The Ascetic Life

2020 ◽  
pp. 163-185
Author(s):  
Luke Dysinger
Keyword(s):  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Spiritual Practices ◽  
Biblical Exegesis ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Words And Images ◽  
Spiritual Freedom

In classical antiquity the term asceticism described the training necessary to acquire a skill. In Christianity asceticism comprises the practices or exercises that Christians undertake as part of the quest for moral virtue and spiritual freedom. This, in turn, prepares the soul for both the contemplation of God in creation and the ineffable contemplation of God beyond words and images. Asceticism, thus understood, comprises a wide range of spiritual practices that must be constantly assessed and employed as needed in the maintenance of spiritual balance. Ascetical practices discussed in this chapter include: fasting, almsgiving, prayer, martyrdom, celibacy, simplification of life, biblical exegesis, watchfulness over thoughts, discernment, liturgical asceticism, penitential practices, pilgrimage, dispossession, labour, and the service of others.

Victorian Culture and Classical Antiquity

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Goldhill
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Victorian Culture ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Victorian Art ◽  
Victorian Science ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Nineteenth Century Novels

How did the Victorians engage with the ancient world? This book is an exploration of how ancient Greece and Rome influenced Victorian culture. Through Victorian art, opera, and novels, the book examines how sexuality and desire, the politics of culture, and the role of religion in society were considered and debated through the Victorian obsession with antiquity. Looking at Victorian art, it demonstrates how desire and sexuality, particularly anxieties about male desire, were represented and communicated through classical imagery. Probing into operas of the period, the book addresses ideas of citizenship, nationalism, and cultural politics. And through fiction—specifically nineteenth-century novels about the Roman Empire—it discusses religion and the fierce battles over the church as Christianity began to lose dominance over the progressive stance of Victorian science and investigation. Rediscovering some great forgotten works and reframing some more familiar ones, the book offers extraordinary insights into how the Victorian sense of antiquity and our sense of the Victorians came into being. With a wide range of examples and stories, it demonstrates how interest in the classical past shaped nineteenth-century self-expression, giving antiquity a unique place in Victorian culture.

