A prehistory of today's humanities, from ancient Greece to the early twentieth century Many today do not recognize the word, but "philology" was for centuries nearly synonymous with humanistic intellectual life, encompassing not only the study of Greek and Roman literature and the Bible but also all other studies of language and literature, as well as history, culture, art, and more. In short, philology was the queen of the human sciences. How did it become little more than an archaic word? (...) In Philology, the first history of Western humanistic learning as a connected whole ever published in English, James Turner tells the fascinating, forgotten story of how the study of languages and texts led to the modern humanities and the modern university. The humanities today face a crisis of relevance, if not of meaning and purpose. Understanding their common origins—and what they still share—has never been more urgent. (shrink)

In the Early Modern era of encyclopedias, the Bible functioned as a tool for managing and organizing the superabundance of information. From Johann Alsted to Johann Scheuchzer, this paper traces the use of the Biblical encyclopedia and the ways that the Bible was deployed to control the data that flooded the world of Early Modern scholarship. In a variety of contexts, the Bible served as a structure for generating meaningful statements from informational noise. In turn, the use of the Bible (...) as a principle of organization would have profound implications for the status of the Bible in Early Modern scholarly culture. (shrink)

While interest in early modern herbaria has so far mainly concentrated on the dried plants stored in them, this paper addresses another of their qualities – their role as manuscripts. In the 1670s, the German botanist Paul Hermann (1646–95) spent several years in Ceylon (today Sri Lanka) as a medical officer in the service of the Dutch East India Company. During his stay he put together four herbaria, two of which contain a wealth of handwritten notes by himself and several (...) later owners. First, it will be shown that these notes provide information on the linguistic skills and interests of those who collected plants in an overseas trading settlement. Hermann’s botanical practice demanded and, at the same time, generated knowledge of Sinhalese (an Indo-Aryan language that is spoken by the largest ethnic group on the island) and its script. In his herbarium, observations on the semantics, morphology, and pronunciation of Sinhalese are inextricably intertwined with those of botanical nature. Second, on the basis of these voluminous notes, the character of early modern herbaria as manuscripts will be highlighted. And third, Hermann’s herbaria will be integrated into an investigation of scribal practices and publication strategies of eighteenth-century botany. Along with field notes, letters, manuscripts, illustrations, and printed books, herbaria were knots in the textual–visual mesh of early modern botany. (shrink)

Antiquarianism, Language, and Medical Philology: From Early Modern to Modern Sino-Japanese Medical Discourses. Edited by Benjamin A. Elman. Sir Henry Wellcome Asian Studies, vol. 12. Boston: Brill, 2015. Pp. viii + 232. $135.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 122.2 (2001) 255-263 [Access article in PDF] Philology And Cuisine In De Re Coquinaria John Edwards The text of Apicius' De Re Coquinaria contains many disputed readings. Through bisociation, the use of one discipline to illuminate another, some of them can be resolved. To put it simply, the translation should fit the plate. Just as Homer, the poet of the Achaians, wrote a description of (...) a Troy whose existence was proven by close textual readings and subsequent field work by Schliemann, so Apicius, the Roman artist of cuisine, left recipes whose language can be emended and whose tastes can be verified through practical experiment in the modern kitchen.The limits of a strictly philological approach to Apicius became apparent when, during my composition of The Roman Cookery of Apicius, the translation of a number of recipe titles was inconsistent with the technical information which followed. This was extraordinary because of Apicius' imperative, laconic style, whose formulae more resemble the ritualistic epithets of the annals of the Hittite kings than the informed, conversational prose of an Elizabeth David or an M. F. K. Fisher. In his text there is little question of subjectivity in the nomenclature, or puns or literary allusions to test the reader. Indeed, in all ten books of the Coquinaria and in the later and derivative Excerpts of Vinidarius only twice does Apicius emerge from anonymity, at 4.2.12 ("ad mensam nemo agnoscet quid manducet"), and at 1.9.1 (miraberis); and, in any case, I think these uncharacteristic asides are really the happy observations of a copyist. The third atypical remark which puzzles is a reference to a lost and presumably illustrated version of his book. The reference is tantalizing and colloquial, the words perhaps of an editor: "patellam aeneam qualem debes habere infra ostenditur" (4.2.14).The Coquinaria is not written in the colloquial Latin of Petronius' Satyricon, with which it is probably contemporary. His text is spare to the point of postmodern bleakness; there is nothing, except some of the actual ingredients, of the decadence of the Cena Trimalchionis. It is a collection of lists and brief instructions, often formulaic, never personal. It follows, then, that what remains is the essential manual, stripped of nuance and personality through centuries of use and transmission, rather [End Page 255] like the spare lists of foodstuffs written by Anthimus in his De Observatione Ciborum or in Gargilius' De Hortis. The words must literally convey their meanings to the careful cook. The temptation to be swayed by a perhaps unusual or delicious adjective must be resisted. Although his text refers obliquely to his predecessors (the authors of lost Sicilian, Greek, and Egyptian monographs) and in spite of the fact that the sea routes which supplied Italian markets with oriental spices in the first century reached as far as southern China and the Banda Sea, the ascription of an historically interesting definition should be resisted unless the culinary facts are convincing.An illustration of a probably misunderstood recipe title occurs at 5.3.3, Pisum Indicum, in the Milham text (1969). The variant readings are pisum indicam in the Codex Vaticanus and indicum pisum in the New York Academy of Medicine Codex.These phrases take the accusative because the verb coques is assumed, while the gender is arbitrary throughout the section of recipes for peas in book 5, Ospreon. At 5.3.5, for instance, one reads Pisam Vitellianam sive fabam and later at 5.3.8, Pisam adulteram versatilem. These cases are consistent; but in the phrase pisum indicam the gender is confused, and in the phrase indicum pisum the syntax is irregular, since all of the other eight recipes for peas begin with Pisum, Pisam, Aliter pisa, or Aliter pisam. These variations are caused by the mixing of classical and late Latin forms in a text much altered by the long history of its transcription. Another example of unusual, that is English, syntax occurs with Frontinianum porcellum (8.7.10), "Frontinian pork."If one rejects the Vatican and the New York codex readings, the ambiguous... (shrink)

