Suchergebnisse

De polyhistor en philologue.

S'il est bien connu que la philologie classique a joué un rôle central dans la culture allemande du xixe siècle, on sait habituellement moins à quel genre d'occupation, à quelles pratiques, notamment pédagogiques, à quelles méthodes et à quelles expériences sociales elle correspond. Cet article étudie, en s'appuyant sur de nombreux exemples, le type d'enseignement, les formes d'échange intellectuel, les fonctions sociales des savoirs et des savoir-faire associés à la philologie. Il interprète les limites de la rupture entre la philologie professionnelle et ce qui l'a précédée, et les difficultés rencontrées, en particulier auprès des étudiants, par un enseignement tourné vers l'érudition savante beaucoup plus que vers la Bildung, formation humaine globale, pourtant théorisée par Humboldt. Les méthodes utilisées par les philologues, les contenus de connaissance qu'ils élaboraient, contredisaient souvent le rôle social qu'ils désiraient jouer.

In 1713 and 1715 Johann Burkhard Mencke subjected the scholars of the Holy Roman Empire to a searching examination. They failed it. His two speeches "On the Charlatanry of the Learned"—best sellers wherever they were not banned—ridiculed the minds and the mores of the polyhistors with equal zest. Mencke anatomized their love for overblown titles:Today … you see many demanding to be called Clarissimus who are absolutely unknown outside the walls of their city; Magnificus, who have scarcely any dignity at home; Consultissimus, who have little or no advice to give: and Excellentissimus, who do not know as much about anything worth knowing as the veriest tyro.

Few articles in the humanities have had the impact of Lisa Jardine and Anthony Grafton's seminal 'Studied for Action' (1990), a study of the reading practices of Elizabethan polymath and prolific annotator Gabriel Harvey. Their excavation of the setting, methods and ambitions of Harvey's encounters with his books ignited the History of Reading, an interdisciplinary field which quickly became one of the most exciting corners of the scholarly cosmos. A generation inspired by the model of Harvey fanned out across the world's libraries and archives, seeking to reveal the many creative, unexpected and curious ways that individuals throughout history responded to texts, and how these interpretations in turn illuminate past worlds.

Three decades on, Harvey's example and Jardine's work remain central to cutting-edge scholarship in the History of Reading. By uniting 'Studied for Action' with published and unpublished studies on Harvey by Jardine, Grafton and the scholars they have influenced, this collection provides a unique lens on the place of marginalia in textual, intellectual and cultural history. The chapters capture subsequent work on Harvey and map the fields opened by Jardine and Grafton's original article, collectively offering a posthumous tribute to Lisa Jardine and an authoritative overview of the History of Reading.