This chapter offers a critical analysis of how scholars have interpreted the relationship between eighteenth-century cultural practice and revolutionary politics, circa 1760 to 1825. The chapter first surveys and classifies eighteenth century cultural practice, identifying three main types: the social arts, practices of everyday life, and fine arts. The bulk of the essay then reflects on three major paradigms for interpreting how these forms of culture interacted with revolutionary politics. The dominant approach, exemplified by literature on the “bourgeois public sphere,” argues that eighteenth-century culture prefigured or lay the groundwork for revolutionary politics. Other scholars, particularly those working on the fine arts in the revolutionary era, have emphasized how cultural practices were transformed by revolutionary politics. A third, newer approach emphasizes the autonomy of cultural practice. Scholars working within this paradigm argue that cultural change was itself a form of revolution and that culture acted as an independent container for new political practices during the revolutionary era. This paradigm points the way to a broader, more inclusive account of revolution in this period. The essay covers the historiographies of eighteenth-century culture and revolutionary politics in North America, Europe (especially France and the Netherlands), and Latin America (especially Peru).

The aim of this chapter is to show how objects of beauty in the world indirectly exhibit the supersensible “without,” that is, the Idea of the highest good. This I take is the meaning of Kant’s claim that beauty is a “symbol of morality.” The fact that the experience of beauty serves as a sign that the world may be hospitable for the realization of the highest good can have a merely psychological significance, namely, that of maintaining the existent moral disposition. Yet, the significance of this sign can move beyond its merely psychological effects insofar as it reinforces the view that the final end must be the end of nature. The experience of beauty renders the Idea of the highest good objectively real in a special way, which adds the cognitive dimension to aesthetic experience that is best explained in proximity to Kant’s notion of practical cognition.

This essay provides insight into some of the content of Britten and Pears’s book collection. It draws attention to why certain volumes were used as the source material for various musical works. The essay also emphasises how friendships with writers, such as art historian Kenneth Clark and novelist and critic E. M. Forster, influenced key aspects of Britten and Pears’s lives: their passion for fine art and their faith in pacifism. This survey of the collection underlines why their books are often useful bases of information for biographical background about both musicians. Their library tells us stories about their childhoods and discloses their interests in topics ranging from classic English literature to gardening to the developing genre of gay fiction. Additionally, it adds context to fundamental aspects of their lives, such as their anti-war stance and their enduring commitment to one another.