ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an exploration into the language of the enlightened reform discourse. Research into reform movements in the 18th century is here supplemented by a comparative analysis of 18th century usages of the notion of reform in different national languages (French, English, German, Italian and Spanish), this notion being an indicator, but also an influential variable of political history. Reform, traditionally a most polyvalent word, has been paralleled, up to the French Revolution, by reformation and revolution, words with deeply rooted religious, moral and cosmological meanings. Reconstructing the historical semantics of reform, some of the most interesting derivations and prominent expressions (such as [ir-]reformability, degrés de réforme, regno delle riforme, esprit de réforme) and some of the most current synonyms (such as improvement, innovation, Verbesserung) are taken into account.
