Prose Preface Research Articles

An Example of Nineteenth-Century Mystical Poetry

Makalede, 19. yüzyılda yaşayan mutasavvıf şair ve Nakşibendi tarikatının temsilcisi Huşhal Ğaribi’nin Kazakistan ve Özbekistan’da el yazmaları bölümünde mevcut olan divanının üç nüshası karşılaştırmalı olarak incelenmiş, şairin hayatı ve divanında yer alan şiirler bilgiler ortaya konmuştur. Kaşgar’da Huşhal Ğaribi adıyla tanınan şair, memleketinde ortaya çıkan siyasi olaylar nedeniyle Fergana vadisine göç etmek zorunda kalmış ve edebi faaliyetlerine burada devam etmiştir. Kaşgar’da yazılan eserleri günümüze kadar tam olarak açığa çıkarılmamıştır. Kokand Hanlığı tebasında ortaya çıkan “Divan”ın yayınlanan Mukaddime kısmında verilen bilgilerden Huşhal Ğaribi’nin hayatı hakkında bilgi sahibi olmaktayız. Klasik divan şiiri özelliklerine göre yazılmış “Divan”da, eserin yazışlış tarihi hakkında bilgi yer almaktadır. Ayrıca bazı beyanlarda Huşhal Garibi’nin Kokand Hanlığı sınırlarındaki edebi çevrede şairin kendine has önemli bir yer tuttuğu ifade edilmiştir. Elyazması eserlerde, Huşhal Ğaribi’nin Uyğur edebiyatının bir kısmını oluşturan tasavvuf şiirinin gelişmesinde önemli etkisi olduğu belirtilmiştir. El yazması divanın dört nüshasının olduğu bilinmekte olup incelememizde şahsi kütüphanede bulunan nüsha esas olarak alınmıştır.

Columella’s Prose Preface: A Paratextual Reading of De Re Rustica Book 10

This paper examines the prose preface to Columella’s De re rustica Book 10 as a ‘paratext’ to the verse book proper, and questions the impact of this framing strategy on our perception of the garden-as-text within the realm of agronomic literature. This analysis reveals two distinct, but interrelated, ways in which Columella frames Book 10: first, as a direct and important response to Virgil’s gardening excursus in the Georgics (4.116–48); and, second, as a small part-payment towards the completion of his own agricultural treatise. In order to explain this literary paradox, I propose Derrida’s concept of the supplement as a means of articulating the place of the hortus in the tension between Columella, his sources, and his attempt to create a new definitive agricultural treatise.

Royal Authority in the Biblical Quotations of the Old English Pastoral Care

The Old English Pastoral Care, a late-ninth-century translation of Gregory the Great’s Regula pastoralis attributed to Alfred the Great, is a text without a clear authorial voice. Gregory’s authorial presence is hinted at in the metrical preface and epilogue to the translation, but is curiously absent from the prose preface. Here, at the very beginning of the text, the authorial voice is that of King Alfred. Whether or not Alfred was actually responsible for translating the Regula pastoralis, as the prose preface claims, his voice and presence resonate throughout the translation. The king’s persona re-voices not only Gregory’s words, but the many biblical quotations that Gregory relies upon to support his argument. The royal authority natural to a king is compounded with the textual authority that comes through translating and therefore re-voicing a canonical text such as the Regula pastoralis, and this is nowhere more significant than in the translations of biblical quotations. Here, the Alfred-persona re-voices biblical figures such as King David, King Solomon, the evangelists and Christ Himself. In the translations of these quotations, Alfred’s royal authority is shored up by the echoes of these voices from Scripture. This article finds examples of where the wording of these translated quotations represents ideology, and even phraseology, found elsewhere in Alfredian documents. Through appropriation of scriptural voice, Alfredian ideals such as wisdom, moderate use of resources and a ruler’s humility are given unquestionable authoritative backing.

Prefatory Verse and the Reception of the Guide of the Perplexed

This article presents, first, an overview of medieval Hebrew prefatory poems to prose texts, tracing changes in the genre and considering how these poems functioned with respect to the text and to manuscript production and use. In early prefatory verse from Golden Age al-Andalus, poets often imported individual formal elements of the Arabic prose preface. With the shifting of Jewish cultural production to Christian Europe in the twelfth century, Hebrew prefatory verse tends to shed these elements. Instead, the type of prefatory verse that flourishes in the later period usually addresses the reader directly; names the book and its author; praises the work; and alludes to its formative aims. Within this framework, the article focuses on poetry that appears in manuscripts of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed. This includes Maimonides’ own poems for the Guide, poems written by two thirteenth-century commentators on the Guide, Shem Tov Ibn Falaquera (c. 1225–1295) and Zera@hyah ben Isaac ben Shealtiel @Hen (d. after 1291), and brief, anonymous verses copied by later readers or owners into their manuscript copies of the Guide.

