scholarly journals Philology and the History of Words: Some Notes on the Humanists’ Etymological Argumentation

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-116
Author(s):  
Mikhail Sergeev ◽  

The article concerns the influence of humanist scholarship on sixteenth-century etymological practices, testified in the Neo-Latin reference works and special treatises on linguistics and history. Being an important part of historical research, which relied mostly on Greek and Latin literary sources, etymology could not but adopt some important principles and instruments of contemporary philological work, notably on the source criticism. The foremost rule was to study the sources in their original language, form, and eliminate any corrupted data as well as any information not attested in written sources. This presumed that every text had its own written history, which tended to be a gradual deterioration of its state, represented in the manuscript tradition that was subject to scribal errors and misinterpretations. This view on the textual history was strikingly consonant with that on the history of languages, which was treated by the humanists as permanent corruption and inevitable degeneration from the noble and perfect state of their ancient ancestors. In an effort to restore the original text, philology used emendation as a cure for scribal abuse and textual losses; likewise, language historians had their own tool, namely etymology, to reconstruct and explain the original form of words (including the nomenclature of various sciences). The intersection of both procedures is taken into account in the article and it demonstrates how textual conjectures, manuscript collation, and graphical interpretation of misreadings were employed by the sixteenth-century scholars to corroborate their etymological speculations, which established themselves as one of the ways of the reception and criticism of classical scholarly heritage.

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 137
Author(s):  
Foteini SPINGOU

<!--StartFragment--><p style="line-height: 150%" class="MsoNormal"><!-- /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:85; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:129 0 0 0 8 0;} @font-face {font-family:Gentium; panose-1:2 0 5 3 6 0 0 2 0 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:auto; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:131 0 0 0 9 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:""; margin:0cm; margin-bottom:.0001pt; text-align:justify; line-height:150%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ascii-font-family:Gentium; mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Gentium; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} @page Section1 {size:595.0pt 842.0pt; margin:62.35pt 89.85pt 62.35pt 89.85pt; mso-header-margin:25.5pt; mso-footer-margin:25.5pt; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} --></p><p> In the summer/autumn of 1175, Manuel Komnenos (1143-1180) undertook the rebuilding of Dorylaion, one of the major <em>aplekta</em> in Asia Minor. For this occasion a poem was written. The strong acquaintance of the poet with the conventions of court literature, the occasional content of the poem and its panegyric character, suggest that the text was written for a small ceremony which took place at Dorylaion. The author is probably an anonymous professional court poet who accompanied Manuel in his expedition. The authorship is further discussed since the manuscript tradition might suggest that John Tzetzes was the author. After a close look at the language, style and metre of the poem, this identification is excluded. In 1908, Spyridon Lambros published the poem on the basis of manuscript <em>Barocci 194</em> (fifteenth century) of the Bodleian Library. This study re-edits the poem on the basis of two more manuscripts: manuscript <em>Parisinus Graecus 2644</em> (late thirteenth century) of the Bibliothèque Nationale and <em>Auctarium T.1.10</em> of the Bodleian Library (sixteenth century). The history of each manuscript is analysed and the relation between them examined. It is established that the <em>Auctarium</em> is a direct copy from the Parisian manuscript. The metrical analysis of the poem follows and special textual problems are discussed. Finally, the translation of the original text is provided. </p><p> </p><p> </p>


Author(s):  
Vladyslava Akkurt ◽  
Alexander Procopenco ◽  
Rymma Pastyr

The article deals with features and problems of translating texts of Englishlanguage songs and ways of translating them into Ukrainian by the blogger UkrTrashDub. With the advent of American culture and its influence on Ukrainian youth, research is becoming increasingly relevant in our time. In the course of a comparative analysis of the original, it was revealed that linguistic realities and reproduction of the form of the original text are the main difficulties in the perception and translation of songs. Despite a deep understanding of the ideological and thematic orientation of the original text, the translator must be able to find adequate verbal means and the specifics of the author’s language. In addition, when translating is a poetic text, it is very important to preserve its rhythmic organization and rhyme system, which, however, is not always possible. Speaking about the ways of translating lyrics, the authors dwell on the rhymed method of translation, focusing on achieving the maximum possible adequacy of the translation. Particular attention is paid to the social factor that motivates the existence of this type of translation. As part of the study, the main features, problems and means of translating English-language songs into Ukrainian were identified. The main features include: unstable poetic meter; the huge influence of the culture of native speakers of the original text; a large number of the realities of the culture of the native speakers of the original language depicted in the lyrics. The problems of translating lyrics are: preservation of the original form; adaptation and/or transmission of foreign language realities and the difference in languages, which forms the approach to writing poetry. It can be concluded that the main features of the translation of English songs are related to the preservation of the original form.


