1747) or Candide (1759), both by Voltaire in 1759); or satire on French life disguised as letters from an exotic country (Lettres persanes by Montesquieu in 1721);  or essays (The Spirit of the Laws by Montesquieu in 1748, An Essay on Tolerance by Voltaire in 1763; The Social Contract by Rousseau in 1762; The Supplement to a voyage of Bougainville by Diderot, or The History of the Two Indias by the Abbé Guillaume-Thomas Raynal).


18th-century French literature, The Philosophes and the literature of ideas
The comedies of Marivaux and of Beaumarchais  also played a part in this debate about and diffusion of great ideas. The monumental work of the philosophes was the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, the famous encyclopedia of Diderot and d'Alembert, published in thirty-five volumes, with texts and illustration, from 1750 until 1772, accompanied by a  large variety of essays, speeches, dialogues and interviews on all aspects of knowledge.


18th-century French literature, French theater in the 18th century
The great French playwrights of the 17th century, Molière, Racine and Corneille, continued to exert a great influence on the Comédie-Française, but new life was brought into French theater by the tragedies of Voltaire, which introduced modern themes while keeping the classical forms of the alexandrine, as in the play Zaïre in 1732, and The Fanaticism of Mohamet in 1741, both of which enjoyed great success. Nonetheless, royal censorship was still active in the theater under King Louis XV and Louis XVI, and, despite his popularity, Beaumarchais had great difficulty getting his play The Marriage of Figaro staged in Paris, because of its political message.


18th-century French literature, French theater in the 18th century
The relaxing of morals under the French Regency brought the return in 1716 of the  Comédie-Italienne, which had been driven out of Paris under Louis XIV. It also saw a period of great theatrical spectacles;  crowds went to the theater to see famous actors and to laugh at the characters introduced by the Italian commedia dell'arte, such as Harlequin, Columbine and Pantalone.


18th-century French literature, French theater in the 18th century
This was the genre used by Marivaux (1688–1763), with comedies which combined a perceptive analysis of the sentiments of love, subtle verbal play, and an analysis of the problems of society, all done through a clever use of the relationship between the master and his valet. His major works include Les Fausses Confidences (1737), le Jeu de l'amour et du hasard (1730),  and l'Île des esclaves (1725).


18th-century French literature, French theater in the 18th century
Jean-François Regnard and Alain-René Lesage (1668–1747) also had great success with comedies of manners, such as Regnard's Le Légataire universel, and Lesage's Turcaret in 1709. But the greatest author of French comedies in the 18th century was Beaumarchais (1732–1799), who displayed a mastery of dialogue and intrigue combined with social and political satire through the character of Figaro, a valet who challenges the power of his master, who is featured in two major works; le Barbier de Séville (1775) and le Mariage de Figaro (1784).


18th-century French literature, French theater in the 18th century
The theater of the 18th century also introduced two new genres, now considered minor, which both strongly influenced the French theater in the following century;  the "Comedy of Tears" (comédie larmoyante) and the bourgeois drama (drame bourgeois) which told stories full of pathos in a realistic setting, and which concerned the lives of bourgeois families, rather than aristocrats.


18th-century French literature, French theater in the 18th century
Some popular examples of these genres were the Le Fils naturel (The Natural Son) by Diderot in 1757; Le Père de famille (The Father of the Family) by Diderot in 1758;  Le Philosophe sans le savoir (The Philosopher who did not know he was a Philosopher) by Michel-Jean Sedaine, (1765); La Brouette du vinaigrier (The Vinegar Cart) by Louis-Sébastien Mercier (1775); and La Mère Coupable (The Guilty Mother) by Beaumarchais, (1792).


18th-century French literature, French theater in the 18th century
The 18th century also saw the development of new forms of musical theater, such as the vaudeville theater, and the opéra comique, as well as a new genre of literary writing about theater, such as Diderot's Paradoxe sur le comédien;  the writings of Voltaire defending theater actors against the condemnation of the church;  and Rousseau's condemnation of immorality in the theater.


18th-century French literature, The French novel in the 18th century
The novel in the 18th century saw innovations in form and content which opened the way for the modern novel, a work of fiction in prose recounting the adventures or the evolution of one or several characters. In the 18th century the genre of the novel enjoyed a great increase in readership, and was marked by the effort to convey feelings realistically,  through such literary devices as first-person narration, exchanges of letters, and dialogues, all trying to show, in the spirit of the lumieres,  a society which was evolving. The French novel was strongly influenced by the English novel, through the translation of the works of Samuel Richardson, Jonathan Swift, and Daniel Defoe.


18th-century French literature, The French novel in the 18th century
The novel of the 18th century explored all the potential devices of a novel - different points of view, surprise twists of the plot, engaging the reader, careful psychological analysis, realistic descriptions of the setting, imagination, and attention to form. The texts of the period are difficult to neatly divide into categories, but they can loosely be divided into several subgenres.


