Republic of Letters

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The Institut de France was a learned society playing a key role in the Republic of Letters and Age of Enlightenment

The Republic of Letters (Res Publica Litterarum or Res Publica Literaria) was the long-distance intellectual community in the late 17th and 18th centuries in Europe and the Americas.Template:Clarification It fostered communication among the intellectuals of the Age of Enlightenment, or philosophes as they were called in France. These communities that transcended national boundaries formed the basis of a metaphysical republic. Because of societal constraints on women, the Republic of Letters consisted mostly of men.

The Republic of Letters relied heavily on handwritten letters for correspondence.Template:SfnTemplate:Clarification

The first known occurrence of the term in its Latin form (Respublica literaria) is in a letter by Francesco Barbaro to Poggio Bracciolini dated July 6, 1417.Template:Sfn Currently, the consensus is that Pierre Bayle first translated the term in his journal Nouvelles de la République des Lettres in 1684. But there are some historians who disagree and some have gone so far as to say that its origin dates back to Plato's Republic.Template:Sfn

Historians are presently debating the importance of the Republic of Letters in influencing the Enlightenment.Template:Sfn

Academies

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Academies like the Royal Society encouraged discourse and debate that led to enlightenment. Their motto Nullius in verba (take nobody's word for it) embodied the spirit of inquiry and scientific investigation

The Royal Society primarily promoted science, which was undertaken by wealthy gentlemen acting independently. The Royal Society created its charters and established a system of governance. Its most famous leader was Isaac Newton, president from 1703 until his death in 1727. Other notable members include diarist John Evelyn, writer Thomas Sprat, and scientist Robert Hooke, the Society's first curator of experiments. It played an international role to adjudicate scientific findings, and published the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society edited by Henry Oldenburg.Template:Sfn

The seventeenth century saw new academies open in France,Template:Sfn Germany,Template:Sfn and elsewhere. By 1700 they were found in most major cultural centers.Template:Sfn

Salons

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Presumed portrait of Mme Geoffrin, by Marianne Loir (National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.)

The salons were literary institutions that relied on a new ethic of polite sociability based on hospitality, distinction, and the entertainment of the elite. The salons were open to intellectuals, who used them to find protectors and sponsors and to fashion themselves as 'hommes du monde.' In the salons after 1770 there emerged a radical critique of worldliness, inspired by Rousseau. These radicals denounced the mechanisms of polite sociability and called for a new model of the independent writer, who would address the public and the nation.Template:Sfn

Printing press

Template:Main article The printing press also played a prominent role in the establishment of a community of scientists who could easily communicate their discoveries through the establishment of widely disseminated journals. Because of the printing press, authorship became more meaningful and profitable. The main reason was that it provided correspondence between the author and the person who owned the printing presses – the publisher. This correspondence allowed the author to have a greater control of its production and distribution.

Journals

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The first issue of the Journal des Sçavans (title page)

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Pierre Bayle

Transatlantic Republic of Letters

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The author of the Spectator, Richard Steele

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Title Page of an issue for Acta Eruditorum

Historiographical debates

Anglo-American historians have turned their attention to the Enlightenment's dissemination and promotion, inquiring into the mechanisms by which it played a role in the collapse of the Ancien Régime.Template:Sfn This attention to the mechanisms of dissemination and promotion has led historians to debate the importance of the Republic of Letters during the Enlightenment.

Enlightenment as a rhetoric

In 1994, Dena Goodman published The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment.

Engendering the Republic of Letters

In 2003, Susan Dalton published Engendering the Republic of Letters: Reconnecting Public and Private Spheres. Dalton supports Dena Goodman's view that women played a role in the Enlightenment.Template:Sfn

Conduct and community

In 1995, Anne Goldgar published Impolite Learning: Conduct and Community in the Republic of Letters, 1680–1750. Goldgar argues that, in the transitional period between the 17th century and the Enlightenment, the most important common concern by members of the Republic was their own conduct. In the conception of its own members, ideology, religion, political philosophy, scientific strategy, or any other intellectual or philosophical framework were not as important as their own identity as a community.Template:Sfn

See also

• Coffeehouse
• Daniel Roche
• Dictionnaire philosophique
• Encyclopédie
• English coffeehouses in the 17th and 18th centuries
• Robert Darnton
• Science in the Age of Enlightenment
• Societas eruditorum incognitorum in terris Austriacis

Bibliography

• .
• ; published in English as

External links

• Mapping the Republic of Letters, Stanford University Humanities Center
• Cultures of Knowledge, University of Oxford