2001 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 485-497 ◽  
Author(s):  
CRAIG MONK

By the mid-1960s, American writer Kay Boyle was in possession of a three-book contract from Doubleday publishers in New York. The cornerstone of this deal was to be a history of Germany, a manuscript she began in the late 1950s. Boyle encountered difficulties completing this work, and after lobbying successfully to write a history of German women instead, she eventually abandoned the project altogether. To help her meet her professional obligations, Boyle hoped that Doubleday would accept a new plan to republish Three Short Novels, a work that had appeared under the Beacon imprint in 1958. That publisher still had four thousand copies of the book in its warehouse, however, and Doubleday editor Ken McCormick was unable to agree to Boyle’s proposal. McCormick suggested instead that she undertake work revising Robert McAlmon’s 1938 autobiography, Being Geniuses Together. Indeed, in the years following his death in 1956, Boyle had been unsuccessful in locating an American publisher for her friend’s book, so when Doubleday brought forward an edition of the work in 1968, it contained alternate chapters written by Kay Boyle, herself. McAlmon’s original text is approximately one hundred and ten thousand words in length; Boyle’s edition is one hundred and sixty thousand words, only seventy thousand of which were written by Robert McAlmon. ‘‘This present book is his,’’ Boyle wrote of McAlmon’s achievement in her 1984 afterword (333), and while one might argue that this is the case, no one can question the fact that his book was altered substantially from its original form.


1994 ◽  
Vol 108 (4) ◽  
pp. 157-170
Author(s):  
Hugo Van Der Velden

AbstractA South Netherlandish panel in the collection of the Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, painted around 1475-85, can be identified as one of the few surviving fifteenth-century justice pictures. Bruyn succeeded in tracing the painting's enigmatic iconography to a mediaeval 'exemplum', The King's Brother Threatened with Death, in which elements from The Sword of Damocles and from the story of the trumpet of death in the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat are combined into a single history. In the Gesta Romanorum, under the heading 'De timore extremi iudicii', the tale is told of a wise and righteous king who threatens to have his frivolous brother executed as a means of demonstrating his own state of mind: the thought of the Last Judgement makes it impossible for him to abandon himself to the pleasures of earthly life. In written sources this 'exemplum' is often associated with 'righteousness', becoming more closely interwoven with the practice of secular justice as time passed. In the fourteenth century, for example, it featured in a moralizing discourse on good and righteous government (the Ludus Scaccorum) and in the fifteenth century as a model of god-fearing conduct - even in a code of law (the Wetboek van Den Briel). This development corresponds closely with the literary history of other judgement scenes, such as the Judgement of Cambyses. The cited literary sources stress that judges should be filled with 'Timor Dei' as exemplified by the story of the king and his brother. The tenor of the 'exemplum' is a reminder that the secular judge will eventually have to answer for his actions to the Supreme Judge, an idea which was conveyed in town halls by representations of the Last Jugement. In view of the written tradition it is quite likely that the panel in Sarasota and two other representations of The King's Brother Threatment with Death - a drawing attributed to Lucas van Leyden and a stained-glass window - served as (designs for) a judgement picture. This interpretation is substantiated by sixteenth-century pictorial sources. In both a South German drawing and a print by Theodoor de Bry the story of the king's brother is combined with a number of familiar 'exempla iustitiae'.


2012 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 107-123
Author(s):  
Katharine K. Olson

This essay offers a reconsideration of the idea of ‘The Great Century’ of Welsh literature (1435–1535) and related assumptions of periodization for understanding the development of lay piety and literature in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Wales. It focuses on the origins of these ideas in (and their debt to) modern Welsh nationalist and Protestant and Catholic confessional thought, and their significance for the interpretation of Welsh literature and history. In addition, it questions their accuracy and usefulness in the light of contemporary patterns of manuscript production, patronage and devotional content of Welsh books of poetry and prose produced by the laity during and after this ‘golden age’ of literature. Despite the existence of over a hundred printed works in Welsh by 1660, the vernacular manuscript tradition remained robust; indeed, ‘native culture for the most part continued to be transmitted as it had been transmitted for centuries, orally or in manuscript’ until the eighteenth century. Bardic poetry’s value as a fundamental source for the history of medieval Ireland and Wales has been rightly acknowledged. However, more generally, Welsh manuscripts of both poetry and prose must be seen as a crucial historical source. They tell us much about contemporary views, interests and priorities, and offer a significant window onto the devotional world of medieval and early modern Welsh men and women. Drawing on recent work on Welsh literature, this paper explores the production and patronage of such books and the dynamics of cultural and religious change. Utilizing National Library of Wales Llanstephan MS 117D as a case study, it also examines their significance and implications for broader trends in lay piety and the nature of religious change in Wales.


2016 ◽  
Vol 96 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 130-154
Author(s):  
Maria Teresa Chicote Pompanin

L’Alcorano published by Arrivabene in 1547 has been considered a servile copy of Theodor Bibliander’s edition since the sixteenth century, but this conception has changed radically due to a recent publication (Tommasino, 2013). Starting off from this publication, this essay aims to delve further into L’Alcorano suggesting that the book was an innovative product, not only because of its literary sources and translation, but also due to the presence of meaningful iconographical details in its capital letters. At the same time, an analysis of the cornice istoriata reveals its images as the very first visual representation of Muhammad’s life. The paper also puts forward a hypothesis about the book’s creation, considering it a joint venture involving several bookmen: Arrivabene, Comin da Trino, Bernardino Bindoni, and Bertolomeo detto Imperatore. The final section deals with the influence and material history of the book and its iconography during the centuries following its publication.