18th-century French literature, The French novel in the 18th century, The philosophical tale
This category includes the contes philosophiques of Voltaire, Zadig (1747) and Candide (1759), and also the later novella, l'Ingénu, (1768) in which Voltaire moved away from fantasy and introduced a large part of social and psychological realism.


18th-century French literature, The French novel in the 18th century, The realistic novel
This subgenre combined social realism with stories about men and women looking for love. Examples include la Vie de Marianne (1741), and Le Paysan parvenu (1735)  by Marivaux; Manon Lescaut (1731) by the abbé Antoine François Prévost (1731)  and Le Paysan perverti (The Perverse Peasant) (1775), a novel in the form of letters by Nicolas-Edme Rétif (1734–1806). Within this subgenre is a sub-subgenre of realistic novels about love influenced by Spanish literature; novels full of satire, a variety of different social milieux, and young men learning their way in the new world. The classic example is Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane by Alain-René Lesage (1715).


18th-century French literature, The French novel in the 18th century, The novel of the imagination
The novel of the imagination pictured life centuries in the future; L'An 2440, rêve s'il en fut jamais (The year 2440 - dream of all dreams) by  Mercier (1771); or stories of fantasy le Diable amoureux (The Devil in Love) of Jacques Cazotte (1772).


18th-century French literature, The French novel in the 18th century, The libertine, or erotic novel
The libertine, or erotic novel, featured eroticism, seduction, manipulation, and social intrigue. Classic examples are Les Liaisons dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons) by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (1782); Justine ou les Malheurs de la vertu (Justine or the misfortunes of virtue) by Donatien Alphonse François de Sade (the Marquis de Sade) (1797); Le Sopha- conte moral (The Sopha - a moral tale) by Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (1745), and les Bijoux indiscrets (The indiscreet jewels) (1748) and La Religieuse (The Nun) by Diderot (1760).


18th-century French literature, The French novel in the 18th century, The novel of feelings
The novel of feelings appeared in the second half of the 18th century, with the publication of Julie ou la Nouvelle Héloïse (Julie, or the New Heloise), in a novel in the form of letters, written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1761). It was modelled after the English novel Pamela by Samuel Richardson, which was the best-selling novel of the century, drawing readers by its pre-romantic depiction of nature and romantic love. Another popular example was Paul et Virginie by Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1787).


18th-century French literature, The French novel in the 18th century, The novel broken apart
The romans éclatés, roughly translated "Novels broken apart", such as Jacques le fataliste et son maître (Eng: Jacques the Fatalist and His Master) (1773) and le Neveu de Rameau (Eng: The Nephew of Rameau) (1762) by Diderot are almost impossible to classify, but resemble the modernist novels that would come a century or more later.


18th-century French literature, The birth of the autobiography in the 18th century
Literary stories of people's lives were popular throughout the 18th century, with such popular books as la Vie de mon père (Eng: The Life of My Father) (1779) and Monsieur Nicolas (1794) by Nicolas-Edme Rétif, but the success of the century was Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who founded the genre of the modern autobiography with les Rêveries du promeneur solitaire (The dreams of a solitary walker) in 1776, and Les Confessions in 1782, which became the models for all novels of self-discovery.


18th-century French literature, French poetry of the 18th century
Voltaire used verse with great skill in his Poème sur le désastre de Lisbonne (Poem on the Lisbon Disaster) and in le Mondain (The Man About Town), but his poetry was in the classical school of the 17th century. Only a few French poets of the 18th century have an enduring reputation;  they include Jacques Delille (1738–1813), for les Jardins (The Gardens), in 1782; and Évariste de Parny (1753–1814) for Élégies in 1784, who both contributed to the birth of romanticism and to the poetry of nature and nostalgia.


18th-century French literature, French poetry of the 18th century
The poet of the 18th century best-known today is André Chénier (1762–1794), who created an expressive style in his famous la Jeune Tarentine (The Young Tarentine) and la Jeune Captive (The Young Captive), both published only in 1819, long after his death during the Terror of the French Revolution.


18th-century French literature, French poetry of the 18th century
Fabre d'Églantine was known both for his songs, such as Il pleut, il pleut, bergère) (It's raining, shepherdess) and for his participation in the writing of the new French Republican Calendar created during the French Revolution.


18th-century French literature, Conclusions
French literature in the 18th century offered a rich collection of works in all genres, and brought together, rather than opposed, the philosophical and analytical views of the Philosophes and Lumieres with the more subjective and personal views of the emerging romantic movement. Many of the works of the 18th century are forgotten, but the century also produced a number of writers who were great both for the originality and importance of their ideas and for their literary talent; writers such as Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Diderot and Beaumarchais, whose ideas are still quoted today. They used their novels and plays as weapons which profoundly changed their society, while expressing their own personalities and feelings. Thanks largely to these writers, in the 18th century French became the language of culture, political and social reform all across Europe, and as far away as America and Russia.