Various scholars have argued that the rise of modern information technology over the past century has coincided with a steady decline of traditional methods of learning and interpretation, and has contributed to the general sense of “worldlessness” or anomie. In the words of Paul Ricoeur, “we are overwhelmed by a flood of words, by polemics, by the assault of the virtual, which today create a kind of opaque zone.” Philology, the ancient discipline that grew in the past two centuries to (...) encompass literary study, linguistics, and intellectual history, was originally conceived as a return to the past with the aim of retrieving the knowledge of bygone times. While the recent revival of interest in philology recognizes its importance to the humanities, it remains unnamed as such. The aim of my exploration of the history and practices of philology is to suggest how it can reinstate the presence of the past. With its attentiveness to language—undertaken in the silent spaces of private study, archive, and library—philology not only confirms the presence of the dead but also enacts a more fundamental return to “world.”. (shrink)

Nineteenth-century German classical philology underpins many structures of the modern humanities. In this book, Constanze Güthenke shows how a language of love and a longing for closeness with a personified antiquity have lastingly shaped modern professional reading habits, notions of biography, and the self-image of scholars and teachers. She argues that a discourse of love was instrumental in expressing the challenges of specialisation and individual formation (Bildung), and in particular for the key importance of a Platonic scene of learning and (...) instruction for imagining the modern scholar. The book is based on detailed readings of programmatic texts from, among others, Wolf, Schleiermacher, Boeckh, Thiersch, Dilthey, Wilamowitz and Nietzsche. It makes a case for revising established narratives, but also for finding new value in imagining distance and an absence of nostalgic longing for antiquity. (shrink)

Literary hermeneutics studies the problem of interpreting the meanings of an artistic text, considers it at the intersection of a number of philological fields and thus creates new criteria for philological/critical approach to an artistic text. The necessity that gave rise to literary hermeneutics as a field of philology was to reveal the depth of meanings of the artistic text. It also explains the aesthetic convergence and divergence between classical and modern literary texts, noting the points of intersection of both. (...) The modern artistic text does not arise on dry land, although it originates from the soul of the artist composing it, it is linked to tradition, it reflects a shared spiritual communion by visiting the past, specifically its past. It is clear that every poet who has traveled a certain creative path has his own definition of poetry. In forming this definition (the concept of poetry-!), the poet acts from his own experience and writes more with the intention handed down by tradition. Your own emotion can merge with, modify, or negate the thought of hundreds of years in an artistic text, and as a result, the layer of meaning in artistic texts expands to encompass the whole world. (shrink)

The issues related to the multilingual situation in modern Bashkiria are discussed in the article, configuration of multilingualism is given on the basis of extensive and representative data of the latest census. Multilingual issues are discussed in the context of the social functions of philology, as well as a set of measures of a regulatory nature undertaken by the government and society to ensure social, ethno-cultural and inter-ethnic stability. The author believes that the language situation with multilingualism depends on a (...) number of sociolinguistic variables, but the invariant feature of all modifications of multilingualism in Bashkiria should be considered as a factor of the maximum level of language loyalty towards the Russian language. This factor provides a comprehensive and decisive impact on the conditions and status of multilingualism in the republic. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.3 (2003) 419-420 [Access article in PDF] Martin Mulsow. Moderne aus dem Untergrund: Radikale Frühaufklärung in Deutschland, 1680-1720. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2002. Pp. x + 514. Paper, € 58.00.This is a marvelous, detailed, textured study of a large number of minor works and minor figures that developed and transmitted many of the elements of modern philosophy in early modern Germany. Many of (...) the texts were written in Latin, and only some were published. One should not teach the philosophy of the Enlightenment from Hazard or Cassirer without attention to these figures, whom they did not know. Now we know where our heroes like Lessing, Hume, and Kant got many of their fundamental ideas.Martin Mulsow ends this book with ten theses. The first holds that most of the authors discussed were radicalized in a multi-layered process, not simply from the reading of Hobbes, Spinoza, Bayle, or Toland. For example, one could take the role of an opponent in an academic disputation, and bit by bit begin to believe one's unorthodox role. Or one could be provoked by ultra-orthodox opponents to explore the opposite of what they believed. Some authors evolved into and out of radical positions over the course of their lives.Further theses contend that small, trusted circles of friends were often the enabling condition in which unorthodox views were first expressed and then hammered out. Irony, satire, humor, paradox, and ambivalence played key roles. It is often difficult to tell whether some of these texts were serious or intended as jokes, and perhaps the authors did not always know themselves. Some radical ideas were spread simply by curious erudites who assembled collections and bibliographies of radical manuscripts and texts without believing them.Mulsow shows how people wrote on controversial topics in coded scholarly language. Spinozism was discussed under the rubrics of Platonism and Stoicism; the sovereignty of the people was considered in terms of the lex regia; and Biblical criticism became code for the physicians' rejection of the materiality of the soul. Thus philosophical discourse can be found where one might least expect it in legal, philological, historical, and scientific