The Unfolding of Words: Commentary in the Age of Erasmus

by Judith Rice Henderson

Overview

Leading sixteenth-century scholars such as Martin Luther and Desiderius Erasmus used print technology to engage in dialogue and debate with authoritative contemporary texts. By what Juan Luis Vives termed 'the unfolding of words,' these humanists gave old works new meanings in brief notes and extensive commentaries, full paraphrases, or translations. This critique challenged the Middle Ages' deference to authors and authorship and resulted in some of the most original thought - and most violent controversy - of the Renaissance and Reformation.

The Unfolding of Words brings together international scholarship to explore crucial changes in writers' interactions with religious and classical texts. This collection focuses particularly on commentaries by Erasmus, contextualizing his Annotations and Paraphrases on the New Testament against broader currents and works by such contemporaries as François Rabelais and Jodocus Badius. The Unfolding of Words tracks humanist explorations of the possibilities of the page that led to the modern dictionary, encyclopedia, and scholarly edition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781487565251
Publisher:	University of Toronto Press
Publication date:	08/15/2024
Series:	Erasmus Studies
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Judith Rice Henderson is a professor in the Department of English and is active in the Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies Program at the University of Saskatchewan.

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgements

Part One: Genres of Sixteenth-Century Commentary

One: Theory and Practices of Commentary in the Renaissance
Jean Céard, Université Paris-Ouest Nanterre La Défense

Part Two: The Biblical Scholarship of Erasmus

Two: Erasmus's Paraphrases: A 'New Kind of Commentary'?
Jean-François Cottier, Université Paris-7 Diderot and Université de Montréal

Editor's Addendum: Translating an Erasmian Definition of Paraphrase
Judith Rice Henderson, University of Saskatchewan

Three: The Actor in the Story: Horizons of Interpretation in Erasmus's Annotations on Luke
Mark Vessey, University of British Columbia

Four: The Function of Ambrosiaster in Erasmus's Annotations on the Epistle to the Galatians
Riemer Faber, University of Waterloo, Ontario

Five: Erasmus's Biblical Scholarship in the Toronto Project
Robert D. Sider, Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania and University of Saskatchewan

Part Three: Religious Contexts of Printed Commentary

Six: 'Virtual Classroom': Josse Bade's Commentaries for the Pious Reader
Mark Crane, Nipissing University, North Bay, Ontario

Seven: Embedded Commentary in Luther's Translation of Romans 3
Gordon A. Jensen, Lutheran Theological Seminary, Saskatoon

Eight: Commenting on Hatred of Commentaries: Les Censures des Théologiens Revised by Robert Estienne
Hélène Cazes, University of Victoria, British Columbia

Part Four: Developments in Humanist Philology

Nine: Rabelais's Lost Stratagemata (ca. 1539): A Commentary on Frontinus?
Claude La Charité, Université du Québec à Rimouski

Ten: Commentaries on Tacitus by Justus Lipsius: Their Editing and Printing History

Appendix I: A Survey of Lipsius's Editions of Tacitus (Text and/or Commentary)
Appendix II: The Praenomen of Tacitus: Why Lipsius Preferred Caius to Publius
Appendix III: The Annotations in Leiden UL, 762 C 4 as Source of the Curae secundae
Appendix IV: Lipsius's Evolving Commentaries: Two Examples in the 1585 Edition, Curae secundae, and 1588 Edition

Jeanine De Landtsheer, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

Bibliography

List of Contributors

Index

Editorial Reviews

'This is an excellent volume - an education for the novice and a provocation to further scholarship to the expert.'—R. Ward Holder, Renaissance Quarterly vol 66:04:2013
'The great value of present collection is the degree to which these essays demonstrate the indispensability of commentary in the Renaissance, how integral theories and practices of commentary were to a vibrant intellectual world.'—Russ Leo, Sixteenth Century Journal vol 65:02:2014

From the Publisher

‘The great value of present collection is the degree to which these essays demonstrate the indispensability of commentary in the Renaissance, how integral theories and practices of commentary were to a vibrant intellectual world.’

Sixteenth Century Journal vol 65:02:2014 - Russ Leo

‘This is an excellent volume — an education for the novice and a provocation to further scholarship to the expert.’

Renaissance Quarterly vol 66:04:2013 - R. Ward Holder