18th-century London
The 18th century was a period of rapid growth for London, reflecting an increasing national population, the early stirrings of the Industrial Revolution, and London's role at the centre of the evolving British Empire. By the end of the century nearly one million people lived in London, about one tenth of the population of Great Britain. By 1715, London's population reached an estimated 630,000 people, roughly equaling that of Europe's largest city until that time, Paris. Within a few years London itself was the largest city in Europe, reaching 750,000 people by 1760 and 1 million by the end of the century.


18th-century London, Extent & population
London's growth in the 18th century was marked above all by the westward shift of the population away from the City of London. Westminster was intensively developed, with new districts like Mayfair housing Britain's wealthiest aristocratic families.


18th-century London, Extent & population
To the north of Oxford Street, the building of Cavendish Square in 1717 on the estate of Lord Harley inaugurated the development of the eastern half of Marylebone, while the Portman Estate, which occupies the western half of Marylebone, began its own building program in the 1750s with the granting of commercial leases, followed by the commencement of building on Portman Square in 1764. The most exclusive area, Mayfair, was intensively built up with luxury townhouses on an area occupied by seven different estates: the Grosvenor, Burlington, Berkeley, Curzon, Milfield, Conduit Mead, and Albemarle Ground estates.


18th-century London, Extent & population
The Grosvenor estate, in the northwest corner between Oxford Street and Park Lane, was the most substantial private plot of land, featuring an orderly grid network of streets constructed around Grosvenor Square in the early 1720s. By 1738 "nearly the whole space between Piccadilly and Oxford Street was covered with buildings as far as Tyburn Lane [Park Lane], except in the south-western corner about Berkeley Square and Mayfair".


18th-century London, Extent & population
Rural villages surrounding Westminster and the City also grew in population and were gradually incorporated into the metropolis: areas like Bethnal Green and Shadwell to the east, or Paddington and St Pancras to the northwest. In 1750 the London topographer John Noorthouck reckoned that London proper consisted of 46 former villages, two cities (Westminster and the City of London proper), and one borough (Southwark). Westminster had a population of 162,077, the City 116,755, and Southwark 61,169.


18th-century London, Urban fabric
To accommodate the rapid growth of population, Parliament enacted building legislation and initiated important infrastructure projects. The New Road running between Paddington and Islington was constructed beginning in 1756. Intended as a drover's road upon which livestock could be driven to Smithfield Market without encountering the congested road network of the city further south, the 60 ft. wide New Road was London's first bypass and served as the informal northern boundary for London for years to come. With the completion of Westminster Bridge in 1750, London gained a much needed second overland crossing into the South Bank. In 1761 the seven ancient gates enclosing the City of London were removed to improve the circulation of traffic, as was the dense warren of housing on London Bridge which was a perennial fire hazard.


18th-century London, Urban fabric
Landmark legislation included the Westminster Paving Act of 1765, which required streets be equipped with pavements, drainage, and lighting. The success of the legislation inspired the London Paving and Lighting Act of 1766, which extended the same provisions across the whole city and required that houses be numbered and streets and pavements be cleansed and swept regularly. Street lighting was more extensive than in any other city in Europe, something which amazed foreign visitors to the capital in the late 18th century.


18th-century London, Urban fabric
The single most impactful piece of legislation for the aesthetic appearance of the capital was the Building Act of 1777, which set building requirements for new housing and sought to eliminate rampant jerry-building and shoddy construction work. Housing was divided into four "rates" based on ground rents, with each of the rates accorded their own strict building codes. The Building Act accounts for the remarkable uniformity of Georgian terraced housing and squares in London built in subsequent decades, which critics like John Summerson criticized for their "inexpressible monotony".


18th-century London, Urban fabric
In 1708 Christopher Wren's masterpiece, St. Paul's Cathedral was completed on his birthday. The first service had been held on 2 December 1697, more than 10 years earlier. This cathedral replaced the original St. Paul's, which had been completely destroyed in the Great Fire of London. This building is considered one of the finest in Britain and a fine example of Baroque architecture.


18th-century London, Urban fabric
A phenomenon of 18th-century London was the coffee house, which became a popular place to debate ideas. Growing literacy and the development of the printing press meant that news became widely available. Fleet Street became the centre of the embryonic British press during the century.


18th-century London, Urban fabric
The Bow Street Runners were established in 1749 as a professional police force, whilst from 1798 a Marine Police Force tackled crime in the docks and Pool of London. Penalties for crime were harsh, with the death penalty being applied for fairly minor crimes. Public hangings were common in London, and were popular public events.