debates. The numerous case studies that the author assembles amount to philosophical microhistory.Substantial chapters deal with various aspects of the intellectual stew that emerged from the bubbling pot of Jews and Socinians and other Christian sects that were semi-tolerated in the Netherlands. Unlike any construction of moderate and radical positions as opposed and at odds, Mulsow shows how they were often intertwined. The destruction of Christian Platonism, the paradoxical development of Enlightenment ideas out of anti-humanism, and the uses of so-called eclecticism in philosophy made possible the assembly of modern philosophical positions.In yet another paradox, many of these writers belong to what has been called the "conservative Enlightenment," intending only to temporize and draw the teeth of the political and philosophical radicals, and yet their writings systematized and transmitted the ideas of the radicals, opening the way to further radicality. It is a perennial weakness of the skeptics and proto-liberals like Gundling that they defended freedom of thought and libertas philosophandi even where it would undermine the ideas and institutions in which they believed.Most of the philosophically radical positions began as critiques of theological positions, and this is one reason why it is ever more apparent that one cannot understand the rise of modern philosophy without a close acquaintance with early modern theology. None of the early modern philosophers we are trying to understand was ignorant of the many levels of theological debate. There are numerous connections to later times: for example, a seventeenth-century debate over political theology anticipated Carl Schmitt's twentieth-century rediscovery of this topos.Mulsow places the Enlightened ideas of Locke and Newton in the context of their basis in the theology of anti-Trinitarian Socinians and Arians such as Samuel Crell. This was as important to many who radicalized it as the Spinozism credited with spawning the radical... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 123.3 (2002) 407-427 [Access article in PDF] Trying (on) Gender:Modern Greek Productions Of Aristophanes'Thesmophoriazusae Gonda Van Steen [Figures]Aristophanes' women in Thesmophoriazusaecomplain that Euripides has portrayed their gender in a bad light: by exposing typical female wrongdoings (to which they comically admit), he has made Athenian men distrust their wives. At their Thesmophoria festival, where they gather in an imitation-male assembly as in a male trial (...) court, the women are ready to sentence Euripides to death. 1 Or, as Euripides evaluates the situation:This very day it will be adjudged (krithesetai):shall Euripides live or shall he die?Kinsman:How could that be? The courts (dikasteria) aren't in session (dikazein) today and the Council isn't sitting.It's the middle day of Thesmophoria!Euripides:And that's exactly why I think I'm done for. (Ar. Thesm. 76-81, trans. Henderson) Once the women learn from Cleisthenes that their sacred festival space has been violated, they interrogate and physically examine Euripides' kinsman. This relative, dressed as a woman, has infiltrated the all-female ritual and trial proceedings to deliver an odd defense of Euripides. Mnesilochus tests and tries on the women's gender. Tests, trials, and tryouts are key themes of this paper, in which I argue that the original play's dynamics of trying and judging gender, gender-crossing, and feminist power are also the faultlines that have affected the modern Greek reception history of Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae. 2 [End Page 407]All the characters of the 411 B.C.E.Thesmophoriazusae, both female and male (whether Euripides, Mnesilochus, Cleisthenes, or Agathon), assess gender-bending figures and pass (formal or informal) judgment on them. Even though judging was an activity reserved for men in antiquity, both parties here evaluate each other and each other's appearances and acts, whether public or private, dramatic, literary, or sexual. On the modern Greek stage, this fantasy of judging the opposite or opposing sex, this plot of trying—and trying on—the other gender has been reworked in diverse ways. 3 On a metaphorical level, the modern Greek reception of Thesmophoriazusae frequently mirrored the offstage as well as onstage conditions of sex-based judging, and accepting or rejecting, that have characterized the play's internal dynamics. Thus, the study of the modern Greek revival tradition of Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae can shed light on ancient comedy production and enhance philologists' readings of the classical text, even though this tradition is not the result of a historically continuous process.My paper analyzes three trends in the Greek reception history of Thesmophoriazusae from the vantage point of judgment of, and prejudice against, women. It outlines an evolution from an antifeminist to a neutral to a feminist treatment of the original play. Only belatedly did the Greek male theater world deem women "worthy" enough (or "unworthy" enough—in some detractors' eyes) to participate in the making of the Aristophanic revival on stage, whether as actresses, spectators, or theater directors. Greek actresses, female theatergoers, and female stage producers faced real challenges of prejudice and prohibition before they were given access to the modern Greek revival tradition of Thesmophoriazusae. Most of these challenges resembled the problems and barriers to women posed by Greek revivals of Aristophanes' very popular Lysistrata and Ecclesiazusae. 4 But, as a comedy inspired by ancient women's rituals and carried by topical, literary, and paratragedic humor, Thesmophoriazusae especially evoked little interest among Greek stage directors, contemporary audiences, and critics. Between the years 1951 and 1998, there were only eight new productions of Thesmophoriazusae at either the Athens or the Epidaurus summer festivals, as opposed to nearly a dozen new productions [End Page 408] of Ecclesiazusae and approximately fifteen new productions (and numerous repeat performances) of Lysistrata. 5The long-perceived problem has been how to make Thesmophoriazusae, with all its idiosyncrasies, not only relevant but also amusing. Late twentieth-century directors, both in Greece and abroad, tend to look for a balance between adhering to the original text and updating the comedy's ritual, literary... (shrink)

