Aztec Latin: Renaissance Learning and Nahuatl Traditions in Early Colonial Mexico, New York: Oxford University Press, 2024
In 1536, only fifteen years after the fall of the Aztec empire, Franciscan missionaries began tea... more In 1536, only fifteen years after the fall of the Aztec empire, Franciscan missionaries began teaching Latin, classical rhetoric, and Aristotelian philosophy to native youths in central Mexico. The remarkable linguistic and cultural exchanges that would result from that initiative are the subject of this book. Aztec Latin highlights the importance of Renaissance humanist education for early colonial indigenous history, showing how practices central to humanism — the cultivation of eloquence, the training of leaders, scholarly translation, and antiquarian research — were transformed in New Spain to serve Indian elites as well as the Spanish authorities and religious orders.
While Franciscan friars, inspired by Erasmus’ ideal of a common tongue, applied principles of Latin grammar to Amerindian languages, native scholars translated the Gospels, a range of devotional literature, and even Aesop’s Fables into the Mexican language of Nahuatl. They also produced significant new writings in Latin and Nahuatl, adorning accounts of their ancestral past with parallels from Greek and Roman history and importing themes from classical and Christian sources to interpret pre-Hispanic customs and beliefs. Aztec Latin reveals the full extent to which the first Mexican authors mastered and made use of European learning and provides a timely reassessment of what those indigenous authors really achieved.
Can a speaker's words ever be faithfully reported? History, philosophy, ethnography, political th... more Can a speaker's words ever be faithfully reported? History, philosophy, ethnography, political theory, linguistics and literary criticism all involve debates about discourse and representation. By drawing from Plato's theory of discourse, the lively analysis of speech presentation in this book provides a coherent and original contribution to these debates, and highlights the problems involved when speech becomes both the object and the medium of narrative representation. The opening chapters offer fresh insights on ideology, intertextuality, literary language, and historiography, and reveal important connections between them. These insights are then applied in specific critical treatments of - Virgil's Aeneid, of Petronius' Satyricon, and of scenes involving messengers and angels in classical and European epic. Throughout this study, ancient texts are discussed in conjunction with examples from later traditions. Overall, this book uses Latin literature to demonstrate the theoretical and ideological importance of speech presentation for a number of contemporary disciplines.
The volume makes widely available some important scholarship on the canonical texts of ancient rh... more The volume makes widely available some important scholarship on the canonical texts of ancient rhetoric and poetics. While there are numerous studies of general trends in classical criticism, this collection offers direct discussions of primary sources, which provide a useful companion to the Russell and Winterbottom anthology, Ancient Literary Criticism. The volume contains a chronology, suggestions for further reading, a new translation of Bernays' 1857 essay on catharsis, and an important introductory chapter addressing the tension in ancient literary criticism between its place in the classical tradition and its role in contemporary endeavours to reconstruct ancient culture.
Nowadays we can judge books by their covers. In antiquity, when a 'book' was a papyrus roll, its ... more Nowadays we can judge books by their covers. In antiquity, when a 'book' was a papyrus roll, its first few words advertised the nature of the text to follow. The Prologue of Apuleius' innovative novel, the Metamorphoses (or Golden Ass), is an extraordinary example of a programmatic opening, which has captivated readers and scholars from the Renaissance to the present day. This short text raises a variety of important questions about literacy, and about historical and linguistic interpretation. Along with a new text and translation of the Prologue, the twenty-four discussions in this volume, commissioned from internationally known specialists, cover issues ranging from philosophy and cultural history to intertextuality and Latinity. This collection of essays combines the broader perspectives of an interdisciplinary anthology with the closer focus of a traditional commentary. As a model for collaborative work, it displays the strength and diversity of existing approaches to ancient texts and is designed to stimulate new developments in the study of classics and later literatures.
Augusto Rostagni’s Arte Poetica di Orazio, first published in 1930 by the publisher Chiantore of ... more Augusto Rostagni’s Arte Poetica di Orazio, first published in 1930 by the publisher Chiantore of Turin, has had a fundamental role in shaping modern study and interpretation of the poem. It was the first commentary to take account of the important influence of Neoptolemos of Parium on Horace’s text, as well as giving full consideration to its affinities with Aristotle’s Poetics – on which Rostagni had already produced another influential commentary, also printed by Chiantore in 1927. The Piedmontese scholar thus sought to present the Ars Poetica ‘come un anello nella storia dell’Estestica antica’ laying emphasis on its literary theory. At the same time his elucidations served to highlight the poetic quality and allusive richness of Horace’s unique and fascinating work, continuing to provide an indispensable resource for any reader embarking on a study of the Latin text. My introduction to this volume, drawing from more recent scholarship, offers a fresh overview of the structure and content of the Ars poetica in terms of its ancient context and its place in later literary history. It also provides an up to date guide to further reading. This volume owes its existence to Antonio Stramaglia who envisaged and conceived it, and to Alessandro Lagioia who has translated the Introduction on which he offered many insightful suggestions.
