The Well-Thumbed Attic Muse

2020 ◽  
pp. 29-52
Author(s):  
Noreen Humble
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Available P ◽  
Persian Empire ◽  
The Way

This chapter looks at how Cicero’s comments on Xenophon’s Cyropaedia and Oeconomicus dictated the way early modern readers read these works and the Persian images they contained. Cicero considered the Cyropaedia a practical manual for leaders, presented in the guise of a fictional account of the life of Cyrus the Elder, the founder of the Persian Empire. The Oeconomicus, which contains a memorable vignette revealing the Persian prince Cyrus the Younger as a keen gardener, Cicero deemed held useful lessons for the honest enrichment of one’s household. Because the works containing these comments of Cicero were frequently used in early modern schools for the teaching of Latin, Cicero’s judgements on and paraphrases of Xenophon’s works became particularly ingrained in the memory of the educated classes, even down to the very language that he used, which was then reused in place of Xenophon’s own even when Xenophon’s texts became widely available.

“I'd make thee eat the mischief thou hast vented”: Discourse of Law in Ben Jonson's Catiline His Conspiracy

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-45
Author(s):  
Akihiko Shimizu
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Legal Discourse ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
State Of Emergency ◽  
Gunpowder Plot ◽  
Effective Use ◽  
Legal Procedures ◽  
The Way

This essay explores the discourse of law that constitutes the controversial apprehension of Cicero's issuing of the ultimate decree of the Senate (senatus consultum ultimum) in Catiline. The play juxtaposes the struggle of Cicero, whose moral character and legitimacy are at stake in regards to the extra-legal uses of espionage, with the supposedly mischievous Catilinarians who appear to observe legal procedures more carefully throughout their plot. To mitigate this ambivalence, the play defends Cicero's actions by depicting the way in which Cicero establishes the rhetoric of public counsel to convince the citizens of his legitimacy in his unprecedented dealing with Catiline. To understand the contemporaneousness of Catiline, I will explore the way the play integrates the early modern discourses of counsel and the legal maxim of ‘better to suffer an inconvenience than mischief,’ suggesting Jonson's subtle sensibility towards King James's legal reformation which aimed to establish and deploy monarchical authority in the state of emergency (such as the Gunpowder Plot of 1605). The play's climactic trial scene highlights the display of the collected evidence, such as hand-written letters and the testimonies obtained through Cicero's spies, the Allbroges, as proof of Catiline's mischievous character. I argue that the tactical negotiating skills of the virtuous and vicious characters rely heavily on the effective use of rhetoric exemplified by both the political discourse of classical Rome and the legal discourse of Tudor and Jacobean England.

Shakespeare Afoot

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Kerrigan
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Richard Iii ◽  
Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
As You Like It ◽  
A Midsummer Night's Dream ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Way

That Shakespeare adds a limp to the received characterization of Richard III is only the most conspicuous instance of his interest in how actors walked, ran, danced, and wandered. His attention to actors’ footwork, as an originating condition of performance, can be traced from Richard III through A Midsummer Night’s Dream and As You Like It into Macbeth, which is preoccupied with the topic and activity all the way to the protagonist’s melancholy conclusion that ‘Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player | That struts and frets his hour upon the stage’. Drawing on classical and early modern accounts of how people walk and should walk, on ideas about time and prosody, and the experience of disability, this chapter cites episodes in the history of performance to show how actors, including Alleyn, Garrick, and Olivier, have worked with the opportunities to dramatize footwork that are provided by Shakespeare’s plays.

Jeremiah in Art

2021 ◽  
pp. 578-609
Author(s):  
Mary Chilton Callaway
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Dynamic Process ◽  
Medieval Manuscripts ◽  
Printed Books ◽  
Artistic Representations ◽  
The Way

The story of Jeremiah in art reveals a dynamic process of traditional tropes that signaled the ancient prophet blended with contemporary features mirroring the viewer. This interplay made artistic representations of Jeremiah at once familiar, yet also at times unsettling in the way they contemporized the prophetic message. The chapter explores the developing image of Jeremiah through the centuries in five media: painted images on ancient frescoes, stone statues in medieval cathedrals and monasteries, illuminations in medieval manuscripts, woodcuts in early modern printed books, and various forms in modernity. Jewish, Christian, and Muslim images of the prophet together display a process in which historically contingent tropes gradually became timeless markers of the prophet. At the same time, these images show the power of Jeremiah to speak prophetically in new circumstances.