This paper examines the manner in which the early modern scholarly debate concerning the true age of the world was shaped by philological and text-critical scholarship on the work of the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus. Traditionally, historians have earmarked the late seventeenth century as a time of uncertainty and crisis for biblical chronologists, as scholars became increasingly aware of corruptions within existing versions of scripture and of the manner in which scriptural chronology was contradicted by pagan sources. I hope (...) to show how, in response to these doubts, scholars during this period also developed a pronounced interest in the chronology – and consequently the textual history – of the first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, whom scholars considered the oldest and therefore best surviving witness to the original state of the biblical text in the time of the Apostles. I have drawn two important conclusions from this development. Firstly, I show that the development of philological and text-critical scholarship on non-biblical texts was a direct result of theological issues relating to biblical authority and chronology. Secondly, I argue that this philological scholarship was key to undermining orthodox faith in the stability and reliability of the biblical text itself. (shrink)

The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought is an authoritative and comprehensive exploration of the themes, thinkers and movements that shaped our intellectual world in the late-eighteenth and nineteenth century. Representing both individual figures and the contexts within which they developed their ideas, each essay is written in a clear accessible style by leading scholars in the field and offers both originality and interpretive insight. This first volume surveys late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century European intellectual history, focusing on the profound impact (...) of the Enlightenment on European intellectual life. Spanning twenty chapters, it covers figures such as Kant, Hegel, Wollstonecraft, and Darwin, major political and intellectual movements such as Romanticism, Socialism, Liberalism and Feminism, and schools of thought such as Historicism, Philology, and Decadence. Renouncing a single 'master narrative' of European thought across the period, Warren Breckman and Peter E. Gordon establish a formidable new multi-faceted vision of European intellectual history for the global modern age. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Valla Our Contemporary:Philosophy and PhilologyBrian P. CopenhaverEven before the Italians knew what to call their Renaissance, they knew the names of its heroes, one of whom was Lorenzo Valla. Accordingly, by the time Count Terenzio Mamiani della Rovere published one of the first modern histories of Italian philosophy in 1834, Valla's place in the story of that subject had long been established-for Italians, at least. "He began by ridiculing (...) blind trust in Aristotle's words," wrote Mamiani,and then went on to show how the highest categories and first predicables had been based on false assumptions, proving this by the correct meaning of terms, by the usage of speakers and by arguments from common sense. Valla overthrew the classifications of Porphyry in the same way. He shows how the basic rules of logic are simple and completely self-evident.1 [End Page 507]In tribute to Salvatore Camporeale of the Order of Preachers, I shall preach a sermon about this celebrated Italian philosopher. My text is an article on Valla that Campo published in 1986, and my contention is that Valla was a remarkably original thinker who has been much underrated in the Anglophone world, in part because he has not been read often enough or carefully enough in a contemporary philosophical framework.2The Philosopher's Index is the most important general bibliography for philosophers now writing in English. The on-line version that gives nearly four thousand references in five languages for Descartes, over nine thousand for Aristotle, and nearly ten thousand for Kant turns up only forty-two for Valla; twenty-five of these are in English, but only two are in major Anglophone journals of philosophy.3 I call that underrated and understudied.The first English-language entry for Valla in the Philosopher's Index dates from 1948, The Renaissance Philosophy of Man, a very influential book of readings (still in print) that presents Valla as a moral philosopher and Renaissance philosophy as not terribly important. The next entry, from 1964, refers to an equally influential book, Paul Kristeller's Eight Philosophers of the Italian Renaissance, one of whom is Valla, described by Kristeller not only as a moral philosopher but also, and more importantly, as a philosophical critic of logic and language.4 Around the same time, Hanna Gray, Jerrold Seigel, Charles Trinkaus, and others in this country had begun to study Valla's theory of language in more depth, and a few years later Camporeale's masterful book on Valla appeared in 1972.5Since Camporeale's book was then and is now the best account in any language of a brilliant philosopher, its absence from the Philosopher's Index indicates a kind of oblivion in Anglophone philosophy. In Europe and especially in Italy, by contrast, interest in Valla has been more or less continuous since his death in 1457. Mario Nizolio continued Valla's work in the sixteenth century, and both Valla and Nizolio were well known to Leibniz, who in turn [End Page 508] was the subject of an important book by Bertrand Russell in 1900.6 Russell's most popular work, however, was the History of Western Philosophy that he wrote much later, during the Second World War.7Many people have taken their bearings on the history of philosophy from Russell's exuberant History. Amazon.com still offers five editions by four publishers. And Amazon's rankings of sales of more recent accounts of the Renaissance period, the Cambridge History of Renaissance Philosophy and the Renaissance Philosophy volume of Oxford's History of Western Philosophy, lag far behind the figures for a single edition of Russell's broader treatment (8,970 Russell; 481,085 Cambridge; 507,316 Oxford).8Despite its great success, Russell's book does not do well by our topic. His treatment of the Renaissance is like Burckhardt directed by Victor Hugo and produced by Macaulay. Cardinals poison each other while free-thinking scholars entertain princes to procure patronage. Humanism meanwhile dozes under the rubble of antiquity, too dazed by the ruins to produce original philosophy. The only philosophical good to come from philology was its odium. Incessant squabbling about which ancient... (shrink)

A new approach to the historiography of the history of philosophy was first proposed near the end of the eighteenth century. It is useful to regard it as an alternative to two others, sometimes conceived of as exhausting the possibilities: a purely philosophical approach, and a purely historical one, both of which I consider in section I. The bulk of the paper is devoted to what I call "the modern historiography of the history of philosophy" . Its origins are closely (...) tied to the renewal of philology. Section III recounts the methodological innovations of the New Philology and their relevance for approaching texts--including philosophical ones--from the past. In section IV, I consider some moves made by early proponents of "modern historiography"--in particular their implicit demand for an internal rather than an external history of philosophy, that is, an account that allows us to understand how and why philosophy has changed through time, in terms of philosophical factors: how, for example, one set of philosophical considerations led to a certain view; how reflecting on that view led philosophers to perceive various difficulties, and to perceive philosophical responses to those difficulties, and so on. The goal is to exclude, to as great an extent as possible, external factors, that is, factors which are not themselves philosophical views or arguments. In section V, I turn to Christian A. Brandis whose methodological reflections and historiographical practice mark an enormous advance over his predecessors and even over some of his successors, like W. Jaeger. I conclude by arguing that some "philosophical" objections brought against the way of proceeding advocated by Brandis fail. In the course of describing this new approach and its origins, I hope also to make clear why it is more attractive than the two other possibilities briefly considered in section I. (shrink)

Von philologischer Nüchternheit und humanistischem Engagement... Der Band dokumentiert exemplarisch die Verbindung von Altertumswissenschaft und moderner Kulturwissenschaft auf hohem philologischem und kritisch reflektierendem Niveau.

The study of Hellenistic Greek, or of the Κοινή, which has flourished increasingly since the beginning of the present century, has brought Modern Greek more and more within the view of classical philologists. As I have insisted on utilizing Modern Greek for Hellenistic philology for about twenty years, I may claim some credit if a knowledge of Modern Greek is now admitted to be indispensable to Hellenistic studies; but philologists only reluctantly acknowledge this new demand, and hesitate to acquire as (...) full an acquaintance with Modern Greek as the study of the Κοιή demands. (shrink)

This article explores the ways in which Gramsci’s engagement with Machiavelli and The Prince in particular result in three significant developments in the Prison Notebooks. First, I analyse how the ‘heroic fury’ of Gramsci’s lifelong interest in Machiavelli’s thought develops, during the composition of his carceral writings, into a novel approach to the reading of The Prince, giving rise to the famous notion of the ‘modern Prince’. Second, I argue that the modern Prince should not be regarded merely as a (...) distinctive (individual or collective) figure, but rather should be understood as a dramatic development that unfolds throughout ‘the discourse itself’ of the Prison Notebooks, particularly in the crucial phase of reorganisation in the ‘special notebooks’ composed from 1932 onwards. Third and finally, I suggest that the combination of the two preceding themes is decisive for understanding the modern Prince as a distinctive form of political organisation. Rather than equated with a generic conception of the ‘(communist) political party’, this notion was developed as a part of Gramsci’s larger argument regarding the necessity for anti-Fascist political forces in Italy in the early 1930s to grow into an antagonistic collective body guided by principles of ‘living philology’. (shrink)