Did the English Really Think They Were God's Elect in the Anglo-Saxon Period?

This article challenges the contention that during the Anglo-Saxon period the English considered themselves God's specially chosen people, like the Old Testament Israelites. The texts upon which this interpretation has been based are re-analysed; particular attention is devoted to the writings of Gildas, Bede, Alcuin and Wulfstan, the prose preface of the Old English ‘Pastoral care’, and the introduction to King Alfred's legislation. The English could see themselves as a Christian people, and thus among God's chosen, but they do not appear to have claimed to be the beneficiaries of a more particularist form of divine election.

Fancy, Dreams, and Paradise: Miltonic and Baconian Garden Imagery in Coleridge’s Kubla Khan

This article challenges conventional readings of Coleridge’s Kubla Khan that interpret the poem as presenting an ideal model of poetic creativity. In locating the intertextual web of references that point to Milton’s Paradise Lost and various texts by Francis Bacon, the garden imagery of the poem, which has been so resistant to critical interpretation, can be read in the context of a rejection of Coleridge’s own empirically grounded theory of inspiration expressed in his 1796 volume of poems. A Coleridgean theory of dreams is presented as a framework by which the prose Preface to Kubla Khan can be shown to reveal the poet’s criticism of the dream-language by which the poem was purportedly constructed. The Preface affixed to the 1816 version of Kubla Khan will be subject to critical reassessment, in order to understand the circumstances surrounding its publication history. The major contention of this article is that Kubla Khan is a revision and rejection of Fancy, the poetic form of inspiration, material in its operations, and conceived as the agency by which Coleridge’s early poetry was produced.

An Approach to the Schematic Structure of the Preface to the Pastoral Care

Abstract Notes 1 McGregor (1991 McGregor, W. 1991. “The Concept of Rank Scale in Systemic Linguistics”. In Functional and Systemic Linguistics: Approaches and Uses, Edited by: Ventola, E. 121–138. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. [Google Scholar]) defends this universal character through the hypothesis of rank scale, although he maintains that ranks themselves and their number could vary in certain cases. 2 Davies (1996 Davies, M. 1996. “Theme and Information until Shakespeare”. In Meaning and Form: Systemic Functional Interpretations, Edited by: Berry, M. 113–149. Norwood, N.J: Ablex. [Google Scholar]: 113) justifies his attempt to extend Halliday's thematic and information structure to the period before Shakespeare by admitting that Halliday's (1994[1985]: 163) functional grammar offers tempting paragraphs that invite the researcher to explore English historical development. 3 Martin & Rose (2003 Martin, J.R. and Rose, D. 2003. Working with Discourse: Meaning beyond the Clause, London: Continuum. [Google Scholar]) provide a set of tools for discourse analysis informed by systemic functional grammar that takes Martin (1992 Martin, J.R. 1992. English Text: System and Structure, Amsterdam: John Benjamins. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) as a point of departure, although within the framework of more explicit critical interests. 4 My citations are in the form [page number.line number] from Hatton MS in Sweet's (1871 Szarmach, P.E. 1980. The Meaning of Alfred's Preface to the Pastoral Care. Mediaevalia: A Journal of Medieval Studies, 6: 57–86. [Google Scholar]) edition. Transitivity structures only refer to the relevant elements of the fragments selected. Sections into Modern English also refer to the translation provided by Sweet's edition. 5 The Christian Church displayed an outstanding influence as an institution of social and economic power. The king acted as a religious and political leader whereas the Church tried to fit its own members in the wergilds scale (Angenendt 1986 Angenendt, A. 1986. The Conversion of the Anglo-Saxons Considered against the Background of the Early Medieval Mission. Settimane di Studio del Centro Italiano di Studi sull'Alto Medioevo, 32(2): 747–792. [Google Scholar]; Whitelock 1952 Whitelock, D. 1952. The Beginnings of English Society, Harmondsworth: Penguin. [Google Scholar]: 29–47). Christianity also brought literacy on a very ambitious scale and education was instituted as a complementary service to God (Lendinara 1991 Lendinara, P. 1991. “The World of Anglo-Saxon Learning”. In The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature, Edited by: Godden, M. and Lapidge, M. 264–281. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]; Lees 2002 Lees, C.A. 2002. “Didacticism and the Christian Community: The Teachers and the Taught”. In Old English Literature: Critical Essays, Edited by: Liuzza, R.M. 236–270. New Haven: Yale University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). 6 As explained by Orton (1983 Orton, P. 1983. King Alfred's Prose Preface to the Old English Pastoral Care, 11.30-41. Peritia: Journal of the Medieval Academy of Ireland, 2: 140–148. [Google Scholar]: 145), “the witu suffered by the English for their slackness are almost certainly the Viking attacks; and the placing of this observation next to the appeal to present bishops may imply some criticism of them”. According to Orton (1983 Orton, P. 1983. King Alfred's Prose Preface to the Old English Pastoral Care, 11.30-41. Peritia: Journal of the Medieval Academy of Ireland, 2: 140–148. [Google Scholar]: 148), Alfred only alludes to the Vikings in passing, as he recognized that the problems he was up against were rooted in the English Church.