whom one would like to have as a friend, a member vertu, and publick civility’ (1953–82:1.816). of the family, or a guest, or whom one would call a The sources of the virtue may be found in Renais-gentleman. (The praise given him at i3.1–5 would sance moral manuals, such as Elyot’s Gouernour not apply to any other knight.) According to Colin, (1531) with its first book treating ‘the best fourme those who possess the virtue may be recognized by of education or bringing up of noble children’ and the gifts given them by the Graces: ‘comely carriage, the planned second volume aiming to cover ‘all the entertainement kynde, | Sweete semblaunt, friendly reminant . . . apt to the perfection of a iuste publike offices that bynde’ (x 23.4–5) – or rather, according weale’ (1.2); or in Seneca’s De Beneficiis (tr. Arthur to the proem, given them by Elizabeth from whom Golding in 1578), as Archer 1987 argues; or in all virtues well ‘Into the rest, which round about you such courtesy books as Castiglione’s Courtier (1528, ring, | Faire Lords and Ladies, which about you tr. 1561) in which ‘The Count with golden vertue dwell, | And doe adorne your Court, where courtes-deckes’ the court, as Sackville wrote in its praise; and ies excell’ (7.7–9). especially Guazzo’s Civile Conversation (1574, tr. It follows, as Spenser acknowledges in the opening 1581/1586; see VI i 1.6n), for sections of it were line of canto i, ‘Of Court it seemes, men Courtesie included in Bryskett’s Discourse of Civill Life, which doe call’. In its wide range of meanings, the simplest claims to report his conversation with Spenser on is courtly etiquette and good manners. In this sense, moral philosophy. The full title of this last work, A it is more a social than a moral virtue, and therefore discourse, containing the ethicke part of morall philo-open to being feigned, as evident in the ‘faire dis-sophie: fit to instruct a gentleman in the course of a sembling curtesie’ seen by Colin at Elizabeth’s court vertuous life, could serve as a subtitle of Spenser’s (Colin Clout 700), which is ‘nought but forgerie’ poem, especially since Bryskett tells Lord Grey that (VI proem 5.3). While it is the virtue most closely his end is ‘to discourse upon the morall vertues, yet associated with the Elizabethan court and Elizabe-not omitting the intellectuall, to the end to frame a than culture generally, Spenser’s treatment of it goes gentleman fit for civill conversation, and to set him far beyond his own culture. As Chang 1955:202–20 in the direct way that leadeth him to his civill felicitie’ shows, it has an illuminating counterpart in the (6). See ‘courtesy books’ in the SEnc. Confucian concept of ritual. Spenser fashions a virtue As the final book of the 1596 edition, appropri-that may best be called civility, which is the basis ately Book VI raises larger questions about the whole of civilization; see VI proem 4.5n. Yet civility in poem. One such question is the relation of Spenser’s its political expression could legitimize violence in art to nature, and, for a generation of critics, the Ireland, as P. Stevens 1995 notes, and it is not sur-seminal essay has been ‘A Secret Discipline’ by Harry prising to see the patron of courtesy slaughtering the Berger, Jr, in which he concludes that ‘the secret (Irish) brigands at VI xi 46. Accordingly, its link with discipline of imagination is a double burden, discord-Machiavelli’s virtù has been rightly noted by Neuse ant and harmonious: first, its delight in the power 1968 and Danner 1998. On its general application and freedom of art; second, the controlled surrender to the uncertain human condition, see Northrop whereby it acknowledges the limits of artifice’ 2000. Ideally, though, it is the culminating moral (1988:242; first pub. 1961). As chastity is to Brito-virtue of The Faerie Queene, and, as such, has the mart, courtesy is to Calidore: the virtue is natural religious sense expressed by Peter in addressing those to him. He is courteous ‘by kind’ (ii 2.2): ‘gentle-whose faith, according to the Geneva gloss, is con-nesse of spright | And manners mylde were planted firmed ‘by holines of life’: ‘be ye all of one minde: naturall’ (i 2.3–4). It is natural also to Tristram one suffre with another: loue as brethren: be pitiful: because of his noble birth (ii 24) and proper nurtur-be courteous’ (1 Peter 3.8); see, for example, ing, as shown by his defence of the lady abused by Morgan 1981, and Tratner 1990:147–57. Without her discourteous knight. Its powers are shown in the courtesy’s ‘civility’ there would be no civilization; three opening cantos: Calidore may reform both without its ‘friendly offices that bynde’ (x 23.5), Crudor when he is threatened with death, and his there would be no Christian community. By includ-lady, Briana, who is ‘wondrously now chaung’d, ing courtesy among the virtues, Spenser fulfils from that she was afore’ (i 46.9) when she sees the Milton’s claim in Reason of Church Government that change in him (41–43). Also, he may restore Aldus

2014 ◽  
pp. 37-37
Keyword(s):  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Faerie Queene ◽  
Double Burden ◽  
Christian Community ◽  
General Application ◽  
1 Peter ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Faerie Queene

Conclusion

2020 ◽  
pp. 281-286
Author(s):  
Rebecca Maloy
Keyword(s):  
Future Research ◽  
Biblical Exegesis ◽  
Words And Images ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Musical Literacy

This chapter provides a summary and conclusion for the book and explores some potential areas for future research. Through the education of clergy and laity, the bishops strove to create a Visigothic kingdom unified in the Nicene faith. The chant texts and melodies were carefully constructed to serve these ends. Liturgy and chant were a practical way of instilling doctrine and modeling biblical exegesis, as part of a cultural program that was at once theological and ideological. By the time of the surviving manuscripts with notation, the Iberian cantors had developed a distinctive culture of musical literacy, in which particular neumes and neume patterns signaled specific melodic functions. Through analysis of these neume shapes, I have posited a sophisticated melodic grammar that is closely tied to textual syntax and aural aspects of the text such as word accent and assonance. Strategic placement of melismas, cadences, and melodic repetition underlined words and images that were central to the text’s typological meaning or liturgical use. Finally, I have considered the relationship of the sacrificia to offertories in other liturgical traditions. Further reportorial, textual, and melodies parallels between Western chant repertories remain to be discovered and explored through similar methodologies.

scholarly journals Tragic Time in Ben Jonson's Sejanus and Catiline

2020 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 136-153
Author(s):  
Leon Grek ◽  
Aaron Kachuck
Keyword(s):  
Political Violence ◽  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Historical Time ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Classical Literature ◽  
Bellum Civile ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Roman Tragedies

This essay explores Ben Jonson's treatment of dramatic and historical time in his Roman tragedies, Sejanus His Fall (1603) and Catiline His Conspiracy (1611). Although the plays conspicuously fail to respect neoclassical strictures about the unity of time, both reproduce the temporal compression of Greek and Roman tragedy through their sustained intertextual engagements with a wide range of Roman source texts, including, above all, Lucan's Bellum Civile, and the works of the late antique court poet Claudian. The ultimate effect of these quotations, allusions, and reminiscences is to transform Jonson's dramas of early imperial corruption and late Republican civil conflict into proleptic visions of Roman history as a phantasmagoria of unceasing political violence, extending to the ends of both classical antiquity and classical literature.