Several recent studies have returned to the famous controversy over the reception of Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music. By reinterpreting it within the immediate context of Germany in the early 1870s, James Whitman understands this controversy as a Methodenstreit within Classical Philology and James I. Porter claims that, through this controversy, Nietzsche developed an extensive critique of modern culture. I contend that Nietzsche’s reaction to the scholarly rejection of his first publication resulted in no immediate response (...) on his behalf; rather, it led to three years of intense rethinking and strengthening of the position he took in The Birth of Tragedy. This is evidenced in his early published essays and notebooks of 1872–1875. From the first readers of these early notebooks, Karl Schlechta and Anni Anders, to its most recent interpreters, Richard T. Grey and Alexander Nehamas, these scholars are unanimous in understanding them as Nietzsche’s attempt to work through.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Gilgamesh among Us: Modern Encounters with the Ancient Epic by Theodore ZiolkowskiJohannes HauboldTheodore Ziolkowski. Gilgamesh among Us: Modern Encounters with the Ancient Epic. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2011. xvi + 226 pp. 3 black-and-white ills. Cloth, $35.This book surveys modern receptions of the Gilgamesh Epic from the earliest lectures and publications of George Smith to recent reworkings of the epic in Western literature and art. The argument (...) is divided into five chapters. After an introduction which outlines the contents of the poem and tells the story of its rediscovery, chapter 1, “The Initial Reception (1884–1935),” takes us from Leonidas Le Cenci Hamilton’s Ishtar and Izdubar of 1884 via the “Babel and Bible” controversy of the early twentieth century to the predominantly German reception prior to World War II. Several major figures make an appearance here, including Freud, Jung, Rilke, Hesse, Mann, Döblin, Canetti, and Pannwitz. Chapter 2, “Representative Beginnings (1941–1958),” takes up the thread of German engagement with the towering achievements of Hermann Kasack’s Die Stadt hinter dem Strom (61–64) and, especially, Hans Henny Jahnn’s Fluß ohne Ufer (67–74), an enigmatic re-imagining of the Gilgamesh story on a scale that deserves a monograph study of its own. Elsewhere, the reception of Gilgamesh continues with “four poets in English” (Lucas and Bridson in Britain; Olson and Corso in the United States; 48–59) and with the first musical settings, among them Martinů’s oratorio The Epic of Gilgamesh (75–77). Chapter 3, “The Popularization of Gilgamesh (1959–1978),” surveys new translations into the major European languages (79–80), and with them a range of popular responses. Ziolkowski notes a surge in adaptations for children, as well as other initiatives aimed at a wider public (81–82). It is against this background, he argues, that we need to see more ambitious experiments in musical and literary reception, including Per Nørgård’s opera Gilgamesh (105–7); Louis Zukofsky’s “canto 23” (which forms part of his larger poetic cycle entitled “A,” 85–88); Stanisław Lem’s review of an imaginary Gilgamesh adaptation in his A Perfect Vacuum (Doskonała Próżnia, 97–99); and the “fictional exuberances” of John Gardner’s The Sunlight Dialogues, Philip Roth’s The Great American Novel, and Rhoda Lerman’s Call Me Ishtar (99–105). Ziolkowski also draws attention to what he argues was the first overtly gay reworking of Gilgamesh, in Guido Bachmann’s novel of the same name (91–94). Chapter 4, “The Contemporization of Gilgamesh (1979–1999),” continues the theme of popularization in a political key: Ziolkowski takes us on a whistle-stop tour of late twentieth-century preoccupations, from successive crises in the Near East (109) to post-colonialism (109–10); the spread of psychoanalysis, both in a Freudian and a Jungian key (112–19); deconstruction (118–19); the rise of ecologism [End Page 669] (110, 123–35); and minority politics in the USA (135–38). Chapter 5, “Gilgamesh in the Twenty-First Century (2000–2009),” sets out to show that “Gilgamesh, who was born and flourished in the mid-third millennium b.c.e., is alive and well” (154). Ziolkowski identifies “a new focus” (167) on cultural and religious conflict in the wake of Samuel Huntington and the events of 9/11, although it must be said that the responses of Schrott and Begrich (171–78) do not fit this framework particularly well, and in practice much of the chapter seems designed to tie up loose ends. The book is equipped with a timeline of works discussed (199–205), end notes (207–20), and an index (221–26), but no bibliography.In lucid and unpretentious prose, Ziolkowski sets out what he sees as the most significant “Western” responses to the epic of Gilgamesh. He leaves the Near and Far East to “appropriately qualified scholars” (x): one hopes that others will take up the invitation, and that they will make connections with the materials explored in this book. Ziolkowski also passes over Latin America and the Caribbean—perhaps he felt there was nothing to say (for a possible starting point, see C... (shrink)

ArgumentBer Borochov, the Marxist Zionist revolutionary who founded the political party Poyle Tsien, was also one of the key theoreticians of Yiddish scholarship. His landmark 1913 essay, “The Tasks of Yiddish Philology,” was his first contribution to the field and crowned him as its chief ideologue. Modeled after late nineteenth-century European movements of linguistic nationalism, “The Tasks” was the first articulation of Yiddish scholarship as a discrete field of scientific research. His tasks ranged from the practical: creating a standardized dictionary (...) and grammar, researching the origins and development of the language, and establishing a language institute; to the overtly ideological: the “nationalizing and humanizing” of the Yiddish language and its speakers. The essay brought a new level of sophistication to the field, established several of its ideological pillars, and linked Yiddish scholarship to the material needs of the Jewish people. Although “The Tasks” was greeted with a great deal of skepticism upon its publication, after his death, Borochov became widely accepted as the “founder” of modern Yiddish studies. (shrink)

The aim of my paper is to show links and parallels between Locke’s concept of the state of nature and the Unitarian (Socinian) denial of original sin. At first I will give an overview of the Unitarian history and thought, then I will logically and philologically demon- strate a parallelism of Locke’s hidden anthropology and the Unitarian doctrine on human being, with data of Locke’s Unitarian readings, especially writings of a Transylvanian theologian in the late 16th century, György Enyedi.