Italy's early fascination with its Hellenic and Roman origins created what is now called 'the cla... more Italy's early fascination with its Hellenic and Roman origins created what is now called 'the classical tradition'.This book focuses on the role of the Greek and Latin languages and texts in Italian humanist thought and Renaissance poetry: how ancient languages were mastered and used, and how ancient texts were acquired and appropriated. Fresh perspectives on the influences of Aristotle, Plutarch and Virgil accompany innovative interpretations of canonical Italian authors - including Dante, Petrarch and Alberti - in the light of their classical models. Treatments of more specialised forms of writing, such as the cento and commentary, and some opening chapters on linguistic history also prompt reassessment of Renaissance perceptions of both Greece and Rome in relation to early modern Latin and vernacular culture. The collection as a whole highlights the importance of Italy's unique legacy of antiquity for the history of ideas and philology, as well as for literary history. The essays in this volume, all by leading specialists, are supplemented by a detailed introduction and a subject bibliography.
This is the first of two collections exploring cases, in Europe and beyond, in which Latin served... more This is the first of two collections exploring cases, in Europe and beyond, in which Latin served as a vehicle for the definition or expression of linguistic, regional and incipient national identities.
Rafael Landívar is the best known of all the poets from the Americas to write in Latin. In the Ru... more Rafael Landívar is the best known of all the poets from the Americas to write in Latin. In the Rusticatio Mexicana (1782), his masterpiece of didactic poetry, he drew extensively from Greek and Roman literature to describe in vivid epic verse the natural wonders, livelihoods and popular traditions of Mexico and his native Guatemala. This book begins with a detailed account of Mexico's unique classical heritage, showing how humanists in colonial New Spain applied indigenous forms of knowledge and a multicultural perspective to their reading of ancient authors. Further information about Landívar's life and exile to Italy helps to illuminate the allegorical character of his work - and its important political dimension. This accessible study of 'the American Virgil' will encourage readers to discover for themselves the astonishing quality and sophistication of the Latin literature of Latin America. The present volume incorporates a complete text of the Rusticatio Mexicana (with Regenos' translation). Landívar's shorter works have also been collected and translated into English for the first time.
This is the first concerted attempt to explore the significance of classical legacies for Latin A... more This is the first concerted attempt to explore the significance of classical legacies for Latin American history – from the uses of antiquarian learning in colonial institutions to the currents of Romantic Hellenism which inspired liberators and nation-builders in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The volume brings together essays by specialists in art history, cultural anthropology and literary studies, as well as Americanists and scholars of the classical tradition. In showing that appropriations of the Greco-Roman past are a recurrent catalyst for change in the Americas, this book also calls attention to ideas and developments which have been overlooked in standard narratives of intellectual history.
'Texts as Discourses' (excerpt from Powers of Expression, Expressions of Power, Oxford University Press 1999, chapter 1 'Speech and Symbolic Power')
This short discussion briefly explains the concept of intertextuality, distinguishing it from all... more This short discussion briefly explains the concept of intertextuality, distinguishing it from allusion, in order to dispel confusions which have arisen in the study of Latin literature as a consequence of Gian Biagio Conte's attempt to modify the term.
Tristan E. Franklinos & Laurel Fulkerson eds., Constructing Authors and Readers in the Appendices Vergiliana, Tibulliana, and Ouidiana., 2020
Leaving aside the question of authorship and its literary models, more general critical engagemen... more Leaving aside the question of authorship and its literary models, more general critical engagement with the Culex is thin on the ground – perhaps because the poem resists a totalising interpretation. The present chapter will present five original approaches to the text, each offering a different perspective. The first three primarily address the poem’s structure while the last two are largely thematic. Taken together, these fresh and varied ways of reading the Culex provide new insights on the authorship of the work.
Cambridge Companion to Virgil ed. Charles Martindale (Cambridge: CUP), 282-93, 1997
This discussion outlines the poetical features of style and narrative technique which contribute... more This discussion outlines the poetical features of style and narrative technique which contribute to Virgil's psychological characterisation and considers the role of audience response - in terms of reception, intertextuality and ideology - in determining Virgil's characterisation.
Aztec Latin: Renaissance Learning and Nahuatl Traditions in Early Colonial Mexico, New York: Oxford University Press, 2024
In 1536, only fifteen years after the fall of the Aztec empire, Franciscan missionaries began tea... more In 1536, only fifteen years after the fall of the Aztec empire, Franciscan missionaries began teaching Latin, classical rhetoric, and Aristotelian philosophy to native youths in central Mexico. The remarkable linguistic and cultural exchanges that would result from that initiative are the subject of this book. Aztec Latin highlights the importance of Renaissance humanist education for early colonial indigenous history, showing how practices central to humanism — the cultivation of eloquence, the training of leaders, scholarly translation, and antiquarian research — were transformed in New Spain to serve Indian elites as well as the Spanish authorities and religious orders.
While Franciscan friars, inspired by Erasmus’ ideal of a common tongue, applied principles of Latin grammar to Amerindian languages, native scholars translated the Gospels, a range of devotional literature, and even Aesop’s Fables into the Mexican language of Nahuatl. They also produced significant new writings in Latin and Nahuatl, adorning accounts of their ancestral past with parallels from Greek and Roman history and importing themes from classical and Christian sources to interpret pre-Hispanic customs and beliefs. Aztec Latin reveals the full extent to which the first Mexican authors mastered and made use of European learning and provides a timely reassessment of what those indigenous authors really achieved.
