The mid-Tudor Cambridge Protestant Humanists, including John Cheke, Thomas Smith and Roger Ascham, undoubtedly considered Cicero a supreme model of eloquence. The nature of their admiration, however, has been in question ever since Francis Bacon accused them of making verbal imitation of Cicero an end in itself, and caring more for 'words than matter'. In recent decades, Thomas Greene and Alvin Vos sought to refute this charge. This paper aims to define further the dimensions of Cheke's Ciceronianism.
Cheke saw Demosthenes and Cicero as the outstanding, but not the sole exemplars of the 'perfect' ages of Greek and Latin eloquence. Within his sphere Cicero's writings have a role analogous to Scripture's in religion, encapsulating Latin's 'perfect' age as the New Testament does the practice of Christ and the primitive church. 'Perfect' Latin is a 'lingua emancipata', terminology related to the Protestant conception of Christian freedom effected by the gospel.
Cheke believed English could also reach perfection, and sought to achieve Ciceronian 'concinnitas' in his English style, which anticipates Euphuism. Finally, eloquence for Cheke, as for Cicero himself, was not at all an end in itself, but a tool to be used by citizens in public service. Cheke's imitation of Demosthenes and Cicero encompassed not just language, but the 'monarchical republicanism' which informed his active political role at the court of Edward VI.. Cheke's Ciceronianism thus was, in actuality, a broad-ranging, energetic Protestant civic humanism.
Thursday 25 May 2006 (Latimer Room, E Old Court, Clare College)This paper will try to identify the principles of selection as well as the level of integration of quotations and connect it to argumentative strategies in the scientific debate about the changing object and methods of science during the Renaissance. It will rely on Pontus de Tyard's introduction to his dialogue Le Premier Curieux (printed in 1557), on Jean Bodin's opening exchange of his also dialogical work, Theatrum Naturae (printed in 1596) and his French translation, and on Montaigne's Apologie de Raymond Sebond (written around 1572).
Direct quotations only appear in the Apologie, whereas the three other texts integrate them in different ways. Bodin paraphrases his sources in Latin, and Pontus translates them into the vernacular. The French translation of the Theatrum implies further modifications of the source texts.
Paradoxically, the Apologie is a pessimistic deconstruction of the very possibility of science and utterly empties its ancient sources of their authority, whereas Bodin's and Pontus' more allusive and sometimes subversive uses of these authorites allow them to redefine the aims and modalities of scientific discourse.
The conference will begin on the afternoon of Wednesday, 26 July, in the Senate Room of the University of Glasgow, with a paper by Professor Robert Crawford of St. Andrews University. Papers of 30 minutes in length, on various aspects of Buchanan's poetic works and his significance, will be delivered on 27-28 July. A further paper will be given in Killearn, Buchanan's birthplace, as part of the excursion on Saturday, 29 July, which will also take in Stirling, where Buchanan spent much of his time when tutor to King James VI. There will be opportunities to visit the famous castle and the Church of the Holy Rude in Stirling, and to see the obelisk in celebration of Buchanan at Killearn.
On the evening of July 27th there will be a performance in the Glasgow University Chapel of the multi-voice settings of Buchanan's Psalm Paraphrases by the French Huguenot composer Jean Servin, published in Geneva in 1579 and presented in the same year to King James in a de luxe edition. The quincentenary performances of selected Psalms from these settings may well be the first in Scotland, or indeed in Britain and Ireland, in modern times.
Accommodation will be available in the Queen Margaret Residences in the West End of Glasgow. If you would like further information please contact Roger Green or Philip Ford who can also be contacted via Clare College, Cambridge CB2 1TL. You will be very welcome.