Medieval Latin Commentaries on Classical Myth

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Gerber
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Medieval Latin ◽  
Critical Editions ◽  
Classical Myth ◽  
Classical Mythology ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Classical Myths ◽  
The Middle Ages

As the abundance of extant medieval commentaries attests, classical mythology presented several conundrums for medieval audiences. The historical distance between the writers of classical myths and their medieval readers prompted numerous scholars to reframe and even rewrite their sources to ameliorate challenges ranging from complicated classical Latin syntax to theological conflicts between pagan polytheism and Christian monotheism. Despite its polytheism, classical mythology became a source for manifold medieval erudition, beginning with the grammatical studies that introduced students to Latin literacy. Scholars and writers since the beginning of the Christian Middle Ages turned to these myths to gain mastery over Latin, history, natural science, and even ethics. To study these subjects, medieval scholars produced collections of scholastic notes, or commentaries, primarily in Latin. The medieval commentary tradition began in classical antiquity itself. Soon after Virgil wrote his Aeneid, scholars started developing commentaries that prompted audiences both to study and to imitate his works. The Middle Ages inherited some of these commentaries, such as the influential commentaries by Servius on Virgil, which then influenced commentaries on other classical writers of myths, such as Ovid and Statius. The modern study of these diverse medieval materials has recently benefited from the increased availability of digital manuscripts, critical editions, and a few translations, all of which have facilitated more cross-commentary analyses than used to be possible. However, the wide range of interpretive approaches and formats as well as the irregularities of medieval scholastic transmission mean that much more work remains to be done on how medieval audiences accessed classical mythology. This article combines older foundational studies with more recent contributions to represent how modern criticism, like the commentaries it studies, takes many forms.

Rethinking Lessing's Laocoon

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Aesthetic Experience ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Historical Interpretation ◽  
250Th Anniversary ◽  
Seminal Work ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Words And Images

Ever since its publication in 1766, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing’s treatise Laocoon, or On the Limits of Painting and Poetry has shaped debates about aesthetic experience and the medial distinctions between words and images. Rethinking Lessing’s Laocoon provides a reassessment of this seminal work on its 250th anniversary, examining Lessing’s interpretation of ancient art and poetry, the Enlightenment contexts of the treatise, and its subsequent legacy in the fields of aesthetic, semiotics, and philosophy. Lessing’s essay is focused on an ancient statue and its interpretation, revisiting Greek and Roman texts and images to think about the spatial and temporal ‘limits’ (Grenzen) of what Lessing calls ‘poetry’ and ‘painting’. Yet the text is also embedded within Enlightenment theories of art, perception, and historical interpretation—as well as within the nascent eighteenth-century study of classical antiquity (Altertumswissenschaft). Rethinking Lessing’s Laocoon is concerned not just with Lessing’s reception of antiquity, but also with the reception of that reception up to the present day. It examines Lessing’s work from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, highlighting the importance of Lessing’s Laocoon not only to the Enlightenment, but more generally also within shifting attitudes to the classical past.

Good, theories of the

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine M. Korsgaard
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Intrinsic Value ◽  
Moral Virtue ◽  
General Term ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Moral Sense ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Term Functions ◽  
Virtuous Life ◽  
Definition Of