Can a speaker's words ever be faithfully reported? History, philosophy, ethnography, political th... more Can a speaker's words ever be faithfully reported? History, philosophy, ethnography, political theory, linguistics and literary criticism all involve debates about discourse and representation. By drawing from Plato's theory of discourse, the lively analysis of speech presentation in this book provides a coherent and original contribution to these debates, and highlights the problems involved when speech becomes both the object and the medium of narrative representation. The opening chapters offer fresh insights on ideology, intertextuality, literary language, and historiography, and reveal important connections between them. These insights are then applied in specific critical treatments of - Virgil's Aeneid, of Petronius' Satyricon, and of scenes involving messengers and angels in classical and European epic. Throughout this study, ancient texts are discussed in conjunction with examples from later traditions. Overall, this book uses Latin literature to demonstrate the theoretical and ideological importance of speech presentation for a number of contemporary disciplines.
The volume makes widely available some important scholarship on the canonical texts of ancient rh... more The volume makes widely available some important scholarship on the canonical texts of ancient rhetoric and poetics. While there are numerous studies of general trends in classical criticism, this collection offers direct discussions of primary sources, which provide a useful companion to the Russell and Winterbottom anthology, Ancient Literary Criticism. The volume contains a chronology, suggestions for further reading, a new translation of Bernays' 1857 essay on catharsis, and an important introductory chapter addressing the tension in ancient literary criticism between its place in the classical tradition and its role in contemporary endeavours to reconstruct ancient culture.
Nowadays we can judge books by their covers. In antiquity, when a 'book' was a papyrus roll, its ... more Nowadays we can judge books by their covers. In antiquity, when a 'book' was a papyrus roll, its first few words advertised the nature of the text to follow. The Prologue of Apuleius' innovative novel, the Metamorphoses (or Golden Ass), is an extraordinary example of a programmatic opening, which has captivated readers and scholars from the Renaissance to the present day. This short text raises a variety of important questions about literacy, and about historical and linguistic interpretation. Along with a new text and translation of the Prologue, the twenty-four discussions in this volume, commissioned from internationally known specialists, cover issues ranging from philosophy and cultural history to intertextuality and Latinity. This collection of essays combines the broader perspectives of an interdisciplinary anthology with the closer focus of a traditional commentary. As a model for collaborative work, it displays the strength and diversity of existing approaches to ancient texts and is designed to stimulate new developments in the study of classics and later literatures.
Augusto Rostagni’s Arte Poetica di Orazio, first published in 1930 by the publisher Chiantore of ... more Augusto Rostagni’s Arte Poetica di Orazio, first published in 1930 by the publisher Chiantore of Turin, has had a fundamental role in shaping modern study and interpretation of the poem. It was the first commentary to take account of the important influence of Neoptolemos of Parium on Horace’s text, as well as giving full consideration to its affinities with Aristotle’s Poetics – on which Rostagni had already produced another influential commentary, also printed by Chiantore in 1927. The Piedmontese scholar thus sought to present the Ars Poetica ‘come un anello nella storia dell’Estestica antica’ laying emphasis on its literary theory. At the same time his elucidations served to highlight the poetic quality and allusive richness of Horace’s unique and fascinating work, continuing to provide an indispensable resource for any reader embarking on a study of the Latin text. My introduction to this volume, drawing from more recent scholarship, offers a fresh overview of the structure and content of the Ars poetica in terms of its ancient context and its place in later literary history. It also provides an up to date guide to further reading. This volume owes its existence to Antonio Stramaglia who envisaged and conceived it, and to Alessandro Lagioia who has translated the Introduction on which he offered many insightful suggestions.
Italy's early fascination with its Hellenic and Roman origins created what is now called 'the cla... more Italy's early fascination with its Hellenic and Roman origins created what is now called 'the classical tradition'.This book focuses on the role of the Greek and Latin languages and texts in Italian humanist thought and Renaissance poetry: how ancient languages were mastered and used, and how ancient texts were acquired and appropriated. Fresh perspectives on the influences of Aristotle, Plutarch and Virgil accompany innovative interpretations of canonical Italian authors - including Dante, Petrarch and Alberti - in the light of their classical models. Treatments of more specialised forms of writing, such as the cento and commentary, and some opening chapters on linguistic history also prompt reassessment of Renaissance perceptions of both Greece and Rome in relation to early modern Latin and vernacular culture. The collection as a whole highlights the importance of Italy's unique legacy of antiquity for the history of ideas and philology, as well as for literary history. The essays in this volume, all by leading specialists, are supplemented by a detailed introduction and a subject bibliography.
This is the first of two collections exploring cases, in Europe and beyond, in which Latin served... more This is the first of two collections exploring cases, in Europe and beyond, in which Latin served as a vehicle for the definition or expression of linguistic, regional and incipient national identities.
Rafael Landívar is the best known of all the poets from the Americas to write in Latin. In the Ru... more Rafael Landívar is the best known of all the poets from the Americas to write in Latin. In the Rusticatio Mexicana (1782), his masterpiece of didactic poetry, he drew extensively from Greek and Roman literature to describe in vivid epic verse the natural wonders, livelihoods and popular traditions of Mexico and his native Guatemala. This book begins with a detailed account of Mexico's unique classical heritage, showing how humanists in colonial New Spain applied indigenous forms of knowledge and a multicultural perspective to their reading of ancient authors. Further information about Landívar's life and exile to Italy helps to illuminate the allegorical character of his work - and its important political dimension. This accessible study of 'the American Virgil' will encourage readers to discover for themselves the astonishing quality and sophistication of the Latin literature of Latin America. The present volume incorporates a complete text of the Rusticatio Mexicana (with Regenos' translation). Landívar's shorter works have also been collected and translated into English for the first time.