As "an installment in the new history of philosophy made possible by Friedrich Nietzsche", this book is a continuation of Nietzsche's "philological genealogies," reflecting upon the two great originators of modern times, Francis Bacon and Descartes. According to Lampert, Nietzsche's philology is "philological" in the ancient sense of love of the logos, the desire to preserve the pursuit of reasoned discourse regarding the truth about nature as a whole against the cowardly desire to be satisfied by comforting dogmas.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 63.4 (2002) 555-575 [Access article in PDF] Measurer of All Things:John Greaves (1602-1652), the Great Pyramid, and Early Modern Metrology Zur Shalev [Figures]Writing from Istanbul to Peter Turner, one of his colleagues at Merton College, Oxford, John Greaves was deeply worried: Onley I wonder that in so long time since I left England I should neither have received my brasse quadrant which I (...) left to be finished for my journey thither, nor any notice of it [...]. I agreed with mr. Allen upon price and the time that he should finish it, if he hath failed me he hath done me the greatest injury that can be. 1A great injury indeed, because Greaves's journey to Italy and the Levant was all about measuring—luckily the instrument did reach him at some later stage. The thirty-six-year-old Professor of Geometry at Gresham College was taking the measurements of countless monuments and objects in the locations he visited. In Rome he measured, among many other ancient structures, Cestius' Pyramid and St. Peter's basilica. In Lucca, deeply impressed, he counted his paces around the beautiful city walls. In Siena he observed together with a "Mathematical Professor" one of the Sidera Medicea using "a glass." In Egypt he even hurt his eyes gazing at the sun, looking for sunspots and measuring its diameter. 2 His measuring mission, however, culminated in the fixing of the [End Page 555] latitudes of Istanbul, Rhodes, and Alexandria. As Bishop Juxton wrote before the trip to Greaves's employers at Gresham College (apparently using Greaves's own promotional language): This worke I find by the best astronomers, especially by Ticho Brache [ sic ] and Kepler, hath beene much desired as tending to the advancement of that science, and I hope it wil be an honour to that nation and prove ours if we first observe it. 3A mathematician-Orientalist, commanding the ancient and modern astronomical and geographical literature of Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian authors, Greaves was arguably the best qualified European at the period to perform the task. That he miscalculated the latitude of Rhodes is of less consequence for his present-day readers. 4 However, one of the most obscure and therefore telling of his measurement activities was the survey of the Pyramids of Giza, which resulted in the Pyramidographia (1646). 5 This remarkable learned treatise and travel account hybrid, which is at the focus of the present study, gives us a glimpse into the rich and complex world of scientific antiquarians.Greaves is most conveniently remembered today as an Orientalist. While we must be thankful to Edward Said for broadening the meaning of Orient-alism—from an academic discipline, accumulating objective knowledge of the East, into a much wider cultural discourse, his emphasis on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and on the European colonial mindset is less useful for making historical sense of what early modern Orientalists were doing—physically and culturally. We can understand Greaves's "Oriental" enterprise in its [End Page 556] depth and variety only within long established European traditions of scholarship and keeping the intellectual concerns of his time in mind. 6But beyond articulating for us the nature of early Orientalism, the Pyramidographia, as well as Greaves's entire scientific career, situated in their wider European context, provide a fine entry point into a foreign world of learned practices and methods. It teaches us how well into the seventeenth century astronomy and philology, observation and bookishness, could coalesce in one figure, in one enterprise. 7 We still lack a modern biography of Greaves, a complex protagonist of a complex period, and even a full evaluation of his intellectual work. While this paper surely cannot compensate for that, I do attempt here a brief exposition of Greaves's Pyramidographia. 8Modern historians of archaeology and Egyptology, preoccupied mostly with the disciplines' progress and development of scientific standards, have noted the Pyramidographia in passing and praised its precise language and rigorous research... (shrink)

The language specificity of modern media texts and the aspects of studying it in the courses ‘Language and style of modern mass media‘ and ‘Modern mediatext‘ are considered in the article. The language specificity of contemporary media texts is connected, on the one hand, with the subjectivization of the text, enforcement of personality, democratization and with the increase of proportion of a foreign word, intertexuality, intellectualization of the text on the other hand. Subjectivization of the text is connected with the (...) personality enforcement, is determined by the influence of social processes - freedom of speech declaration - and demonstrates itself in the actualization of the author, in a high level of evaluation, emotionality, abundance of metatextual means. Democratization in the modern mass media texts shows itself in the joint functioning of means of different styles: bookish, substandard, jargon. Intertextuality is opposed to the excessive subjectivization of the text and demonstrates itself in the increased usage of foreign words, it is realized with the help of precedent phenomena. Intellectualization shows itself in the active usage of the means of indirect communication by the journalists: tropes, wordplay. Unnecessarily liberal usage of language means for the expressive-evaluating and wordplay on purposes is often contiguous to speech aggression. Consequently studying modern media texts allows students to not only detect and characterize the main features of the modern mass media language and style, structural-semantic peculiarities of a modern mediatext, but also to give its socio-ethical evaluation. (shrink)

This study addresses two desiderata of historical emotion research: reflecting on the interdependence of textual functions and the representation of emotions, and acknowledging the interdependence of studies on the premodern and modern periods in the history of emotion. Contemporary research on the history of emotion is characterised by a proliferation of studies on very different eras, authors, themes, texts, and aspects. The enthusiasm and confidence with which situations, actions, and interactions involving emotions in history are discovered, however, has led to (...) overly direct attempts to access the represented objects (emotions/feelings/affects); as a result, too little attention has been paid to the conditions and functions of their representations. That is why this study engages with the emotion research of historians from an unashamedly philological perspective. Such an approach provides, among other things, insights into the varied, often contradictory, observations that can be made about the history of emotion in modernity and premodernity. (shrink)

