528 research outputs found
Milton's Hellenism
This thesis investigates the Hellenism of the English poet John Milton from his student writings at Cambridge through to Paradise Lost. It explores Miltonâs engagement with classical, Hellenistic, Byzantine, and Early Modern Greek texts and it considers Miltonâs reading of Greek scholarship and interactions with Greek scholars and Hellenic scholarship. Chapter 1, âMiltonâs Cambridge Greekâ, consists of two sections: âProtestant Hellenism at Miltonâs Cambridge: A Case Study of James Duportâs Greek Paraphrase of the Book of Job, Threnothriambos (1637)â and âGreek and the âLady of Christâs Collegeâ: LatinâGreek Code-Switching in Milton âProlusion VIââ. Chapter 2, âMilton Among the Hellenists in England and Italyâ considers the role that Greek played in Miltonâs correspondence and poetic exchanges with Charles Diodati and Lucas Holstenius; it also considers the nature of Miltonâs own Hellenic research at libraries in Rome and Florence during his travels in Italy from 1638â39. Chapter 3 considers the political and polemical roles that Greek texts played for Milton from the mid-1640s to 1660 and consists of three sections: âMarshallâs Ignorant Hand: Miltonâs Greek Epigram and the 1645 Poems Frontispiece and the First Edition of Langbaineâs Longinus (1636)â; âO Soul of Sir John Cheek: Milton and the Legacy of Sixteenth-Century Greek Humanismâ; and âJohn Milton, Leonard Philaras, and Early Modern Advocacy for Greeceâs Liberation from the Ottoman Empireâ. The final, fourth chapter explores the influence of Greek textsâranging from the Homeric epics and the fragmentary Epic Cycle through to Byzantine and Early Modern Greek textsâupon Miltonâs design of Books 1 and 2 of Paradise Lost
Recommended from our members
On Naming and Knowing Plants: Botanical Latin from Pliny the Elder to Otto Brunfelsâ 1530 Herbarum Vivae Eicones
In 1530, a German physician named Otto Brunfels published an herbal entitled Herbarum Vivae Eicones (Living Images of Herbs). In it, he planned to map the names of medicinal herbs known in and native to Germany onto their Greek and Latin names. Brunfelsâ audience included fellow physicians and in order to assist with the identification of the herbs in his book, his publisher employed a woodcut artist to produce realistic images of them, a novelty in the genre of printed herbals. Over time, Brunfelsâ work was superseded by 16th-century botanists and his legacy was relegated to the illustrations of his herbs, while his contributions to the naming and description of them were dismissed as unoriginal. However, a closer examination reveals Brunfelsâ herbal as a transitional text bridging the gap between the herbal tradition and the development of the science of botany.
In addition to citing Pliny the Elder as his primary authoritative influence, Brunfels also references a number of 15th-century Italian humanist scholars who were neither botanists nor physicians, but who were known for their critiques of the early printed editions of Plinyâs Historia Naturalis and even of Pliny himself as a natural history authority. Thus, Brunfelsâ herbal is tied to the manuscript and printing history of Pliny and to humanist attempts to correct and stabilize his text. Moreover, in the course of his work, Brunfels encountered a number of herbs that were known to him, but whose Latin and Greek nomenclature he could not accurately identify. As a result, he was forced to describe in his own words, in original Latin, these herbae nudae with German nomenclature but with unknown Greek and Latin names.
In addition, Brunfels encounters considerable disagreement among the ancient authorities about the naming and classification of other herbs and he is again forced to insert his own opinion, which he calls iudicium nostrum. I argue that Brunfelsâ original Latin is a very early example of what would eventually become formal botanical Latin. Brunfelsâ herbal is situated in such a way that it looks backward whilst simultaneously looking forward. It is an object of reception, appropriating terminology and methods from Pliny the Elder and from the humanist scholars who debated the quality of the printed editions of his work and the accuracy of the information provided in it. It is simultaneously the subject of reception, demonstrating a halting, hesitant vocabulary and style of Latinity that would eventually come to be identified with botany as a discipline.
Chapter 1 addresses Plinyâs ideas of what constitutes knowledge (cognitio) about plants in the Historia Naturalis, via his arguments against improper nomenclature (nomina nuda) and the alignment of herbal medicine with magic (magicae herbae). Plinyâs advocacy for proper methodology (experience over book learning) is also examined. Chapter 2 turns to the manuscript tradition of Plinyâs text and the first two printed editions, in 1469 and 1470, which were corrupt and resulted in an unstable, inaccurate text.
In Chapter 3, the reactions of the Italian humanists to these early printed editions are considered, along with the transition from critiques of the editors and printers to debates about inaccuracies that can be traced to Pliny himself. Chapter 4 turns to Otto Brunfels and traces his reliance on Pliny as well as on the Italian humanists, especially Ermolao Barbaro, who claimed to âhealâ the errors in Pliny and stabilized his text. Brunfelsâ original descriptions of herbs are also discussed. In the conclusion, Brunfelsâ work is compared with that of botanists who postdated him, including Leonhard Fuchs, Kaspar Bauhin, and Karl Linnaeus
The Importance of Being Eelco
Programming language designers and implementers are taught that:
semantics are more worthwhile than syntax, that programs exist to embody proofs, rather than to get work done, and to value Dijkstra more than Van Wijngaarden.
Eelco Visser believed that, while there is value in the items on the left, there is at least as much value in the items on the right. This short paper explores how Eelco Visser embodied these values, and how he encouraged our work on the Grace programming language, supported that work withio Spoofax, and provided a venue for discussion within the WG2.16 Programming Language Design working group
Publishing Sacroboscoâs De sphaera in Early Modern Europe
This open access volume focuses on the cultural background of the pivotal transformations of scientific knowledge in the early modern period. It investigates the rich edition history of Johannes de Sacroboscoâs Tractatus de sphaera, by far the most widely disseminated textbook on geocentric cosmology, from the unique standpoint of the many printers, publishers, and booksellers who steered this text from manuscript to print culture, and in doing so transformed it into an established platform of scientific learning. The corpus, constituted of 359 different editions featuring Sacroboscoâs treatise on cosmology and astronomy printed between 1472 and 1650, represents the scientific European shared knowledge concerned with the cosmological worldview of the early modern period until far after the publication of Copernicusâ De revolutionibus orbium coelestium in 1543. The contributions to this volume show how the academic book trade influenced the process of homogenization of scientific knowledge. They also describe the material infrastructure through which such knowledge was disseminated, and thus define the premises for the foundation of modern scientific communities
From West to North Frisia:a journey along the North Sea Coast : Frisian studies in honour of Jarich Hoekstra
"This volume contains 25 articles covering a wide array of subjects, reflecting the breadth of scholarship of one of today's leading experts in the field of Frisian Studies. The articles, written mostly in English and German, encompass a temporal range from Old Frisian to Modern Frisian and a geographical range from West Frisian in the Netherlands to Sater and North Frisian in Germany, and include Low German. Some articles initiate new fields of enquiry, e.g. uncharted areas of dialectology, others give comprehensive reviews of certain domains, e.g. the provenance of Old Frisian law texts, while a third category focusses on specific topics ranging from phonology, grammar and etymology to aspects of Frisian literature and a medieval Frisian ballad
- âŠ