Bibliographical Scrupulousness and Philological Zeal: Conrad Gessner Working on the editio princeps of ‘Ad se ipsum’

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 349-375
Author(s):  
Mikhail Sergeev
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
The Other ◽  
Controversial Issue ◽  
Greek Text ◽  
Marcus Aurelius ◽  
History Of ◽  
Important Means ◽  
Printed Word ◽  
Editio Princeps ◽  
Self Stimulation

Abstract The article concerns the history of the first edition of Greek text of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations (1559), printed together with its Latin translation and commentary by Wilhelm Xylander. The Zurich philologist and naturalist Conrad Gessner documented it meticulously from its earliest steps in his Neo-Latin bibliographic handbooks, as well as other printed works and letters, meanwhile contributing somehow to its realization. The controversial issue of Gessner’s and Xylander’s role in the establishing of the text of editio princeps, and thus its attribution, is discussed in detail. The other question under consideration is how Gessner imagined the interaction of humanist philology and bibliography, which had to direct literary history in the age of printed word. Taking into account this particular case of Gessner’s bibliographic and philological inquiry, the author attempts to consider his Bibliotheca universalis not only as seminal compilative and critical work, but also as important means of communication and (self-)stimulation.

scholarly journals The First Catholic Bible in Chinese: Gabriele Allegra and His Translation

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-23
Author(s):  
Raissa De Gruttola
Keyword(s):  
Textual Analysis ◽  
The Other ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Greek Text ◽  
Bible Translation ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Biblical Study ◽  
Study Centre ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Christian missionaries play an important role in the history of the relationship between China and Europe. Their presence in China has been widely explored, but little attention has been paid to the role played by the Bible in their preaching. From 13th to 19th century, although they did not translate the Bible, Catholic missionaries preached the Gospel orally or with catechisms. On the other hand, the Protestant missionaries had published many version of the Chinese Bible throughout the 19th century. It was only in the 20th century that the Franciscan friar Gabriele Allegra decided to go to China as a missionary to translate the Holy Scriptures into Chinese. He arrived in China in 1931 and translated from 1935 to 1961. He also founded a biblical study centre to prepare expert scholars to collaborate in the Bible translation. Allegra and his colleagues completed the translation in 1961, and the first complete single-volume Catholic Bible in Chinese was published in 1968. After presenting the historical background of Allegra’s activity, a textual analysis of some passages of his translation will be presented, emphasizing the meanings of the Chinese words he chose to use to translate particular elements of Christian terminology. This study will verify the closeness of the work by Allegra to the original Greek text and the validity of some particular translation choices.

Write Your Mother

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda C. Seaman
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
Japanese Women ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Pregnancy And Childbirth ◽  
Second Wave Feminism ◽  
Meiji Era ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Second Wave

This chapter traces the literary history of Japanese women writing about pregnancy and childbirth, focusing on two key figures in this development. The first is Meiji-era poet Yosano Akiko whose works explored her experiences as an expectant mother and highlighted the unsettling aspects of pregnancy. While Yosano’s works permitted the literary treatment of formerly taboo issues, later writers rejected her lead, instead treating pregnancy as the prelude to motherhood, as a quasi-sacred moment. This persisted until the 1960s and 70s, when writers influenced by second-wave feminism challenged patriarchal society, rejecting the roles of wife and mother. The second was Tsushima Yuko, whose novels and stories explored alternative, mother-centered family models. Since then, writing about pregnancy rests on these two authors: on one side, treatments of pregnancy that emphasize the alien and the disquieting, and on the other, more ironic works, focusing upon the self-assertive and individualistic nature of childbearing.