18th-century London, Urban fabric
In 1780, London was rocked by the Gordon Riots, an uprising by Protestants against Roman Catholic emancipation led by Lord George Gordon. Severe damage was caused to Catholic churches and homes, and 285 rioters were killed


18th-century history of Germany
From the 1680s to 1789, Germany comprised many small territories which were parts of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. Prussia finally emerged as dominant. Meanwhile, the states developed a classical culture that found its greatest expression in the Enlightenment, with world class leaders such as philosophers Leibniz and Kant, writers such as Goethe and Schiller, and musicians Bach and Beethoven.


18th-century history of Germany, Military and diplomatic history
Germany, or more exactly the old Holy Roman Empire, in the 18th century entered a period of decline that would finally lead to the dissolution of the Empire during the Napoleonic Wars. Since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the Empire had been fragmented into numerous independent states (Kleinstaaterei). In 1701, Elector Frederick of Brandenburg was crowned "King in Prussia". From 1713 to 1740, King Frederick William I, also known as the "Soldier King", established a highly centralized state.


18th-century history of Germany, Military and diplomatic history
The term German dualism describes the long conflict between the two largest German states Austria and Prussia from 1740 to 1866 when Prussia finally forced Austria out of the German Confederation.


18th-century history of Germany, Military and diplomatic history
The Kingdom of Prussia emerged as the leading state of the Empire. Frederick III (1688–1701) became King Frederick I of Prussia in 1701. Since there was only one King of the Germans within the Empire, Frederick gained the assent of Emperor Leopold I (in return for alliance against France in the War of the Spanish Succession) to his adoption (January 1701) of the title of "King in Prussia" based on his non-imperial territories. The title came into general acceptance with the Treaty of Utrecht (1713).


18th-century history of Germany, Military and diplomatic history
Sweden's defeat by Russia, Saxony, Poland, Denmark–Norway, Hanover, and Prussia in the Great Northern War (1700–21) marked the end of significant Swedish power on the southern shores of the Baltic Sea. In the Prusso–Swedish Treaty of Stockholm (January 1720), Prussia regained Stettin (Szczecin) and other parts of Sweden's holding in Pomerania. The Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg had held the reversion to the Duchy of Pomerania since 1472. During this time, the trends set in motion by the Great Elector reached their culmination, as the Junkers, the landed aristocracy, were welded to the Prussian Army.


18th-century history of Germany, Military and diplomatic history
In 1740, King Frederick II (Frederick the Great) came to the throne. Using the pretext of a 1537 treaty (vetoed by Emperor Ferdinand I), by which parts of Silesia were to pass to Brandenburg after the extinction of its ruling Piast dynasty, Frederick invaded Silesia, thereby beginning the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48). In 1744, Frederick invaded again to forestall reprisals and to claim, this time, the province of Bohemia.


18th-century history of Germany, Military and diplomatic history
He failed, but French pressure on Austria's ally Great Britain led to a series of treaties and compromises, culminating in the 1748 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle that restored peace and left Prussia in possession of most of Silesia. When Frederick preemptively invaded Saxony and Bohemia over the course of a few months in 1756–57, he initiated the Seven Years' War. This war was a desperate struggle for the Prussian Army, and the fact that it managed to fight much of Europe to a draw bears witness to Frederick's military skills.


18th-century history of Germany, Military and diplomatic history
The situation became progressively grimmer until the death of Empress Elizabeth of Russia (the miracle of the House of Brandenburg). The accession of the Prussophile Peter III relieved the pressure on the eastern front. Defeating the Austrian army at the Battle of Burkersdorf and relying on continuing British success against France in the war's colonial theatres, Prussia was finally able to force a status quo ante bellum on the continent. This result confirmed Prussia's major role within the German states and established the country as a European great power. This gave the start to the rivalry between Prussia and Austria for the leadership of Germany, referred to as German dualism.


18th-century history of Germany, Military and diplomatic history
From 1763, against resistance from the nobility and citizenry, an "enlightened absolutism" was established in Prussia and Austria, according to which the ruler was to be "the first servant of the state". The economy developed and legal reforms were undertaken, including the abolition of torture and the improvement in the status of Jews; the emancipation of the peasants began. Education was promoted.


18th-century history of Germany, Military and diplomatic history
In 1772–95, Prussia took part in the partitions of Poland, occupying western territories of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, which led to centuries of Polish resistance against German rule and persecution. To the east and south of Prussia, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth had gradually weakened during the 18th century. Frederick took part in the first of the partitions of Poland, between Russia, Prussia, and Austria in 1772. The Kingdom of Prussia annexed most of the Polish province of Royal Prussia, including Warmia; the annexed land was organized the following year into the Province of West Prussia. The new territory connected East Prussia (the territory previously known as the Duchy of Prussia) with Pomerania, uniting the kingdom's eastern territories. After Frederick died in 1786, his nephew Fredrick William II continued the partitions, gaining a large part of western Poland in 1793.


