MANNERS AND METHOD IN CLASSICAL CRITICISM OF THE EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Abstract

This article explores a neglected period in the history of classical scholarship: the first decades of the eighteenth century. It focuses on the tension between an evolving idea of method, and the tradition of personal polemic which had been an important part of the culture of scholarship since the Renaissance. There are two case studies: the conflict between Jean Le Clerc and Pieter Burman, and the controversy that followed Richard Bentley's edition of Horace'sOdes. Both demonstrate the need to revise current paradigms for writing the history of scholarship, and invite us to reconsider the role of methodology in producing of scholarly authority.