Author(s):  
Antonio Urquízar-Herrera

Chapter 5 explores the codification of antiquarian writing in Spain in its original form as expressed by Ambrosio de Morales in Las Antigüedades de las ciudades de España (1575), and particularly it considers the consequences of the inclusion of Córdoba Mosque and Madinat al-Zahra in this commentary. The terms of the description and Morales’ use of antiquarian tools are analyzed. In addition, the chapter deals with the interesting methodological debate Morales’ writings gave rise (Pedro Díaz de Ribas, Gregorio López Madera, Alonso Morgado, among others) to around the use of antiquarian tools in formal historical research of Islamic monuments: literary sources, epigraphy, and archaeological analyses of the materials and building techniques (stones, bricks, and mortar). Finally, the chapter deals with the conflictive relationship between the narratives on the Islamic antiquities of Spain, the antiquarian vocabulary and the classical canon.


2009 ◽  
Vol 53 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica H Green

Few medical authors can unambiguously claim to have written one of the most important works in their field: most important not simply in one language but in half a dozen, and not simply for a few years but for over a century and a half. Yet that distinction has long been given to the work of a largely obscure early sixteenth-century apothecary-turned-physician from Freiburg, Worms, and Frankfurt, one Eucharius Rösslin (c. 1470–c. 1526). His Der Swangern Frauwen und Hebammen Rosegarten (Rosegarden for Pregnant Women and Midwives), first published in Strasbourg and Hagenau in 1513, went through at least sixteen editions in its original form, was revised into three different German versions (each of which went through multiple printings), and was translated into Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, Italian, Latin, and Spanish, with almost all of these translations then going through their own multiple editions. The Rosegarten is the only work known to have been produced by Rösslin. His son, Eucharius Rösslin Jr, further capitalized on the work by producing in 1526 a German compilation of “marriage texts” which he called Ehestandts Artzney; this included his father's Rosegarten as well as extracts from the Enneas muliebris (Nine-Part Treatise on Women) by Ludovico Bonacciuoli (d. c. 1540), a herbal by Johannes Cuba (Johann Wonnecke von Caub, d. 1503/4), and Bartholomeus Metlinger's (born after 1440) tract on paediatrics. Eucharius Jr. also produced a Latin translation of the Rosegarten in 1532. That Rösslin's work was only the third obstetrical text addressed directly to an audience of midwives in a thousand years also places it in an important position in the history of the professionalization of midwifery. While it remains to be determined how frequently midwives themselves read the text, it is clear that both physicians and laypersons used the Rosegarten and later adaptations as the basis for medical training and as a reference for information on generation.


Author(s):  
Chiara Concina

Abstract: La vicenda testuale del volgarizzamento catalano del De consolatione philosophiae di Boezio si caratterizza per la problematicità dei suoi aspetti redazionali e per la complessità della sua tradizione manoscritta. Il perduto testo originale di questa traduzione, realizzata dal frate domenicano Pere Saplana in un periodo compreso tra il 1358 e il 1362, si è infatti conservato in due redazioni differenti. La prima (?), anonima, è tramandata da un testimone completo in castigliano e da un frammento catalano. La seconda (?), tràdita da un numero elevato di testimoni, è invece il risultato di un lavoro di revisione operato sul testo di Saplana dal domenicano Antoni Ginebreda (1390 c.). In tempi recenti uno dei due codici del Boeci conservati presso l’Arxiu Comarcal de la Segarra di Cervera (sigla J) è stato indicato come possibile latore di una redazione prossima ad ?, considerata in molti punti quella più conservativa rispetto all’originale di Saplana. Il contributo offre un’indagine preliminare riguardante la struttura e i contenuti del testo tràdito dal codice J ponendolo in relazione con quanto tramandato da ? e ?.   Parole-chiave: Boezio; volgarizzamenti medievali; volgarizzamenti catalani; Pere Saplana; Antoni Ginebreda     Abstract: The history of Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae Catalan translation is particularly complex for what concerns its manuscript tradition as well as for the textual differences that can be found in the exstant versions of it. The lost original version of this vernacular translation, written around the years 1358-1362 by the Dominican friar Pere Saplana, is preserved in two different versions. The first one (?) is anonymous, and has survived in its complete form in a Castilian translation and in a Catalan fragment. The second (?) is transmitted by a large number of witnesses and is the result of a revision of Saplana’s text made around 1390 by the Dominican Antoni Ginebreda. One of the two manuscripts containing this translation preserved in the Arxiu Comarcal de la Segarra of Cervera (designed as J) was recently mentioned as the possible bearer of a version very similar to ?, considered the closest to Saplana’s original text. The paper offers a first analysis of the structure and the readings of the text of J, comparing them to the versions transmitted by ? and ?.   Keywords: Boethius; Medieval Translations; Catalan Translations; Pere Saplana; Antoni Ginebreda


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