Friendship in the Age of Sensibility
Friendship in the Age of Sensibility
This chapter examines how male friendship persisted as a key component of masonic identity in the twilight of the Old Regime. One way to gauge the importance of friendship is by quantifying the terms ami and amitié within the semantic field of lodge titles, known as titres distinctifs. Throughout the century, French lodges adopted a specific title for their assembly. By analyzing hundreds of lodge speeches that were delivered on festive occasions, this chapter shows that the prerevolutionary decades underwent a qualitative shift in masonic thinking about friendship. It looks at the emergence of a new culture of sentimentalized friendship within Freemasonry—a change that reflected the wider cultural current known as “sensibility” that swept the entire Western world during the second half of the eighteenth century. The chapter concludes by discussing friendship and disputes in lodges during the period 1762–1789.
Keywords: male friendship, lodge titles, speeches, sensibility, disputes, Freemasonry
Cornell Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
