The Philological Program of Erasmus and His Apophthegmata in the Collectanea Moralis Philosophiae of Fray Luis de Granada

Abstract

During the Renaissance, many encyclopedic productions such as Collectaneas, Florilegia, Adagia, based on the aemulatio auctorum of Classical antiquity and exhibiting the ars scribendi ac ars colligendi of their authors, proliferated all over Europe. These humanists have transmitted, in their works, a perennial legacy at the service of a moral pedagogy, which is a driving force to literary genesis and creation. This process of imitatio, variatio ac renouatio converts the collector into auctor, and guides us in an intertextual construction, where the sententia’s rhetoric is developed under a promising conciliation of res et uerba. Erasmus is one of the most recognizable humanists with a leading role throughout the centuries. His works are a valuable contribution to the study of cultural context and philological framework, followed by many scholars and intellectuals such as Fray Louis of Granada. Thus, our intention is to shed light on the individual method of Granada in the composition of Collectanea Moralis Philosophiae (1571) and, at the same time, to consider how Granada’s use of apophthegmata resembles or differs from Eramus’ treatment of the genre. In this way, we will study this handbook under the meticulous scrutiny of several operative concepts, in order to discover its epistemic structure and philosophical matrix, to analyze the aesthetic and rhetorical features and to reveal the modus operandi of literary creation.