18th-century history of Germany, Military and diplomatic history
In 1795, the Kingdom of Poland ceased to exist and a large area (including Warsaw) to the south of East Prussia became part of Prussia. These new territories were organized into the Provinces of New Silesia, South Prussia, and New East Prussia.


18th-century history of Germany, Military and diplomatic history
The French Revolution sparked a new war between France and several of its Eastern neighbors, including Prussia and Austria. Following the Peace of Basel in 1795 with Prussia, the west bank of the Rhine was ceded to France.


18th-century history of Germany, Military and diplomatic history
Napoleon I of France relaunched the war against the Empire. In 1803, under the "Reichsdeputationshauptschluss" (a resolution of a committee of the Eternal Imperial Diet meeting in Regensburg), he abolished almost all the ecclesiastical and the smaller secular states and most of the imperial free cities. New medium-sized states were established in south-western Germany. In turn, Prussia gained territory in north-western Germany.


18th-century history of Germany, Military and diplomatic history
The Holy Roman Empire was formally dissolved on 6 August 1806 when the last Holy Roman Emperor Francis II (from 1804, Emperor Francis I of Austria) resigned. Francis II's family continued to be called Austrian emperors until 1918. In 1806, the Confederation of the Rhine was established under Napoleon's protection.


18th-century history of Germany, Politics
From 1640, Brandenburg-Prussia had started to rise under the Great Elector, Frederick William. The Peace of Westphalia in 1648 strengthened it even further, through the acquisition of East Pomerania. From 1713 to 1740, King Frederick William I, also known as the "Soldier King", established a highly centralized, militarized state with a heavily rural population of about three million (compared to the nine million in Austria).


18th-century history of Germany, Politics
In terms of the boundaries of 1914, Germany in 1700 had a population of 16 million, increasing slightly to 17 million by 1750, and growing more rapidly to 24 million by 1800. Wars continued, but they were no longer so devastating to the civilian population; famines and major epidemics did not occur, but increased agricultural productivity led to a higher birth rate, and a lower death rate.


18th-century history of Germany, Politics
In the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48) Maria Theresa fought successfully for recognition of her succession to the throne. But in the Silesian Wars and in the Seven Years' War she had to cede 95 percent of Silesia to Frederick II, the Great, of Prussia. After the Peace of Hubertsburg in 1763 between Austria, Prussia and Saxony, Prussia became a European great power. This gave the start to the rivalry between Prussia and Austria for the leadership of Germany.


18th-century history of Germany, Politics
From 1763, against resistance from the nobility and citizenry, an "enlightened absolutism" was established in Prussia and Austria, according to which the ruler governed according to the best precepts of the philosophers. The economies developed and legal reforms were undertaken, including the abolition of torture and the improvement in the status of Jews. Emancipation of the peasants slowly began. Compulsory education was instituted.


18th-century history of Germany, Politics
In 1772–1795 Prussia and Austria took part in the partitions of Poland. Prussia occupied the western territories of the former Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth that surrounded existing Prussian holdings, while Austria took the territory of Galicia further south. This occupation led to centuries of Polish resistance against Germanization.


18th-century history of Germany, Smaller states
To the west of Austria and Prussia stood the remaining, major, part of Germany. The existence of the two big powers precluded a serious reform of the confederate structure of Germany; but reform of the individual state governments and administrations was not excluded. The general picture was as varied as the political map of the Holy Roman Empire, and it is difficult to generalise. But the impression prevails that, overall, after 1750 and especially after 1770, the general situation of the middle classes improved slightly, both economically and politically. Reforms were carried in a number of large and small states.


18th-century history of Germany, Smaller states
There were some profligate, vicious and dull-witted rulers, but there were also some outstanding personalities. The bureaucrats, if often corrupt, were more competent and better educated than before. Saxony remained in the vanguard of German cultural activities, and its commercial and industrial activities remained considerable; but politically, it was outclassed by its neighbor Brandenburg-Prussia. Bavaria was especially unfortunate; it was a rural land with very heavy debts and few growth centers. In Württemberg the duke lavished funds on palaces, mistresses, great celebrations, and hunting expeditions.


18th-century history of Germany, Smaller states
Among the smaller princes, many offensive characters could be found, but also many of outstanding figures, such as Duke William Ferdinand of Brunswick and Margrave Karl Friedrich of Baden. Under the rule of Karl Friedrich, an enthusiast for The Enlightenment, Baden enjoyed some of the best governments of the smaller states. Serfdom was abolished in 1783, although this was done primarily to avert peasant unrest and the flight of unfree Baden peasants to neighboring Breisgau after Joseph II abolished serfdom in that Austrian province in 1781.