"The Natural System" is the name given to the underlying arrangement present in the diversity of life. Unlike a classification, which is made up of classes and members, a system or arrangement is an integrated whole made up of connected parts. In the pre-evolutionary period a variety of forms were proposed for the Natural System, including maps, circles, stars, and abstract multidimensional objects. The trees sketched by Darwin in the 1830s should probably be considered the first genuine evolutionary diagrams of (...) the Natural System—the first genuine evolutionary trees. Darwin refined his image of the Natural System in the well-known evolutionary tree published in the Origin of Species, where he also carefully distinguished between arrangements and classifications. Following the publication of the Origin, there was a great burst of evolutionary tree building, but interest in trees declined substantially after 1900, only to be revived in recent years with the development of cladistic analysis. ¶ While evolutionary trees are modern diagrams of the Natural System, they are at the same time instances of another broad class of diagrams that may be called "trees of history": branching diagrams of genealogical descent and change. During the same years that Darwin was sketching his first evolutionary trees, the earliest examples of two other trees of history also appeared: the first trees of language evolution and of manuscript genealogy. Though these were apparently independent of evolutionary trees in their origin, the similarities among all these trees of history, and among the historical processes that underlie them, were soon recognized. Darwin compared biological evolution and language evolution several times in the Origin of Species, and both Ernst Haeckel and the linguist August Schleicher made similar comparisons. Both linguists and stemmaticists (students of manuscript descent) understood the principle of apomorphy—the principle that only shared innovations provide evidence of common ancestry—more clearly than did systematists, and if there had been more cross-fertilization among these fields the cladistic revolution in systematics might well have taken place in the nineteenth century. ¶ Although historical linguists and stemmaticists have in some respects had sounder theory than have systematists, at least until recently, they have also had the practical problem of very large amounts of data, a problem not often faced by systematists until the advent of molecular sequencing. The opportunity now exists for systematists to contribute to the theory and practice of linguistics and stemmatics, their sister disciplines in historical reconstruction, through application of our commonly used computer programs for tree estimation. Preliminary results from the application of numerical cladistic analysis to a large stemmatic data set have been very encouraging, and have already generated much discussion in the stemmatics community. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Christian Humanism in the Age of Critical Philology:Ralph Häfner's Gods in ExileMartin MulsowHäfner's book is a monumental study and a milestone of German-language research.1 He delineates, for the first time, a comprehensive picture of the Christian humanism of European philologists in the era of criticism. Recovering an immense wealth of forgotten sources, the book reveals the complex interaction and tension between pagan mythology and Christian culture in philological controversies. (...) Though authors might denounce the pagan histories of gods as fabulae, they were constitutive for the productive and emulative reception of ancient Greco-Roman patterns in Renaissance and Baroque culture. How could the peculiar logic of this paganizing be handled? Was it advisable to have faith in the integrative power of Christian truth, which was capable of finding precursors or even proofs of one's own truth in pagan patterns, or should the pagan be selectively separated from the Christian? And what was the role of philology in this process? Did the growing expertise in criticism advance the process of dissociation of paganism and Christianity? Did it further new possibilities of synthesis in the spirit of Apologetics? [End Page 659]The reconstruction of these processes involves much more than what the book's very specific title suggests. It is a large-scale history of scholarship written from the perspective of the most important tensions that Christian humanism had to overcome in its final stage. From an Anglo-American perspective, this book contributes to recent reconstructions of ideas of early modern men of learning, as well as the growing number of studies on antiquarianism and the history of religion.2 The final stage of Christian humanism, the period of time covered by the book, begins in the late sixteenth century and ends in the 1730s, a point in time which Häfner presents, with some justification, as the end of an era.Hymnology and PolymathyThe study consists of three basic parts. The first one is the "Persistence of Orphic-Platonic Hymnology in Christian Humanism" ("Fortleben der orphisch-platonischen Hymnologie im christlichen Humanismus"). This topic, apparently very specialized and marginal, proves to be a key arena of early modern scholarship, an arena traversed by the battle lines between pagan tradition and Christianity as well as between poetry and theology. Were hymns inspired poetry? What kind of inspiration could and should be conceded to hymns to Jupiter and the sun? Of course, those humanists who reappropriated Orphism and Neo-Platonism were interested in this genre. In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and even into the mid-sixteenth century, this was not yet a problem. However, the more philological consciousness (and confessionalization) evolved, the more the genre's scope was delimited. What scope remained? Häfner relates the problem to the revival of an "eclectic Platonism" in the wake of the Second Sophistic. This "eclectic Platonism," which was particularly influential from 1500 on, combined Platonism with rhetorics, and the claim of comprehensive polymathy with the joyful presentation of the findings of reading. In this respect, Apuleius and Aulus Gellius were two model authors for early modern polyhistors. We must include Martianus Capella as a continuation of the "Renaissance of the Second Sophistic into Early Christian Encyclopedism" [End Page 660] ("Renaissance der Zweiten Sophistik bis in die frühchristliche Enzyklopädie hinein," p. 18).Häfner's approach is starkly original and, in my opinion, highly productive for the current debates about early modern encyclopedism and "cultures of knowledge" that are sometimes deadlocked.3 Too frequently, polymathy is used synonymously for encyclopedism, which is often associated with modern concepts of systematic classification. Yet, according to Häfner, this is a misunderstanding. It neglects the playful elements and skillful rhetorical options of throwing questions out into the open rather than narrowing them dogmatically. Perhaps the only addition to Häfner's sources could have been Louis de Cressolles's Theatrum veterum Rhetorum, which, according to Marc Fumaroli in L'age de l'éloquence, marked the return of the Second Sophistic.4 The analysis of the work of Gerhard Johannes Vossius, a classical philologist who resided in Leyden and Amsterdam, is the first test for Häfner... (shrink)

Plato and Aristotle were very much alive between the fifteenth and the seventeenth centuries. The essays in this volume investigate the interaction, both in terms of harmony and contrast, between the two philosophers in early modernity, that is in a time when long-forgotten texts became available and a new philological awareness was on the rise. Dealing with famous and less famous early modern interpreters and philosophers, in a transnational and translinguistic perspective, this volume reveals the agendas behind the discussions on (...) Plato's and Aristotle's philosophies. In studying these texts, it is hard to imagine a more significant collision of big names with big ideas. This project takes us to the centre of the intellectual life of the period and its most exciting debates. (shrink)

Gramsci’s concept of hegemony has been interpreted in a wide variety of ways, including a theory of consent, of political unity, of ‘anti-politics’, and of geopolitical competition. These interpretations are united in regarding hegemony as a general theory of political power and domination, and as deriving from a particular interpretation of the concept of passive revolution. Building upon the recent intense season of philological research on the Prison Notebooks, this article argues that the concept of hegemony is better understood as (...) a ‘dialectical chain’ composed of four integrally related ‘moments’: hegemony as social and political leadership, as a political project, as a hegemonic apparatus, and as the social and political hegemony of the workers’ movement. This alternative typology of hegemony provides both a sophisticated analysis of the emergence of modern state power and a theory of political organization of the subaltern social groups. This project is encapsulated in Gramsci’s notion of the formation of a ‘modern Prince’, conceived as both political party and civilizational process, which represents an emancipatory alternative to the dominant forms of political modernity. (shrink)

The Ethics of Geometry is a study of the relationship between philosophy and mathematics. Essential differences in the ethos of mathematics, for example, the customary ways of undertaking and understanding mathematical procedures and their objects, provide insight into the fundamental issues in the quarrel of moderns with ancients. Two signal features of the modern ethos are the priority of problem-solving over theorem-proving, and the claim that constructability by human minds or instruments establishes the existence of relevant entities. These figures are (...) combined in the emblematic statement of Salomon Maimon, "In mathematical construction we are, as it were, gods." Construction is the mark of modernity. The disciplines of classical philology, literary interpretation and the history of philosophy and of mathematics are woven together in this volume. (shrink)

ArgumentRecent studies in Sinology have shown that Qing dynasty editors acted as philologists. This paper argues that the identification of their philological methods and editorial choices suggests that their choices were not totally neutral and may have significantly shaped the way modern historians interpreted specific works edited by mathematicians of that dynasty. A case study of the re-edition in 1798 of a Song dynasty treatise, theYigu yanduan(1259), by a Qing dynasty mathematician will illustrate this point. At the end of the (...) eighteenth century, Li Rui (1773–1817) was asked to prepare an edition of the mathematical works written by Li Ye (1192–1279) for a private collection. Li Rui was a talented mathematician, but he was also a meticulous editor and trained philologist. He adopted his editorial model from the preparation of the imperial encyclopaedia, theSiku quanshu, but Li Rui also made some corrections to the text in an effort to restore an older version of Li Ye's treatises that had been lost. Convinced of the Chinese origin of algebra, Li Rui used philological techniques to recover the lost materials and to restore the roots of “Chinese mathematics.” TheYigu yanduancontains two algebraic procedures to set up quadratic equations, one from the procedure ofCelestial Source(tian yuan shu) and the other from theSection of Pieces[of Areas] (tiao duan). Curiously, the second procedure has not yet attracted the attention of scholars so far, although Li Rui's edition is the one typically used by twentieth-century historians of mathematics. Today, theCelestial Sourcecharacterizes “Chinese algebra.” However, the specific concerns of Li Rui about the procedure ofCelestial Source, combined with his editorial methods, contributed to this perspective. (shrink)