The Butterfly in the Garden: Utopia and the Feminine in The Story of the Stone

Written in the 5th century by the Chinese poet Tao Qian (365-427), Peach Blossom Spring is the most celebrated depiction of utopia in Chinese literature. It has so enchanted the Chinese imagination that its name has become virtually synonymous with utopia itself. The work consists of two parts: a prose preface and a poem, both telling the story of the discovery and disappearance of Peach Blossom Spring. But the prose version, perhaps owing to its more tangible dramatic power, is what comes more readily to mind when a Chinese thinks of utopia.

Alfred's Verse Preface to the Pastoral Care and the Chain of Authority

The Verse Preface to Alfred the Great's Pastoral Care completes the work of the preceding Prose Preface by appropriating religious language and authority to Alfred. The Prose Preface sets England at the end of a chain of intellectual and religious transmission which starts with the Hebrews and extends through the Greeks and Romans. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's work on legitimate language and symbolic capital, this essay explores how Alfred extends his translatio studii in the Verse Preface. Alfred presents himself as successor to Pope Gregory the Great and his emissary to England, Augustine, and the interpreter of the pope's written commands to all Englishmen, including bishops. Alfred's appropriation of church language helps justify his appropriation of authority and church wealth. Yet Alfred also employs Anglo-Saxon poetic tradition to enact in the preface the cultural translation he describes. By simultaneously demonstrating his knowledge of the prestigious Latin language and his willingness to use vernacular terms and tropes, he uses what Bourdieu terms a "strategy of condescension." Alfred's strategies ultimately assert authority over both lay and religious readers.

King Alfred’s prose Preface to the Old English Pastoral Care

King Alfred’s prose <i>Preface</i> to the Old English <i>Pastoral Care</i>

CHAPMAN'S MATERIALS FOR HIS TRANSLATION OF HOMER

OF the materials used by George Chapman for his translation of Homer, the importance of two, Spondanus's edition of Homer and Scapula's Greek Lexicon, was established by Dr. Franck-Louis Schoell in his L'Humanisme continental en Angleterre (Paris, 1926); and Chapman's use of them has been further studied by Prof. H. B. Lathrop in his Translations from the Classics from Caxton to Chapman (Univ. of Wisconsin, 1933) and by Phyllis Brooks Bartlett in an article, 'Chapman's Revisions in his Iliads', in E.L.H. (Baltimore, 1935). His use of three other works is the subject of the present article: these are Valla's Latin prose translation of the Iliad, Eobanus's Latin verse translation, and Calepinus's Latin Dictionary. i. LaurentiusValla, 1407-57, whose patrons were the Medici of Florence, translated Herodotus, Thucydides, and two-thirds of the Iliad, which was completed by Raphael Volaterranus (but Chapman refers to it as 'Valla' even in xvii and xviii, where it is Raphael's work). Repeatedly reprinted in the following century, it was not used for bilingual editions, being too free, but formed a small handy volume by itself. The accepted version for bilingual editions,' printed with some verbal variations in Spondanus and in successive editions of Stephanus, was faithfully literal, but so un-Latin as to be frequently misleading and always disagreeable to read. Valla's translation is free, and sometimes it makes mistakes and shirks difficulties, but it is good Latin prose, as if Homer had been a Roman historian. The idiom of prose history marks even the opening words of the Iliad: the Greek poet says, 'Sing, goddess, of the wrath'; the Latin prose period begins, Scripturus ego quantam .... Now, that Chapman read Valla he himself often declares: in his Commentaries on books xIII, xIv, xv, xvII, and xvIII, and in the Prefaces to the Reader, both verse and prose. But he never commends him. The Commentaries reject individual interpretations, and the Prefaces example him as 'ten times more paraphrastical' than Chapman himself, who was being taxed with circumlocution. We shall get a good notion both of Valla's style and of Chapman's strictures if we examine the passage in the prose Preface. (The relevant lines are III. 422-30.)z Schoell, op. cit., says the author of this was Andreas Divus. But the British Museum copies of Divus, dated 1537 and 1538, differ much from Spondanus, and often for the better; they are, it is true, revised editions. 2 All references are to Chapman's lines, not Homer's, unless the contrary is stated. 4690.6 9

On the Text of the Speculum Stultorum

Previous articleNext article No AccessOn the Text of the Speculum StultorumJohn Henry MozleyJohn Henry Mozley Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Speculum Volume 4, Number 4Oct., 1929 The journal of the Medieval Academy of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.2307/2847073 Views: 5Total views on this site Copyright 1929 The Mediaeval Academy of AmericaPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.