‘Good’ is the most general term of positive evaluation, used to recommend or express approval in a wide range of contexts. It indicates that a thing is desirable or worthy of choice, so that normally, if you have reason to want a certain kind of thing, you also have reason to prefer a good thing of that kind. A theory of the good may consist in a general account of the good, which is meant to apply to all good things; or in a definition of ‘good’, an account of how the term functions in the language. Theories of the good have metaphysical implications about the relations of fact and value. Many ancient and medieval philosophers believed in the ultimate identity of the real and the good. Modern philosophers reject this identification, and have held a range of positions: realists, for example, hold that the good is part of reality, while certain moral sense theorists hold that when we call something good we are projecting human interests onto reality; and emotivists hold that we use the term ‘good’ only to signify subjective approval. Theorists of the good also categorize different kinds of goodness and explain how they are related. Good things are standardly classified as ends, which are valued for their own sakes, or means, valued for the sake of the ends they promote. Some philosophers also divide them into intrinsic goods, which have their value in themselves, and extrinsic goods, which get their value from their relation to something else. Various theories have been held about the relation between these two distinctions – about whether an end must be something with intrinsic value. Philosophers also distinguish subjective goods – things which are good for someone in particular – from objective goods, which are good from everyone’s point of view. Views about how these kinds of goodness are related have important implications for moral philosophy. Usually, a theory of the good is constructed in the hope of shedding light on more substantive questions, such as what makes a person, an action, or a human life good. These questions raise issues about the relation between ethical and other values. For example, we may ask whether moral virtue is a special sort of goodness, or just the ordinary sort applied to persons. Or, since actions are valued as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, we may ask how these values are related to the action’s goodness or badness. We may also pose the question of whether a life that is good in the sense of being happy must also be a morally good or virtuous life. This last question has occupied the attention of philosophers ever since Plato.

Situating Spirituality

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Spiritual Practices ◽  
Social Characteristics ◽  
Western World ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
Wide Range

Spirituality is in the spotlight. While levels of religious belief and observance are declining in much of the Western world, interest in spirituality is surging. This volume advances our understanding of contemporary spirituality by highlighting its profoundly social dimensions. It demonstrates how spirituality is shaped by its religious, cultural, and political contexts; how embodied and collective spiritual practices undergird spiritual life and intersect with social characteristics (e.g., race, gender, and sexuality); and how spirituality is impacted by power relations and institutional arrangements. The contributors are leading international scholars, and their chapters address spirituality in a wide range of religious and global contexts.

Wissen ist Macht!

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Schindler
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Specific Form ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Distinct Form ◽  
Highly Educated ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Didactic Poetry ◽  
Classical Models ◽  
The One ◽  
Jesuit Order

AbstractWith his poems, which comprise more than 40.000 hexametric verses and cover a wide range of secular topics, the Neapolitan Jesuit Nicolò Partenio Giannettasio (1648-1715) represents a very distinct form of neo-Latin didactic poetry: on the one hand, Giannettasio’s poems refer to the literary models of classical antiquity such as Vergil’s Georgics and contemporary Jesuit didactic poetry such as René Rapin’s Hortorum libri. Hence, the poet from Naples claims for himself to be the natural heir of his ›Neapolitan‹ poetic predecessors Vergil, Pontano and Sannazaro. On the other hand, Giannettasio’s poetry can be regarded as a very specific instrument used to spread Jesuit doctrine. The secular topics of his poems perfectly match the scientific interests of the Societas Iesu, and at the end of the sixteenth century, it is exactly this specific form of poetry that grants its success. As the addressees of his didactic poems are highly educated aristocrats, Giannettasio tries to emulate their literary taste and arranges the scientific material in a way that resembles the baroque Kunstkammer rather than a (plain) scientific treatise. Nevertheless, Giannettasio never loses sight of the principles of the Jesuit order. All in all, Giannettasio’s didactic poems provide a unique example for the combination of scientific material, classical models, and Jesuit doctrine and for spreading a local literary microculture by means of the worldwide Jesuit network.

Aldhelm's prose style and its origins

1977 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 39-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Winterbottom
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Great Book ◽  
The Other ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Prose Style ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The One ◽  
Literary Origins ◽  
The Middle Ages

Eduard Norden's great bookDie antike Kunstprosais grounded on first-hand acquaintance with an astonishingly wide range of literature, both from classical antiquity and from the Middle Ages. But at the authors of Anglo-Saxon England Norden does seem to have drawn the line. ‘The two great writers, Aldhelm and Bede’, he says, ‘write, like all Anglo-Saxons, a stylistically uncultivated (verwildertes) though grammatically correct Latin.’ There is no need to labour the point that Aldhelm and Bede are not to be mentioned thus cavalierly in the same stylistic breath: we are all familiar today with the distinction between the ‘hermeneutic’ Latin of the one and the ‘classical’ Latin of the other. But at least Norden could not fall victim to another widely accepted doctrine that purports to explain the origin of that distinction: the doctrine that Aldhelm's style was influenced by Ireland, Bede's by the continent of Europe. I doubt if this is true even of Bede. But my present business is with Aldhelm; I shall try to show that his literary origins are not to be found in Ireland. At the same time I shall be challenging Norden's claim that his Latin was uncultivated. I shall suggest, indeed, that its cultivation was of a kind that Norden himself would have been uniquely qualified to analyse.

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