18th-century history of Germany, Smaller states
A large part of Germany still lived under the rule of bishops. Conditions in these ecclesiastical principalities were no less variegated than those of the secular states. All the bishops were scions of the ruling dynasties or the high aristocracy and they considered themselves political rulers who lived and acted in the style of the contemporary secular court society. Their sense of responsibility and their capacity for the administration of their territories also varied greatly. However, even at their best, they could not achieve the continuity of government that some dynastic states began to acquire.


18th-century history of Germany, Smaller states
In Hesse-Kassel, the Landgrave Frederick II ruled from 1760–1785 as an enlightened despot, and raised money by hiring soldiers (called "Hessians") to Great Britain to help fight the American Revolutionary War. He combined Enlightenment ideas with Christian values, cameralist plans for central control of the economy, and a militaristic approach to diplomacy.


18th-century history of Germany, Smaller states
Hanover did not have to support a lavish court: its rulers were also kings of England and resided in London. George III, elector (ruler) from 1760 to 1820, never once visited Hanover. The local nobility who ran the country opened the University of Göttingen in 1737; it soon became a world-class intellectual center.


18th-century history of Germany, Society, Nobility
In a heavily agrarian society, land ownership played a central role. Germany's nobles, especially those in the East – called Junkers –dominated not only the localities, but also the Prussian court, and especially the Prussian army. Increasingly after 1815, a centralized Prussian government based in Berlin took over the powers of the nobles, which in terms of control over the peasantry had been almost absolute. To help the nobility avoid indebtedness, Berlin set up a credit institution to provide capital loans in 1809, and extended the loan network to peasants in 1849. When the German Empire was established in 1871, the Junker nobility controlled the army and the Navy, the bureaucracy, and the royal court; they generally set governmental policies.


18th-century history of Germany, Society, Peasants and rural life
Peasants continued to center their lives on the village, where they were members of a corporate body and helped manage the community resources and monitor the community life. In the East, they were serfs who were bound permanently to parcels of land. In most of Germany, farming was undertaken by tenant farmers who paid rents and carried out obligatory services to the landlord, who was typically a nobleman. Peasant leaders supervised the fields and ditches and grazing rights, maintained public order and morals, and supported a village court which handled minor offenses.


18th-century history of Germany, Society, Peasants and rural life
Within the family the patriarch made all the decisions, and tried to arrange advantageous marriages for his children. Much of the villages' communal life centered around church services and holy days. In Prussia, the peasants drew lots to choose conscripts required by the army. The noblemen handled external relationships and politics for the villages under their control, and were not typically involved in daily activities or decisions.


18th-century history of Germany, Society, Peasants and rural life
In German history the emancipation of the serfs came between 1770–1830, with the nobility in Schleswig being the first to agree to do so in 1797, followed by the signing of the royal and political leaders of Denmark and Germany in 1804. The peasants, no longer serfs, could own their land, buy and sell it, and move about freely. The nobles approved; for now they could buy land owned by the peasants. The chief reformer was Baron vom Stein(1757–1831), who was influenced by The Enlightenment, especially the free market ideas of Adam Smith.


18th-century history of Germany, Society, Peasants and rural life
The end of serfdom raised the personal legal status of the peasantry. A bank was set up so that landowner could borrow government money to buy land from peasants (the peasants were not allowed to use it to borrow money to buy land until 1850). The result was that the large landowners obtained larger estates, and many peasants became landless tenants, or moved to the cities or to America. The other German states imitated Prussia after 1815. In sharp contrast to the violent events of the French Revolution, Germany handled land reform peacefully.


18th-century history of Germany, Society, Peasants and rural life
In Schleswig the peasants, who had been influenced by the Enlightenment, played an active role; elsewhere they were largely passive. Indeed, for most peasants, customs and traditions continued largely unchanged, including the old habits of deference to the nobles whose legal authority over the villagers remained quite strong. Although the peasants were no longer tied to the land, the old paternalistic relationship in East Prussia lasted into the 20th century.


18th-century history of Germany, Society, Peasants and rural life
The agrarian reforms in northwestern Germany in 1770–1870 were driven by progressive governments and local elites. They abolished feudal obligations and divided collectively owned common land into private parcels; and thus created a more efficient market-oriented rural economy; resulting in higher productivity and population growth. It strengthened the traditional social order because wealthy peasants obtained most of the former common land, while the rural proletariat was left without land; many left for the cities or America. Meanwhile, the division of the common land served as a buffer preserving social peace between nobles and peasants. In the east the serfs were emancipated but the Junker class maintained its large estates and monopolized political power.