This is the first concerted attempt to explore the significance of classical legacies for Latin A... more This is the first concerted attempt to explore the significance of classical legacies for Latin American history – from the uses of antiquarian learning in colonial institutions to the currents of Romantic Hellenism which inspired liberators and nation-builders in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The volume brings together essays by specialists in art history, cultural anthropology and literary studies, as well as Americanists and scholars of the classical tradition. In showing that appropriations of the Greco-Roman past are a recurrent catalyst for change in the Americas, this book also calls attention to ideas and developments which have been overlooked in standard narratives of intellectual history.
'Texts as Discourses' (excerpt from Powers of Expression, Expressions of Power, Oxford University Press 1999, chapter 1 'Speech and Symbolic Power')
This short discussion briefly explains the concept of intertextuality, distinguishing it from all... more This short discussion briefly explains the concept of intertextuality, distinguishing it from allusion, in order to dispel confusions which have arisen in the study of Latin literature as a consequence of Gian Biagio Conte's attempt to modify the term.
Tristan E. Franklinos & Laurel Fulkerson eds., Constructing Authors and Readers in the Appendices Vergiliana, Tibulliana, and Ouidiana., 2020
Leaving aside the question of authorship and its literary models, more general critical engagemen... more Leaving aside the question of authorship and its literary models, more general critical engagement with the Culex is thin on the ground – perhaps because the poem resists a totalising interpretation. The present chapter will present five original approaches to the text, each offering a different perspective. The first three primarily address the poem’s structure while the last two are largely thematic. Taken together, these fresh and varied ways of reading the Culex provide new insights on the authorship of the work.
Cambridge Companion to Virgil ed. Charles Martindale (Cambridge: CUP), 282-93, 1997
This discussion outlines the poetical features of style and narrative technique which contribute... more This discussion outlines the poetical features of style and narrative technique which contribute to Virgil's psychological characterisation and considers the role of audience response - in terms of reception, intertextuality and ideology - in determining Virgil's characterisation.
This paper considers the Satyricon in relation to the developing history of Greek prose fiction, ... more This paper considers the Satyricon in relation to the developing history of Greek prose fiction, highlighting some problems presented by a panoramic view of Greco-Roman literary history for interpretation of this work. The aim of this discussion is not to argue firmly for a later period of composition for the Satyrica (although that is very probable), but to highlight the fact that its date has not yet been properly settled. This awkward question cannot but bear on the way in which the work is viewed in relation to a constellation of potential Greek influences and sources.
Glaucon's story about the ring of invisibility in Republic 359d-60b is examined in order to asses... more Glaucon's story about the ring of invisibility in Republic 359d-60b is examined in order to assess the wider role of fictional fabrication in Plato's philosophical argument. The first part of the article (I) looks at the close connections this tale has to the account of Gyges in Herodotus (1.8-12). It is argued that Plato exhibits a specific dependence on Herodotus, which suggests Glaucon's story might be an original invention: the assumption that there must be a lost 'original' to inspire Plato's story of the ring has never accommodated the possibility of Plato drawing, perhaps quite directly, from Herodotus. The next section (II) considers the function of that fable within the larger philosophical and aesthetic structure of the Republic. Appreciation of the entire dialogue as an exercise in fiction, as well as philosophy, helps to reveal the ways in which philosophical argument and fictional invention are closely bound up in the formation of Glaucon's fabulous anecdote. Finally (III), a reading of Cicero's treatment of the story in De Officiis confirms the degree to which philosophical reasoning and fiction can be quite generally interdependent. Although the arguments in Sections II and III are consistent with the opening contention that the ring story was invented by Plato, they do not presuppose it.
Most of the Jesuits who were were expelled from Spain’s territories in 1767 settled in Italy. The... more Most of the Jesuits who were were expelled from Spain’s territories in 1767 settled in Italy. The exiled scholars, who produced a large corpus of writing in Latin, rejected the disparaging accounts of the Americas given by Buffon and De Pauw, rebutted the arguments of Voltaire and the philosophes, and opposed the French Revolution. On the other hand, the creole emigrés’ ready accommodation of philosophical and scientific advances and their remarkable anticipation of Kant’s conception of the sublime are consonant with growing recognition that the Enlightenment involved a plurality of tendencies, not all of which involved opposition to religion.
Lucretius, Poet and Philosopher: Six Hundred Years after his Rediscovery, 2020
Lucretius’ pivotal and pervasive influence on the thought and literature of creole Jesuits from c... more Lucretius’ pivotal and pervasive influence on the thought and literature of creole Jesuits from colonial Spanish America became more pronounced over the course of the 1700s. The extent of this influence is now little known, partly because it was confined to manuscripts and printed books in Latin, and partly because the Hispanic Enlightenment is generally ignored by intellectual historians. Nonetheless, recognition of this aspect of Lucretius’ early modern reception is important for its ramifications in Italy and Europe after the expulsion of the Society of Jesus from Spain’s territories in 1767, and it invites a more flexible and inclusive historical conception of the Enlightenment. This paper will consider exemplary texts which highlight three distinct phases of Lucretius’ influence on the creole Jesuit writing and ideas: first, the focus will be on some works produced in New Spain (Mexico) in the earlier 1700s; second, on Abad’s later monumental poem in 42 books, De Deo, Deoque Homine Carmina Heroica; third, some relevant Creole contributions to the Enlightenment ‘Dispute of the Americas’ will be considered.