Wicked Mysteries and Notorious Conjurors: Magic, Rape, and Violence in Two Early Modern Pamphlets

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 533-551
Author(s):  
Laura Levine
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
The Body ◽  
Evil Spirits ◽  
The Way

Toward the end of the 1628 pamphlet A Briefe Description of the Notorious Life of Iohn Lambe, the pamphleteer describes the violence a crowd inflicts on John Lambe, a cunning man who dabbled in the dark arts. This violence, ultimately fatal, seems to be a response to Lambe's rape of an eleven-year-old child, a rape which he is convicted of but ultimately pardoned for. Earlier in his career, however, Lambe is indicted for using magic to disable the body of a gentleman as well as for invoking evil spirits. What connection exists between the charges against Lambe as a witch and magician and the charges against him as a rapist? This essay argues that long before Lambe gives those around him a basis for violence, he triggers anxieties about what he is, and that these anxieties play a role in the violence against him. The text of A Briefe Description demonstrates the way mechanisms of justice ultimately repeat—reenact and perform—versions of the crimes they seek to examine.

scholarly journals The Problem of Coordination and the Pursuit of Structural Constraints in Psychology

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Kellen ◽  
Clintin Davis-Stober ◽  
John C Dunn ◽  
Michael Kalish
Keyword(s):  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Available P ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
Structural Constraints ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Theoretical Progress ◽  
Functional Relations ◽  
Slow Progress ◽  
Empirical Means ◽  
The Way

Paul Meehl’s famous critique laid out in detail many of the pathological practices and conceptual confusions that stand in the way of meaningful theoretical progress inpsychological science. Integrating some of Meehl’s points, we argue that one of the reasons for the slow progress in psychology is the failure to acknowledge the problem of coordination. This problem arises whenever we attempt to measure quantities that are not directly observable, but can be inferred from observable variables. The solution to this problem is far from trivial, as demonstrated by a historical analysis of thermometry. Also, it is not a problem that can be solved by empirical means. At its center is the need for a clear understanding of the functional relations between theoretical concepts and observations. In the case of psychology, the problem of coordination has dramatic implications in the sense that it severely limits our ability to make meaningful theoretical claims. We discuss several examples and lay out some of the solutions that are currently available.

scholarly journals Néhány megjegyzés Heltai imádságos könyvének utóéletéről

2013 ◽  
Vol 52 (3-4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mihály Balázs
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Comparative Research ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
16Th Century ◽  
Prayer Book ◽  
Late 18Th Century ◽  
History Of ◽  
Considerable Length ◽  
The Way

Although in recent years there has been an upsurge in the research of the history of early modern spirituality, this research has paid hardly any attention to the Unitarian denomination. The reasons for this lie beyond the scope of the present study: between the late 16th century and the late 18th century the denomination had to refrain from the use of printing, and thus, the manuscript versions of prayer texts were threatened by loss and destruction. It is a unique paradox, however, that the first edited protestant Hungarian prayer book of considerable length was published precisely by this denomination in 1570/1571. The first part of the paper explores the concept of the prayer book based on Johann Habermann’s famous Gebetbüchlein, and compares it to the greatest achievements of the same sort within this period, the Catholic Péter Pázmány’s and the Calvinist Albert Szenci Molnár’s works. This section is followed by a survey of the vivid reception of Heltai’s work, with particular focus on the way the Unitarian author’s work was used in the Lutheran community of Lőcse. The concluding part argues that building on the foundations of this tradition, as well as on the heritage of Calvinist prayer culture, an unparalleled Unitarian prayer literature developed in the 17th-18th centuries, which deserves the attention of comparative research.