18th-century history of Germany, Society, Peasants and rural life
Around 1800 the Catholic monasteries, which had large land holdings, were nationalized and sold off by the government. In Bavaria they had controlled 56% of the land.


18th-century history of Germany, Enlightenment
Before 1750, the German upper classes often looked to France (or, previously, Italy) for intellectual, cultural and architectural leadership; French was the language of high society. By the mid-18th century the "Aufklärung" (The Enlightenment) had transformed German high culture in music, philosophy, science and literature. Christian Wolff (1679–1754) was the pioneer as a writer who expounded the Enlightenment to German readers; he legitimized German as a philosophic language.


18th-century history of Germany, Enlightenment
Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) broke new ground in philosophy and poetry, as a leader of the Sturm und Drang movement of proto-Romanticism. Weimar Classicism ("Weimarer Klassik") was a cultural and literary movement based in Weimar that sought to establish a new humanism by synthesizing Romantic, classical, and Enlightenment ideas. The movement, from 1772 until 1805, involved Herder as well as polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) and Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805), a poet and historian. Herder argued that every folk had its own particular identity, which was expressed in its language and culture. This legitimized the promotion of German language and culture and helped shape the development of German nationalism. Schiller's plays expressed the restless spirit of his generation, depicting the hero's struggle against social pressures and the force of destiny.


18th-century history of Germany, Enlightenment
German music, sponsored by the upper classes, came of age under composers Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), Joseph Haydn (1732–1809), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791), and Ludwig van Beethoven.


18th-century history of Germany, Enlightenment
In remote Königsberg philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) tried to reconcile rationalism and religious belief, individual freedom, and political authority. Kant's work contained basic tensions that would continue to shape German thought – and indeed all of European philosophy – well into the 20th century.


18th-century history of Germany, Enlightenment
The German Enlightenment won the support of princes, aristocrats, and the middle classes, and it permanently reshaped the culture.


18th-century history of Germany, French Revolution 1789–1815
German reaction to the French Revolution was mixed at first. German intellectuals celebrated the outbreak, hoping to see the triumph of Reason and The Enlightenment. The royal courts in Vienna and Berlin denounced the overthrow of the king and the threatened spread of notions of liberty, equality, and fraternity. By 1793, the execution of the French king and the onset of the Terror disillusioned the Bildungsbürgertum (educated middle classes). Reformers said the solution was to have faith in the ability of Germans to reform their laws and institutions in peaceful fashion.


18th-century history of Germany, French Revolution 1789–1815
Europe was racked by two decades of war revolving around France's efforts to spread its revolutionary ideals, as well as to annex Belgium and the Rhine's Left Bank to France and establish puppet regimes in the Netherlands, Germany and Italy. The French revolutionaries' open and strident republicanism led to the conclusion of a defensive alliance between Austria and Prussia on 7 February 1792. The alliance also declared that any violation of the borders of the Empire by France would be a cause for war.


18th-century history of Germany, French Revolution 1789–1815
The extremists among the French revolutionaries saw war as a chance to defeat their domestic opponents and embarrass the king, whose Austrian wife, Marie-Antoinette, was Emperor Leopold II's sister. They demanded that Austria not only disarm but abandon all alliances directed against France. Upon Leopold II's refusal, France declared war on Austria and Prussia on 20 April. Austria and Prussia then invaded France, but were defeated at the Battle of Valmy (1792).


18th-century history of Germany, French Revolution 1789–1815
The German lands saw armies marching back and forth, bringing devastation (albeit on a far lower scale than the Thirty Years' War, almost two centuries before), but also bringing new ideas of liberty and civil rights for the people. Prussia and Austria ended their failed wars with France but (with Russia) partitioned Poland among themselves in 1793 and 1795. The French took control of the Rhineland, imposed French-style reforms, abolished feudalism, established constitutions, promoted freedom of religion, emancipated Jews, opened the bureaucracy to ordinary citizens of talent, and forced the nobility to share power with the rising middle class.


18th-century history of Germany, French Revolution 1789–1815
Napoleon created the Kingdom of Westphalia (1807–1813) as a model state. These reforms proved largely permanent and modernized the western parts of Germany. When the French tried to impose the French language, German opposition grew in intensity. A Second Coalition of Britain, Russia, and Austria then attacked France but failed. Napoleon established direct or indirect control over most of western Europe, including the German states apart from Prussia and Austria. The old Holy Roman Empire was little more than a farce; Napoleon simply abolished it in 1806 while forming new countries under his control. In Germany Napoleon set up the "Confederation of the Rhine," comprising most of the German states except Prussia and Austria.