This paper challenges Walter Mignolo’s influential view that the Renaissance grammarian Nebrija’s... more This paper challenges Walter Mignolo’s influential view that the Renaissance grammarian Nebrija’s theory of writing had a role in justifying Spanish imperialism and contributed to the diminution or elimination of native language and memory in the Americas. It will be shown that Isidore of Seville’s comparatively versatile conception of writing, which accommodated pictograms, was far more pervasive in Spain and the New World, fostering parallel advances in written and pictorial communication by indigenous groups, while European letters provided a flexible means of notation for Amerindian languages.
Transactions of the American Philological Association, 2019
This article questions the common assumption that missionary linguists in early colonial Spanish... more This article questions the common assumption that missionary linguists in early colonial Spanish America believed indigenous languages could be governed by the principles of Latin. Passages from sixteenth-century 'artes' or manuals of Quechua, Nahuatl and P’urépecha show that their authors were compelled either to abandon or transform radically the precepts of classical and Renaissance authorities on grammar. Latin, however, did play a crucial part in the production of translations and original texts in Amerindian languages, which, with certain provisos, lay open an important field of future research for classical philologists and literary historians.
This paper will survey examples of artes of Amerindian languages and of confessional and preachi... more This paper will survey examples of artes of Amerindian languages and of confessional and preaching manuals, in order to consider the extent to which Jesuit probabilism and the principle of accommodation may have influenced practical missionary method in New Spain and Peru in the late 1500s.
DIECIOCHO: Journal of the Hispanic Enlightenment 38.1, pp. 7-32, Mar 2015
José Manuel Peramás, best known for his account of the Paraguayan Jesuit missions in which he com... more José Manuel Peramás, best known for his account of the Paraguayan Jesuit missions in which he compared the Guarani Indian communities to Plato’s ideal republic, also published an ambitious Latin epic celebrating Columbus and the Christianization of the New World. The present survey shows how Peramás’ composition was distinguished from earlier Columbus epics, highlighting its pan-Americanist stance and its significance as a response to Enlightenment polemics about the Indies and to the resurgence of the ‘Black Legend’. Peramás’ Latin Dedication and Prologue to his poem are appended with English translations: the detailed discussion of those preliminary texts is intended to orient future investigations of this hitherto forgotten work.
José Manuel Peramás, conocido por su descripción de las misiones jesuíticas del Paraguay en la cual comparó las comunidades guaraníes a la república ideal de Platón, publicó también en latín un poema heroico sobre Colón y la cristianización del Nuevo Mundo. El presente artículo expone la diferencia entre esta obra de Peramás y las epopeyas anteriores relativas a Colón, resaltando su pan-americanismo e importancia del mismo como respuesta, tanto a los debates de la Ilustración sobre las Indias, como a la ‘Leyenda Negra’. Se han incluido los textos y las traducciones de la dedicación y el prólogo; se espera que el presente estudio sobre estos textos preliminares oriente futuras investigaciones sobre este poema hasta ahora mantenido en el olvido.
This article opens with a very brief survey of the life of Vinko Paletin, who had fought with the... more This article opens with a very brief survey of the life of Vinko Paletin, who had fought with the Spaniards against the Yucatec Maya under the command of Francisco de Montejo the Younger, before he joined the Dominican order and produced several works on geography, cartography and conquest. Paletin’s Latin treatise, De jure et justitia belli contra Indos, based on a Spanish work composed in 1557-58, combined political and juridical thought with travel narrative and historiography to affirm the right of the Catholic kings of Spain to conquer and rule the peoples of the New World. The second part of the discussion sets out the structure of the De jure et justitia and its divergences from the earlier Spanish text, and summarises its principal arguments. The final part compares the Latin and Spanish versions of the author’s description of the buildings at the Mayan city of Chichen Itza. If they are considered together, the two accounts recall that of the temple of Juno in the first book of Virgil’s Aeneid: this evocation underscores Paletin’s thesis that the architecture and the writ- ten script to be found in Chichen Itza could be attributed to the Carthaginians.
Oxford Handbook of Neo-Latin ed. Sarah Knight and Stefan Tilg. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Aug 2015
This essay provides an account of the contexts in which Latin was used in early modern Ibero-Amer... more This essay provides an account of the contexts in which Latin was used in early modern Ibero-America, surveying its role in controversies about the status of the native populations and in evangelisation as well as in colonial education, literary production, rhetoric and philosophy. Two situations in which select groups wrote in Latin in order to affirm their identity and protect their interests are examined in detail: the language served some acculturated members of the indigenous nobilities in central Mexico in petitions they made to the Spanish crown during the mid-1500s; and during the later eighteenth century creole Jesuits produced a rich corpus of Latin literature to draw attention to their distinctive heritage as Spanish Americans in response to a succession of polemics about the New World and its inhabitants from Enlightenment philosophers, scientists and historians in Europe.
This paper explains why Jesuit authors from New Spain wrote in Latin in order to promote the rich... more This paper explains why Jesuit authors from New Spain wrote in Latin in order to promote the richness of Mexico’s nature and culture, in response to Enlightenment polemics about the degeneracy of human and natural life in the Americas. Consideration of some works produced between 1750 and 1780 indicates the principal reason: the creole Jesuits sought a legacy for Mexico to match the monumental representation of Iberia’s Greco-Roman past and of the Spanish Golden Age in the 'Bibliotheca Hispana nova' and the 'Bibliotheca Hispana vetus' which the Sevillian scholar Nicolás Antonio had compiled in Latin in the mid-1600s.