Iuwers zornes unmâze / missevellet uns sêre – Legitimität von Maßlosigkeit im mittelalterlichen Erzählkosmos

2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-28
Author(s):  
Amelie Bendheim
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
The Other ◽  
Epic Hero ◽  
Heroic Epic ◽  
History Of ◽  
Flore Und Blanscheflur ◽  
The One ◽  
History Of Literature ◽  
Historical Epoch ◽  
Flexible Model

AbstractStarting from the deficiencies of current approaches regarding the description of the hero in medieval narratives, this article aims to functionalise exorbitance (unmâze) as a new category of literary history. Unlike the conceptual and binary typing of the protagonist as ‘hero’ resp. ‘knight’, this category promotes a flexible model that operates relationally and hence enables gradual differentiations between the texts.Examples of medieval (heroic) epic (‘Nibelungenlied’) and (chivalric) romance (‘Flore und Blanscheflur’, ‘Wigalois’) will show the narrative treatment and stylisation of the exorbitant hero. The focus will be on the varying assessments of his acts: If the epic hero is able to defy social norms and current laws (cf. Siegfried’s courtship, Hagen’s murdering of Siegfried) without being penalised, the exorbitance in the romance falls within the scope of ‘ratio’. Thus, exorbitance is on the one hand confined and ‘assessed’, on the other hand excessive acts are rigorously sanctioned and inhibited. Referring to the current manifestations of exorbitance in the socio-political context, the concept of exorbitance emerges as an unchanged productive pattern. Its socio-political relevance encourages a literary-historical, epoch-spanning use of this concept, whose scope is a re-assessment of the history of literature as the history of exorbitance.

The comparative context and methodology of literary history in Hanuš Jelínek’s Histoire de la littérature tchèque

2016 ◽  
Vol 61 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 15-20
Author(s):  
Miloš Zelenka
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
Cultural Policy ◽  
The Other ◽  
European Perspective ◽  
Cultural Relations ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Aesthetic Form ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Synthetic Work

Abstract The paper evaluates the importance of the French-written Histoire de la littérature tchèque I–III [The History of Czech Literature] (1930–1935) by Hanuš Jelínek (1878–1944), a leading expert and authority on French–Czech cultural relations. His synthetic work destined for French readers and completed outside the modern methodological context of the 1930s draws on Ernest Denis’ concept of Czech literary development as the ‘literature of struggle’ against the German element, while its composition is inspired by Arne Novák’s history written in German, and his expository method follows in the footsteps of his mentor Jaroslav Vlček. Therefore, Jelínek conceives literary development as a continual motion of ideas within an aesthetic form, as a subject-stratified, multi-layered story unified by the central outlook enabling him on the one hand to emphasise the nationally defensive aspect of Czech literature, and, on the other hand, to present it through parallels and illustrative examples within the European perspective. Jelínek’s Histoire, supplemented with a number of his own translations of Czech authors, is a particular narrative–historical genre – the epitome of the young Czech nation’s cultural policy and an archetype of cordial relations between the Czechoslovak and French cultures.

The Story and the Myth of the Igor’ Tale

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 193-216
Author(s):  
Harvey Goldblatt
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
Popular Song ◽  
Verbal Art ◽  
Literary Traditions ◽  
The People ◽  
Invented Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
European Thought ◽  
Editio Princeps ◽  
Literary Reception

Abstract Since its discovery in the 1790s and the publication of the editio princeps in 1800, the Igor’ Tale has been defined and examined in many different ways. The aim of the present study is to focus on the beginnings of literary reception (1800–1850) for this masterpiece of Old Rus’ verbal art. This study commences with the assertion that the history of the work’s interpretation serves a double purpose. This dual interpretive vision (1) is grounded in the twofold nature of literary history (i.e., in the distinction between literary history proper and literary reception), (2) obliges us to view the Igor’ Tale against a variety of cultural backdrops (including both medieval Western literary traditions and contemporary European thought), and (3) requires us to reflect on the importance of an emerging nationalist orientation and, in particular, of Herder’s underlying ideas of “national individuality” and “spirit of the people.” The present study treats the following interpretive motifs and their relevance for the analysis of the Igor’ Tale in the first half of the nineteenth century: (1) The Igor’ Tale as a Popular Song and Native Artistic Masterpiece; (2) Publication of the Igor’ Tale and its Reception by the Cultural Elite; (3) Interpretive Legacies of the Editio Princeps and the Place of N.M. Karamzin; and (4) From the Invented Tradition of Ossian to the National Spirit and Veneration of the Igor’ Tale.

