期刊名称：Cercles : Revue Pluridisciplinaire du Monde Anglophone
电子版ISSN：1292-8968
出版年度：2015
期号：34
页码：61-80
出版社：Université de Rouen
摘要：The Glorious Revolution of 1688 had caused intense change in both history and society of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries [M üLLENBROCK 1984 : 1- 30]. Displaying a new spirit of compromise, the constitution had been transformed from a rather absolutistic form of government under James II, who had shown extraordinary sympathy to Catholics, to a hybrid formation usually referred to as a 'mixed monarchy' under William III, who clearly favoured Protestantism. The "Act of Tolerance" (1689), the "Bill of Rights" (1689) and the "Act of Settlement" (1701) had changed political life in England forever. The emerging political forces, led by the Whigs and the Tories, polarised public political discourse about the Spanish War of Succession, the "Conduct of the Allies" or the pros and cons of the "Stamp Act" [B OND 1965 : 445; 4- 63], generating a climate of political bickering that produced a veritable culture of contention [M üLLENBROCK 1997]. The developing industrialisation, the effects of the emerging British imperialism, and last but not least, the breathtaking progress prompted by technology and empirical science, also changed everyday life in England dramatically. In London, the numerous coffeehouses became urban emblems of a new permissiveness that clearly demonstrated how intensely society had changed; 1 they represented a new, semi- democratic political culture of the exchange of opinions, but also an open- minded forum where innovative ideas in religion, philosophy, art, and criticism could freely be discussed