Historical chronology is the discipline that establishes the dates of events and reconstructs the calendars used in ancient, medieval, and early modern times. Traditional accounts state that Joseph Scaliger (1540-1609) created this field by combining philological with astronomical data and techniques. But the celestial phenomena most relevant to chronology are solar and lunar eclipses. From antiquity onwards, astrologers saw these as ominous and connected them to great events on earth. Though Scaliger used dated eclipses in his work, it was a (...) number of relatively obscure sixteenth-century astronomers and scholars who realized that one could date events by eclipses and began doing so in a systematic way, without assigning them any ominous force. (shrink)

In this paper we examine titles of early modern German dissertations with regard to their ‘interdiscplinarity’, challenging the established consensus that interdisciplinarity evolved only in the 18th century. Based on the construction and analysis of a co-occurrence network of 909 dissertation titles published in the 17thc entury it can be shown that various dimensions of early modern interdisciplinarity should be distinguished. This concerns dissertations that connect philosophical disciplines to the ‘higher’ faculties of the early modern university (theology, jurisprudence, medicine) as (...) well as titles that connect theoretical and practical subdisciplines of philosophy itself. We also observe that the emerging disciplines of historiography and philology seem to play a prominent role in the emergence of early modern interdisciplinarity. On a structural level it seems to be misguided to construe the early modern system of knowledge as a ‘tree’. It rather seems that relations betweeen disciplines in this period exhibit both tree-like and lattice-like features. (shrink)

[Holbrook's] is one of the keenest and deepest critical minds in the field of Islamic literature. She provides for the reader (scholar and lay persona alike) fascinating insights into the genre, poetic functions, mystical allegory, narrative technique, audience response, etc. Many of her analyses are scintillating.... The Holbrook volume is a landmark in Ottoman literary scholarship. --MESA Bulletin... a major contribution to Ottoman and Turkish literary study--I frankly am at a loss to describe how major.... Dr. Holbrook's book will make (...) its own category and subsequent publication in the field will be judged in relation to it. --Walter G. Andrews, professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, University of Washington When the Ottoman Turkish Empire was divided into modern states after World War I, in Turkey a change of alphabet and radical linguistic reform aimed to free modern Turkish literature from intellectual ties to the East. Holbrook recuperates Ottoman debates on the existential status of language and social value of art with a poetics of Beauty and Love, the philosophical fairy tale in verse by Seyh Galib. Where does language come from? How does a poet conceive imagery? What rights to interpretive authority does Muslim law accord the individual when God's word is law? Holbrook's lively analysis ranges an intertext of genres in Arabic and Persian as well as Turkish. The romance of separated lovers is a paradigm of journeys that lead beyond discourse. A poet's quest for originality reveals an archaeology of modernism. Holbrook traces the revolutionary polemic and Orientalist philology that de-aestheticized Ottoman poetry, bringing the critique of Orientalismto bear upon the Ottoman center Orientalism suppressed. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn response to the rising popularity of empirical models of scholarship and an increasingly sharp sceptic criticism against historiography, early modern historiographers strived to place their reconstruction of the past on a more ‘scientific’ basis through a new approach to historical writing. Their strategies included the mobilization of various other scholarly disciplines, such as geography, chronology, linguistics, ethnography, philology, etc. that came to function as ‘auxiliary sciences’ of early modern historiography. These came to fulfil three main roles in historical writing. (...) Firstly, they supplied knowledge on cultural-historical topics that were newly introduced into the subject range of historiography. Secondly, they offered new solutions to the problem of reliable historical evidence by opening up new sources of historical information. And thirdly, they proved helpful in deciding scholarly discussions among historical writers. Through a detailed study of the use of ‘auxiliary sciences’ in seminal texts from the new current in historical writing, I will shed light on the range of scholarly disciplines that were enlisted in early modern historiography and how they contributed to the development of a new, more ‘scientific’ approach to the reconstruction of the past. (shrink)

Heathen Soul Lore Foundations presents a living spiritual landscape, rooted in ancient Germanic languages and understanding, offered for modern Heathens to explore and use in their own spiritual practice. This book also presents an approach for identifying and exploring ancient concepts of 'what a soul is' that may be of interest to followers of other branches of historically based modern Paganism, and to scholars of comparative religion. Linguistic analysis, literature, folklore, comparative religion, anthropology, esoteric and philosophical approaches are used to (...) analyze old Germanic-language words relating to 'the soul'. The following souls, identified through this process, are thoroughly reviewed: Ferah, Ahma, Ghost, Hama, Aldr, Mod, Hugr, Sefa, and Saiwalo. Both scholarly and inspirational perspectives are taken, intended to stimulate both intellectual and imaginative exploration of these soul-concepts and the world-view which opens out from them. This deluxe edition provides full-color illustrations on premium quality paper in a linen-wrap hardcover book. The illustrations are chosen to stimulate engagement of the imagination in comprehending these abstract entities and their metaphysical contexts. // Review by Diana L. Paxson, author of "Essential Asatru: Walking the Path of Norse Paganism": "Since she first sent me the article on "Heathen Full-Souls" for Idunna: A Journal of Northern Tradition in 2006, I have been fascinated by Winifred Hodge Rose's development of the concept of the souls as an interactive system. I am delighted to see the full presentation of so many years of patient research and contemplation becoming available at last. In Winifred's hands, philology becomes a spiritual adventure, as words from the old Germanic languages reveal new insights into who we are and our place in the spiritual universe." // Review by John Michael Greer, author of "A World Full of Gods": "Winifred Rose has done an excellent job of gathering and synthesizing material about Heathen soul lore from a wide range of disparate sources. The resulting book is a scholarly, thorough resource that belongs on the bookshelf of every Heathen, and everyone interested in the subject.". (shrink)