RESUMEN: La Alexandriada de Francisco Xavier Alegre puede ser vista como una representación alegó... more RESUMEN: La Alexandriada de Francisco Xavier Alegre puede ser vista como una representación alegórica de la conquista de México por los españoles. Demostraremos cómo son pasajes específicos los que sostienen nuestra tesis. Además encontramos muchos textos y discursos (desde el siglo XVI, por ejemplo la Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España de Bernal Díaz) en los que se identifica al conquistador Hernán Cortés con el rey macedonio. Pero una interpretación del poema como tal no puede ser decisiva: es abierta porque estará determinada por los horizontes ideológicos del lector.
Antonio Cortés Totoquihuatzin made several requests for alleviation of the tribute due from Tlaco... more Antonio Cortés Totoquihuatzin made several requests for alleviation of the tribute due from Tlacopan to the town’s encomenderos Isabel de Montezuma and the conquistador Juan Cano. In a Latin letter, transcribed and translated below, Don Antonio explained Tlacopan’s importance in pre-Hispanic Mexico and described how his father had welcomed Hernán Cortés, allying his people with the Spaniards against the Aztecs – a version of events which diverges from other accounts, including Hernán Cortés’ own. The following discussion examines the letter’s rhetorical strategies in relation to its historical context, shows how the writer’s humanist learning accommodated European and Mexican traditions, and considers why petitions like this were sometimes made in Latin.
This essay highlights the historical, political and intellectual significance of Cicero’s legacy ... more This essay highlights the historical, political and intellectual significance of Cicero’s legacy in the colonial Americas in three distinct phases: (i) Cicero’s importance for early missionaries and chroniclers in the 1500s, following the first European incursions and conquests. (ii) The role of Cicero in colonial education and literary production, and some foundational rhetorical treatises produced in Mexico and Peru. (iii) Cicero’s notion of patria, recalled in some vernacular works from the 1600s became increasingly prevalent in Latin writing over the eighteenth century, and anticipated connections between his oeuvre and expressions of nationalism which developed with the onset of independence in the 1800s.
While the Latin epics of Rafael Landívar, José Manuel Peramás and other Spanish American authors ... more While the Latin epics of Rafael Landívar, José Manuel Peramás and other Spanish American authors of the late eighteenth century are becoming more widely known, this chapter will call attention to a number of earlier Latin poets in the New World who wrote in the style of Virgil. The first part of the discussion will be devoted to missionaries and educators active in the initial wake of European colonization in the 1500s: Alessandro Geraldini in Hispaniola, Fray Cristóbal Cabrera in Mexico, and two epic poets, José de Anchieta in Brazil and Francisco de Pedrosa in Guatemala. The second part will survey works by Jesuits and their associates in New Spain, from the end of the sixteenth century to the earlier 1700s. These include eclogues by Bernardino de Llanos and his students, an epyllion by Bartolomé Rosales staging the resurrection of Virgil in Mexico, a Virgilian cento by Bernardo Ceinos de Riofrío about the Virgin of Guadalupe, Jose Antonio de Villerías’ Guadalupe (an elaborate epic on the same theme), and José Mariano de Iturriaga’s shorter heroic poem in praise of Gianmaria Salvatierra, who converted the native inhabitants of California to Christianity. Some salient connections between these disparate works will be considered in the conclusion.
Bulletin of Latin American Research Monograph: Antiquities and Classical Traditions in Latin America, 2018
This Introduction identify three major fields of Greco-Roman influence which had a pivotal beari... more This Introduction identify three major fields of Greco-Roman influence which had a pivotal bearing on Latin American history. These fields of influence were roughly successive: the classical idea of the Golden Age, which was prevalent in the wake of the discovery and conquest; the role of Aristotle which endured in education and intellectual life from the early colonial period until at least the end of the eighteenth century; and aspects of both Ciceronian republicanism and Romantic Hellenism which acquired more political momentum with the onset of independence.
A survey of the poetic theory and the poetic practice of the Ambra, a an exposition of Homer in A... more A survey of the poetic theory and the poetic practice of the Ambra, a an exposition of Homer in Angelo Poliziano's Silvae (1485)
Una vista somera sobre las herencias y varios rastros de la antigua Europa en Latinoamérica
An ... more Una vista somera sobre las herencias y varios rastros de la antigua Europa en Latinoamérica
An overview of ancient European legacies in Latin America
This paper is an introduction to the Chronis, an anonymous and little known Latin eclogue from th... more This paper is an introduction to the Chronis, an anonymous and little known Latin eclogue from the 1500s, followed by a text, translation and conspectus of sources for the poem. The introduction proposes that the poem’s erotic pastoral framework serves as a vehicle for Christian doctrines about life after death. After some opening remarks about the transmission of the work in Mexico and its possible Italian origin, the literary quality of the Chronis is explored through an analysis of its structure and treatment of the poem's major reminiscences – of Catullus, Ovid, Silius Italicus, and Virgil in particular. The survey then turns to Chronis’ name, which resembles that of Chromis (a figure in Homeric and Virgilian epic, as well as in Theocritus and Virgil’s sixth Eclogue), but the name may also be related to terms in classical and patristic Greek. That observation leads into a closing examination of the Christian subtext of the dialogue between Sylvanus and Echo.
