“How far from the Madding Crowd? Gray, Algarotti, and the European Republic of Letters”

DONGU, MARIA GRAZIA

2005-01-01

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Abstract

The epistolary exchange between Thomas Gray and Francesco Algarotti highlights the main concerns of European intellectuals in the eighteenth century. Both scholars were profoundly aware that market-oriented culture required new writers and would have marginalised elitist poets, who did not encounter the new audiences' expectations.