Description
In the early modern period – ca. 1480-1700 – a scholarly programme was carried out of a quality and size hitherto unknown in the western world: the whole body of the Latin literature of antiquity should be edited afresh and critically, and be furnished with scholarly commentaries. Commentaries on classical authors as Virgil, Juvenal, Terence, Pliny the Elder and Suetonius played a totally different role than in present times: while nowadays they function only in the limited contexts of secondary schools and academic teaching, in the early modern period they were regarded as the foundation and treasure of all learning and knowledge. The new commentators transformed the classical texts into multifunctional archives of knowledge. From this fact it appears that the Neo-Latin commentary is of pivotal importance for the understanding of early modern scholarship and science.
The seminar aims at analysing the ways in which the cultural heritage of antiquity was transmitted: the specific strategies and types of comment that were applied; the literary and intellectual discourses they were composed in; in which way and to which degree the specific strategies, types, forms, discourses of comment were interrelated to earlier traditions of commenting texts (classical antiquity; middle ages; commentaries on the bible). In the 16th century, this practice of textual comment caused a profound change of reading practices as well: the traditional linear reading was more and more replaced by a cursory and searching reading (in a sense similar to ‘browsing’ in electronically available texts): in the first place, the early modern appropriation of the classical text took place via comments and indices. The attention of the reader switched to and fro from the commentary to the main text and vice versa, from the indices to the main text, from one commentary lemma to the other. In this sense, the humanist commentary functioned similarly to the use of the Internet. In the seminar, a selection of commentaries on ancient writers (15th-17th centuries) will be discussed. The selection (e.g. commentaries on prose authors or on poets) will depend on the special interest of the participants. The seminar is connected with the NWO-programme (2008-2012) directed by Prof. Dr. Enenkel.
Teaching method
Seminar
Admission requirements
Completed BA Classics
Course objectives
Skills: To set up, organize and exert a research of a complex topic with a limited amount of textual sources. Heuristic, philological, argumentative and presentational skills are required and trained. Practice with old printed books. Oral presentation and paper.
Course load
10 ects (can also be taken for 5 ects)
Required reading
Selective Bibliography:
I. Secondary literature:
Buck, A., Herding, O. (eds.), Der Kommentar in der Renaissance, Boppard 1975
Enenkel, K.A.E., ‘Ars antiquitatis: Erkenntnissteuerung und Wissensverwaltung in Werken zur römischen Kulturgeschichte (ca. 1500-1750)’, in: id., Neuber, W. (eds.) Cognition and the Book. Typologies of Formal Organisation of Knowledge in the Printed Book of the Early Modern Period (Intersections 4), 2005, 51-123.
Genette, G., Seuils, Seuil, Paris 1987
IJsewijn, J., Sacré, D. Companion to Neo-Latin Studies, vol. 2: Literary, Linguistic, Philological and Editorial Questions, Louvain 1998.
Kristeller, P.O., e.a. (eds.), Catalogus translationum et commentariorum. Mediaeval and Renaissance Latin Translations and Commentaries. Annotated Lists and Guides, 8 vols., Washington 1960-2003.
McKinley, K.L., Reading the Ovidian Heroine. “Metamorphoses” Commentaries 1100-1618, Leiden 2001.
Moss, A., Ovid in Renaissance France. A Survey of the Latin Editions of Ovid and Commentaries Printed in France before 1600, London 1982.
Pade, M. (ed.), On Renaissance Commentaries, Hildesheim 2005.
Pfeiffer, R., History of Classical Scholarship from 1300 to 1850, 2 vols., Oxford 1968-1976.
Sandkühler, B., Die frühen Dantekommentare und ihr Verhältnis zur mittelalterlichen Kommentartradition, Munich 1967.
Sandys, J.E., A History of Classical Scholarship, 3 vols., Cambridge 1900-1908.
II. Primary literature: Selection of Early Modern Commenatries: will be made after consultation at the beginning of the course.
Test method
Oral presentation, paper and active participation.
Time table
Information
Prof. Dr. K. Enenkel (k.a.e.enenkel@hum.leidenuniv.nl)
Registration
Please enroll in U-twist, choose “GLTC” in the administration list:
http://www.ulcn.leidenuniv.nl/content_docs/inloggen/inloggen_u-twist.htm
Blackboard
Blackboard will not be used.
Remarks
Examination: Oral presentation (20%), active participation in the discussion (10%) and paper (70%).