This paper presents a text and translation of the Chronis, an anonymous and little known humanist... more This paper presents a text and translation of the Chronis, an anonymous and little known humanist Latin eclogue from the 1500s. The introduction proposes that the poem’s erotic pastoral framework serves as a vehicle for Christian doctrines about life after death. After some opening remarks about the transmission of the work in Mexico and its possible Italian origin, the literary qualities of the Chronis are explored through an analysis of its structure and treatment of the poem's major literary reminiscences – of Catullus, Ovid, Silius Italicus, and Virgil in particular. The survey then turns to Chronis’ name, which resembles that of Chromis (a figure in Homeric and Virgilian epic as well as in Theocritus and Virgil’s sixth Eclogue), but the name may also be related to terms in classical and patristic Greek. That observation leads to a closing examination of the Christian subtext of the dialogue between Sylvanus and Echo. This suggestive overview of the Chronis is then followed by the text and prose translation of the poem, with notes on its Latin sources.
This piece was originally solicited for the New Statesman in the summer of 2001 and written in Se... more This piece was originally solicited for the New Statesman in the summer of 2001 and written in September of that year, but the magazine’s editors, who were broadly in sympathy with the policies of the Blair government at the time, decided not to print it. The text ended up online (without ever having been posted by the author) and it was cited in one or two refereed publications, including Chris Lorenz, ‘Will the Universities survive the European integration? Higher Education Policies in the EU and in the Netherlands before and after the Bologna Declaration’, Sociologia Internationalis (2006) 39.1: 123-151
Hoy en día se sabe muy poco de la rica historia intelectual y cultural de Charcas colonial, que f... more Hoy en día se sabe muy poco de la rica historia intelectual y cultural de Charcas colonial, que formó parte del Virreinato del Perú y cuyo territorio corresponde aproximadamente a la moderna Bolivia. Desde hace mucho tiempo, Andrés Eichmann está desenterrando e interpretando la literatura en español (además de algunas obras en latín) de la región, producida en los siglos XVI y XVII. En esta charla proporcionará una visión general informada de sus hallazgos y explicará el estado actual de la investigación de este campo.
Very little is known of the rich intellectual and cultural history of colonial Charcas, a part of the Viceroyalty of Peru now roughly constituting the area of modern Bolivia. For several years Andrés Eichmann has been unearthing and interpreting Spanish literature and some works in Latin from the region, which were produced in the 16th and 17th centuries. In this talk he will provide a uniquely informed overview of his findings and explain the current state of investigation in this field.
This lecture will be given in Spanish.
Andrés Eichmann Oerhli, Professor (Catedrático) of Latin American Literature in UMSA in La Paz, Bolivia, has had visiting lectureships at the universities of Versailles in France and Navarra in Spain and is founding editor of the journal Classics Boliviana. His book publications include De Boliviana latinitate: Pensamiento y latín en Bolivia (2002); Letras humanas y divinas en la muy noble ciudad de La Plata (2005), Cancionero mariano de Charcas (2009), and a volume co-authored with Ignacio Arellano, Entremeses, loas y coloquios de Potosí (2005).
‘We have no idea what language they talk and who they are. Fortunately we don’t know. The day we... more ‘We have no idea what language they talk and who they are. Fortunately we don’t know. The day we find out they will start to have problems.’ José Carlos Mereilles, on his recent discovery of an uncontacted tribe in Acre, Brazil, December 2016
Conceptions of primitive human beings living in peaceful co-existence and in harmony with nature have had an enduring presence in western thought and literature – reaching back to the biblical account of Eden and Greco-Roman myths of a lost Golden Age. From the Renaissance onwards, such conceptions of the bon sauvage or ‘noble savage’ have also manifested themselves in history, shaping or informing views of newly encountered peoples by dominant powers. This colloquium will initiate an open-ended exploration – from a cross-disciplinary and multicultural perspective – of ways in which constructions of the noble savage have been transformed or appropriated in an exemplary variety of discourses, fields and environments, ranging from classical literature and early modern political philosophy to Atlantic history, Latin American fiction, cinema, anthropology and postcolonial theory.
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While Franciscan friars, inspired by Erasmus’ ideal of a common tongue, applied principles of Latin grammar to Amerindian languages, native scholars translated the Gospels, a range of devotional literature, and even Aesop’s Fables into the Mexican language of Nahuatl. They also produced significant new writings in Latin and Nahuatl, adorning accounts of their ancestral past with parallels from Greek and Roman history and importing themes from classical and Christian sources to interpret pre-Hispanic customs and beliefs. Aztec Latin reveals the full extent to which the first Mexican authors mastered and made use of European learning and provides a timely reassessment of what those indigenous authors really achieved.
Reviews by (i) Carlos Levy (ii) Bruce Gibson
Along with a new text and translation of the Prologue, the twenty-four discussions in this volume, commissioned from internationally known specialists, cover issues ranging from philosophy and cultural history to intertextuality and Latinity. This collection of essays combines the broader perspectives of an interdisciplinary anthology with the closer focus of a traditional commentary. As a model for collaborative work, it displays the strength and diversity of existing approaches to ancient texts and is designed to stimulate new developments in the study of classics and later literatures.
My introduction to this volume, drawing from more recent scholarship, offers a fresh overview of the structure and content of the Ars poetica in terms of its ancient context and its place in later literary history. It also provides an up to date guide to further reading. This volume owes its existence to Antonio Stramaglia who envisaged and conceived it, and to Alessandro Lagioia who has translated the Introduction on which he offered many insightful suggestions.
