“A show of confidence and authority”: Philopseudes and More’s Lucian

Abstract

Of the three Lucianic dialogues translated into Latin by Thomas More and published in 1506, Philopseudes is the last, longest, and most narratively complex. The majority of it is taken up by a recital of incredible lies, yet it presents a nuanced view of lying that accounts for its appeal to More, who calls it both “amusing” and “instructive” in his dedicatory letter to Thomas Ruthall. Lucian’s Philopseudes instructs by demonstrating various strategies of plausible liars and suggesting that “truth and sound reason” are an antidote ( alexipharmakon) to the drug ( pharmakon) or infectious disease of lying. But this solution is undercut, with typical Lucianic irony, by the failings of the characters who suggest it. More’s translation of Philopseudes is alert to Lucian’s ironies, but more confidently suggests a union of divinely revealed truth and human reason as a cure to the plague of lies. After analyzing both versions of Philopseudes, I defend three claims about the selection and arrangement of the whole sequence of dialogues in More’s Lucian— Cynicus, Menippus, and Philopseudes. 1) They form a unified progression of explicit and implicit critiques from which none of their characters escape, and which threaten to involve the author and his readers. 2) Later dialogues in More’s selection encourage ironic readings of earlier ones, guiding readers from a simple understanding of explicit critiques to a deeper understanding of implicit critiques, and finally to self-examination. 3) Beyond selecting and arranging the dialogues in this enlightening way, More scatters humorous interpretive mistakes and dubious allusions to authority throughout his own prefatory letter to Ruthall, even as he warns his readers not to fall for “a show of confidence and authority.” More’s ironic preface to Lucian thus requires of us, and trains us in, the prudent reading that Lucian himself demands.