The above link will take you to a course website maintained by a historian at Saint Anselm College. You'll find here political cartoons from the 1790s by several artists, including the important caricaturists James Gillray and George Cruikshank (who'd later illustrate, among other things, Dickens's early novels). Once you've had a chance to review the images, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts about how the images are being employed. Any particularly striking images or surprises?
I particularly enjoyed the first cartoon as it considers the question of what Liberty means. The definition of Liberty has been on my mind quite a lot lately as the libertarian ideology is becoming more influential in the GOP. But I particularly liked this cartoon because it reinforces the truth spoken by Locke (truly the father of modern liberalism) that Liberty is not License. Liberty is (and of right ought to be) the ability to do as we should, not just as we will. True freedom is the freedom to do right, and as such, is but a means, not the end in and of itself. All things are a means to our one true End.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it just points out another reason to dislike the French, and their revolution. Rather than "Liberte, Equalite, Fraternite," their motto ought to have been "hoc volo, sic iubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas".
To clarify for scholars of other tongues:
ReplyDelete"Hoc volo, sic iubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas" means something like "I will/wish it, thus I order/command it; let my will/wish come before reason/reasoning." Or, perhaps, more simply put: "Do it, because I want it done, and don't think about why!"