This book begins with a detailed account of Mexico's unique classical heritage, showing how humanists in colonial New Spain applied indigenous forms of knowledge and a multicultural perspective to their reading of ancient authors. Further information about Landívar's life and exile to Italy helps to illuminate the allegorical character of his work - and its important political dimension. This accessible study of 'the American Virgil' will encourage readers to discover for themselves the astonishing quality and sophistication of the Latin literature of Latin America. The present volume incorporates a complete text of the Rusticatio Mexicana (with Regenos' translation). Landívar's shorter works have also been collected and translated into English for the first time.
While Franciscan friars, inspired by Erasmus’ ideal of a common tongue, applied principles of Latin grammar to Amerindian languages, native scholars translated the Gospels, a range of devotional literature, and even Aesop’s Fables into the Mexican language of Nahuatl. They also produced significant new writings in Latin and Nahuatl, adorning accounts of their ancestral past with parallels from Greek and Roman history and importing themes from classical and Christian sources to interpret pre-Hispanic customs and beliefs. Aztec Latin reveals the full extent to which the first Mexican authors mastered and made use of European learning and provides a timely reassessment of what those indigenous authors really achieved.
Reviews by (i) Carlos Levy (ii) Bruce Gibson
Along with a new text and translation of the Prologue, the twenty-four discussions in this volume, commissioned from internationally known specialists, cover issues ranging from philosophy and cultural history to intertextuality and Latinity. This collection of essays combines the broader perspectives of an interdisciplinary anthology with the closer focus of a traditional commentary. As a model for collaborative work, it displays the strength and diversity of existing approaches to ancient texts and is designed to stimulate new developments in the study of classics and later literatures.
My introduction to this volume, drawing from more recent scholarship, offers a fresh overview of the structure and content of the Ars poetica in terms of its ancient context and its place in later literary history. It also provides an up to date guide to further reading. This volume owes its existence to Antonio Stramaglia who envisaged and conceived it, and to Alessandro Lagioia who has translated the Introduction on which he offered many insightful suggestions.
This book begins with a detailed account of Mexico's unique classical heritage, showing how humanists in colonial New Spain applied indigenous forms of knowledge and a multicultural perspective to their reading of ancient authors. Further information about Landívar's life and exile to Italy helps to illuminate the allegorical character of his work - and its important political dimension. This accessible study of 'the American Virgil' will encourage readers to discover for themselves the astonishing quality and sophistication of the Latin literature of Latin America. The present volume incorporates a complete text of the Rusticatio Mexicana (with Regenos' translation). Landívar's shorter works have also been collected and translated into English for the first time.
José Manuel Peramás, conocido por su descripción de las misiones jesuíticas del Paraguay en la cual comparó las comunidades guaraníes a la república ideal de Platón, publicó también en latín un poema heroico sobre Colón y la cristianización del Nuevo Mundo. El presente artículo expone la diferencia entre esta obra de Peramás y las epopeyas anteriores relativas a Colón, resaltando su pan-americanismo e importancia del mismo como respuesta, tanto a los debates de la Ilustración sobre las Indias, como a la ‘Leyenda Negra’. Se han incluido los textos y las traducciones de la dedicación y el prólogo; se espera que el presente estudio sobre estos textos preliminares oriente futuras investigaciones sobre este poema hasta ahora mantenido en el olvido.
(i) Cicero’s importance for early missionaries and chroniclers in the 1500s, following the first European incursions and conquests.
(ii) The role of Cicero in colonial education and literary production, and some foundational rhetorical treatises produced in Mexico and Peru.
(iii) Cicero’s notion of patria, recalled in some vernacular works from the 1600s became increasingly prevalent in Latin writing over the eighteenth century, and anticipated connections between his oeuvre and expressions of nationalism which developed with the onset of independence in the 1800s.
An overview of ancient European legacies in Latin America
Very little is known of the rich intellectual and cultural history of colonial Charcas, a part of the Viceroyalty of Peru now roughly constituting the area of modern Bolivia. For several years Andrés Eichmann has been unearthing and interpreting Spanish literature and some works in Latin from the region, which were produced in the 16th and 17th centuries. In this talk he will provide a uniquely informed overview of his findings and explain the current state of investigation in this field.
This lecture will be given in Spanish.
Andrés Eichmann Oerhli, Professor (Catedrático) of Latin American Literature in UMSA in La Paz, Bolivia, has had visiting lectureships at the universities of Versailles in France and Navarra in Spain and is founding editor of the journal Classics Boliviana. His book publications include De Boliviana latinitate: Pensamiento y latín en Bolivia (2002); Letras humanas y divinas en la muy noble ciudad de La Plata (2005), Cancionero mariano de Charcas (2009), and a volume co-authored with Ignacio Arellano, Entremeses, loas y coloquios de Potosí (2005).
José Carlos Mereilles, on his recent discovery of an uncontacted tribe in Acre, Brazil, December 2016
Conceptions of primitive human beings living in peaceful co-existence and in harmony with nature have had an enduring presence in western thought and literature – reaching back to the biblical account of Eden and Greco-Roman myths of a lost Golden Age. From the Renaissance onwards, such conceptions of the bon sauvage or ‘noble savage’ have also manifested themselves in history, shaping or informing views of newly encountered peoples by dominant powers. This colloquium will initiate an open-ended exploration – from a cross-disciplinary and multicultural perspective – of ways in which constructions of the noble savage have been transformed or appropriated in an exemplary variety of discourses, fields and environments, ranging from classical literature and early modern political philosophy to Atlantic history, Latin American fiction, cinema, anthropology and postcolonial theory.