Who’s afraid of Mihai Iovănel? Regimes of Relevance and New Literary Historiography

Transilvania ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 32-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ovio Olaru
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
The Other ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Literary Historiography ◽  
Production Study ◽  
The Social ◽  
Aesthetic Autonomy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Romanian Literature ◽  
The One

The present article addresses Mihai Iovănel’s recently published History of Contemporary Romanian Literature: 1990-2020 while pursuing a series of similarities with other contributions to postcommunist national literatures in the Central and Eastern European cultural space, on the one hand, and with previous ways of understanding the concept of literary history, on the other. The article argues that Iovănel’s History is one of the first to assess the importance of the social in the production, study, and national, as well as transnational dissemination of Romanian literature, an emphasis without which the study of literary phenomena risks falling into the blindness of aesthetic autonomy, whose shortcomings are well documented in the book. Lastly, I will argue that Iovănel unwillingly describes several of the most notable shifts in the “regimes of relevance” (Galin Tihanov) that literature has undergone from the communist period to contemporary times.

The Order and the Other

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph W. Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Literary History ◽  
The Other ◽  
Surveillance Culture ◽  
Literature And Science ◽  
Dystopian Literature ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Way

The Order and the Other is a call to reexamine the relationship between dystopian literature and science fiction by thinking about the work that each genre does on and for the reader. The author believes that this is especially necessary in regards to dystopian literature intended for adolescents. Now that the cultural boom of YA Dystopian texts is over, this book attempts to understand that boom by placing dystopian works into the larger context of belonging to literary history of dystopian works. It attempts to help readers see how surveillance and power form the way that not only the characters within the films or books think about themselves, but also how it shapes the readers, as well. It also helps show that the surveillance culture and state that we see within such texts is not dependent on science fiction genre structures to exist. Finally, the book examines the most recent efforts to understand the genre and suggests ways inquiry into the genre might go forward.

scholarly journals XXVII.—On the Literary History of Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Britons, and of the Romantic Cycle of King Arthur. By Thomas Wright, M.A., F.S.A., &c.

Archaeologia ◽  
1846 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 335-349
Author(s):  
Thomas Wright
Keyword(s):  
Literary History ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
The Other ◽  
King Arthur ◽  
Imperial Power ◽  
History Of ◽  
Roman Province

The history of Britain, during the latter years of its existence as a Roman province, is that of a series of rebellious usurpations in opposition or rivalry to the wearer of the imperial purple at Rome; and the manner in which these usurpations were carried on proves not only how the Romano-British population of this island had become essentially Roman in its character, but that the imperial power was fast drawing towards an end. About the middle of the fifth century, as the communications with Rome were cut off by the inroads and conquests of the barbarians in the other provinces, another race, of whom we are in the habit of speaking collectively as the Saxons, who had certainly been settled on the eastern coasts of Britain for years, and who had joined in supporting the Romano-British usurpers, began to contend for mastery in the island. In the dim cloud that envelopes the subsequent history, we can just trace the faint outlines of civil contention, until in the course of the latter half of the fifth century the different tribes of Germanic invaders had established their power over the greater part of what is now called England.

Arheologii ale prezentului în Istoria literaturii române contemporane: 1990-2020

Transilvania ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 61-66
Author(s):  
Adriana Stan
Keyword(s):  
Critical Points ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Turning Point ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
The Other ◽  
National Literature ◽  
History Of ◽  
Per Se ◽  
Romanian Literature ◽  
Thaw Period

The paper disscusses the literary-historiographical enterprise of Mihai Iovănel’s History of the Contemporary Romanian Literature: 1990-2000 as a turning point in respect with the twofold aesthetic and ethnocentric dominant of this genre in Romania, whose tradition that is traceable back to the pos-Thaw period prolongs into postcommunism. Iovănel’s self-claimed ”postmarxist” approach puts under a deconstructive lens the ideological embededness of the Romanian literary space, whose postcommunist avatar still owes largely to its communist heritage by its indebtment to dominantly conservative and right ideologies. It also switches the analytical focus of the literary history towards the material (i.e. social, institutional, and so forth) conditions of the literary production per se. My essays develops two basic critical points derived from the above-mentioned premises. One concerns the topicality of the literary historian’s leftist vantage point in the view of deciphering long-engrained myths of the national literature and of its criticism, thus providing a clearer, more realist picture of its concrete phenomena. The other debates the utility and eventual drawbacks of the retrospective analysis the historian is forced to assume in order to achieve his deconstructive task, a retrospection that pushes his investigation way behind the confines of ”contemporaneity”.

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