Classical Learning in Britain, France and the Dutch Republic, 1690–1750: Beyond the Ancients and the Moderns, by Floris Verhaart

Abstract

This is an insightful and wide-ranging study of classical learning between 1690 and 1750. Floris Verhaart focuses on debates revolving around the approach to this learning, particularly the distinction between emphasis on the content (res) and emphasis on the style (verba) of classical texts, and some of their broad implications. His geographical scope is also wide: he discusses examples from, and exchanges between, the Low Countries, France and Britain, thus highlighting the ‘intellectual cross-fertilisation between different countries’. Verhaart juxtaposes the Dutch school of criticism, represented in this study primarily by Pieter Burman and the English scholar Richard Bentley, with the ‘French approach’, represented here by the work of Jean Le Clerc, Anne and André Dacier, Charles Rollin and Conyers Middleton. The former school favoured a philological-linguistic approach to the study of classical texts, while the latter focused more on the moral teachings which could be drawn from classical literature, and was concerned with making the classical tradition more accessible to a wider audience. The author sees this contest as a ‘sub-debate’ that arose from the larger Quarrel between ancients and moderns, and one that, methodologically, can bring more clarity to the topic.