18th-century history of Germany, French Revolution 1789–1815
Prussia tried to remain neutral while imposing tight controls on dissent, but with German nationalism sharply on the rise, the small nation blundered by going to war with Napoleon in 1806. Its economy was weak, its leadership poor, and the once mighty Prussian army was a hollow shell. Napoleon easily crushed it at the Battle of Jena (1806). Napoleon occupied Berlin, and Prussia paid dearly.


18th-century history of Germany, French Revolution 1789–1815
Prussia lost its recently acquired territories in western Germany, its army was reduced to 42,000 men, no trade with Britain was allowed, and Berlin had to pay Paris heavy reparations and fund the French army of occupation. Saxony changed sides to support Napoleon and join his Confederation of the Rhine; its elector was rewarded with the title of king and given a slice of Poland taken from Prussia.


18th-century history of Germany, French Revolution 1789–1815
After Napoleon's failed invasion of Russia in 1812, including the deaths of many Germans in his invasion army, Prussia joined with Russia. Major battles followed in quick order, and when Austria switched sides to oppose Napoleon his situation grew tenuous. He was defeated at the Battle of Leipzig in late 1813, and his empire quickly unraveled. One after another the German states switched to oppose Napoleon, but he rejected peace terms. Allied armies invaded France in early 1814, Paris fell, and in April Napoleon surrendered. He returned for 100 days in 1815, but was finally defeated by the British and German armies at Waterloo. Prussia was the big winner at the Vienna peace conference, gaining extensive territory.


18th-century prints of Bach's four-part chorales
In the period following Johann Sebastian Bach's death in 1750, apart from the publication of The Art of Fugue in the early 1750s, the only further publications prior to the 1790s were the settings of Bach's four-part chorales. In 1758 Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg was the first to start preparing a published edition of Bach's four-part chorales, but in 1763 was prevented by royal duties. C. P. E. Bach, who owned the original manuscripts, then set about the same task, producing two volumes in 1765 and 1769.


18th-century prints of Bach's four-part chorales
Dissatisfied with his publisher Friedrich Wilhelm Birnstiel, he surrendered the manuscript rights in 1771 to Johann Kirnberger and his patron Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia. From 1777 onwards, Kirnberger unsuccessfully made requests to Birnstiel and a new publisher, Johann Gottlob Immanuel Breitkopf, to publish the chorales. Following Kirnberger's death in 1783, C.P.E. Bach approached Breitkopf, who published them in four volumes between 1784 and 1787.


18th-century prints of Bach's four-part chorales
About half of the chorale harmonisations in this collection have their origin in other extant works by Bach.


18th-century prints of Bach's four-part chorales, History
Bach's posthumous publications in the second half of the eighteenth century, like those printed during his life, gave the impression of a readership aimed at connoisseurs with a "learned" expertise in keyboard music. Thus only The Art of the Fugue and the four-part chorales were available in print prior to 1800. The demand in that period was partly affected by publishers' printing expenses and partly by changing tastes. Amongst amateurs, there was a market for more popular, tuneful and approachable repertoire: amongst professional musicians, however, manuscripts continued to be circulated through hand copies. In the nineteenth century fashions changed again: the Well-Tempered Clavier—a foundation-stone for musicians—was printed for the first time in 1801, followed by publications of complete editions of Bach's works throughout the century.


18th-century prints of Bach's four-part chorales, History
The task of engraving "The Art of the Fugue" was interrupted by Bach's death in 1750. Assisted by the family and former assistants, C.P.E. Bach and J.F. Agricola published an edition through subscription in 1751: few subscribers took up the offer. In 1752 a second edition was printed with a new foreword by F.W. Marpurg.


18th-century prints of Bach's four-part chorales, History
Here he wrote that his aim was to instil "the dignity of Harmony" into the fugue and explained its importance both for "the music mechanic" knowing only "the fugue by name", as well as "the contemporary composer, who considers the fugue the child of ancient aberration, [in] the manly element which should prevail in music," as opposed to "the spreading rubbish of womanly song." The attempt at recruiting subscribers, musically well-versed in counterpoint, was again unsuccessful, with hardly thirty copies sold. Disappointed for the second time by the response, C.P.E. Bach sold the plates in 1756.


18th-century prints of Bach's four-part chorales, History
The initiative for publishing the four-part chorales of Bach was different. Possibly didactic in purpose, the four-part chorales were "miniature masterpieces of harmony and voice leading" with "searching harmonies and busy inner parts". The chorales were extracted from Bach's church music by the Berlin circle around C.P.E. Bach. Already in 1709, as a youth in the Arnstadt Consistory, Bach had been scolded for having "made many curious variatones in the chorale, and mingled many strange notes in it, and for the fact that the congregation has been confused by it". It is possible that Bach's reluctance to publish any four-part chorales was a consequence of such criticisms. At any rate, even fifteen years after Bach's death, the first editions of the four-part chorales also proved to be controversial and were not well-received, even amongst Bach devotees.