Bacon’s Novum organum

2021 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 38-46
Author(s):  
Elodie Cassan ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Scientific Reasoning ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Direct Access ◽  
Modern Period ◽  
The World ◽  
Two Sides ◽  
The Way

Dan Garber’s paper provides materials permitting to reply to an objection frequently made to the idea that the Novum Organum is a book of logic, as the allusion to Aristotle’s Organon included in the very title of this book shows it is. How can Bacon actually build a logic, considering his repeated claims that he desires to base natural philosophy directly on observation and experiment? Garber shows that in the Novum Organum access to experience is always mediated by particular questions and settings. If there is no direct access to observation and experience, then there is no point in equating Bacon’s focus on experience in the Novum Organum with a rejection of discursive issues. On the contrary, these are two sides of the same coin. Bacon’s articulation of rules for the building of scientific reasoning in connection with the way the world is, illustrates his massive concern with the relation between reality, thinking and language. This concern is essential in the field of logic as it is constructed in the Early Modern period.

Yin-Yang (Yijing) and the Bible

2021 ◽  
pp. 200-218
Author(s):  
Claudia von Collani
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Old Chinese ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Christianity In China ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Critical Method ◽  
Chinese Religions ◽  
Catholic Mission ◽  
Early Modern Times ◽  
The Way

Chinese religions, philosophy, and especially Confucianism constituted a great challenge for the Catholic mission since its beginnings in China in early modern times. This essay looks at the way the missionaries, especially the Jesuits, made several attempts to solve the problem. Niccolò Longobardo s.j., for example, refused to use Chinese terms for the Christian God, dismissing them as insufficient or atheistic. Most Jesuits, however, advocated for terms such as Tian, Shangdi, Tianzhu, and Taiji for God in China. The Mandate of the Vicar Apostolic Charles Maigrot m.e.p., prohibiting the use of the Yijing and Taiji as the Chinese name for God, became a great challenge for Joachim Bouvet s.j. in developing his Figurism. With this system, he found complements for Christianity in China and created a new theology combining Eastern and Western ideas. These efforts were stopped by the prohibition of the Chinese rites and by the historical-critical method for reading the old Chinese books.

“Materia conveniente modis”: Early Modern Dramatic Adaptations of Ovid

2019 ◽  
pp. 238-253
Author(s):  
Ed Gieskes
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Winter's Tale ◽  
Dramatic Adaptations ◽  
The Way

This chapter takes up various modes of Ovidian adaptation. The poet and his poems operate not only as sources for later works but also as models for structure. The essay looks at the way that Jonson’s play about writing — Poetaster — uses Ovid as a character while also considering his poetic legacy by using a slight revision of Marlowe’s translation of Amores 1.15 to stand in for the Ovidian poetic corpus. Ovid works as both a source and a problem in the play. In Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale, Ovid is an important presence but more as a source of structure than of content. I argue that the way the play defers narrative has much to do with Ovidian techniques of narrative deferral that produce a desire to hear the deferred tale. In both cases, Ovid gets adapted in ways that go beyond retelling stories from the Metamorphoses.

The Normalisation of Natural Philosophy: Occasional Causality and Coarse-Grained Reality

2020 ◽  
pp. 201-236
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Coarse Grained ◽  
Mutual Adaptation ◽  
Modern Natural ◽  
Conceptual Changes ◽  
Preliminary Application ◽  
The Way

This article investigates whether it possible to derive a new narrative about the transformation of early modern natural philosophy from the way in which natural philosophy was systematized in academic writings. It introduces the notion of ‘normalisation’—the mutual adaptation of certain ideas and existing traditions—as a way of studying and explaining conceptual changes during relatively long periods of time. The article provides the methodological underpinnings of this account of normalisation and offers a preliminary application of it by focusing on the role of ‘occasional causality’ in natural philosophy through the writings of four authors: Pierre Sylvain Régis (1632-1707), Johann Christoph Sturm (1635-1703), Petrus van Musschenbroek (1692-1761), and Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), who progressively normalise an account of ‘occasional causality’.

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