Many are culled from Plutarch and Seneca, but for those from Seneca, and from Aristotle, the moral applications are added by Erasmus. Mynors, a work that 'contributes eminently to style,' is a collection of similitudes drawn from observations of men, customs, and nature. Parabolae (1514), translated and annotated by R.A.B.
'None of the liberal disciplines is Christian' because they all antedated Christianity, yet they 'all concern Christ' because they can be put to Christian uses. As for paganism, he insists that if secular knowledge is used properly it cannot harm but must help Christians. The reply of Erasmus becomes a manifesto on behalf of reason, scholarship, and literature. The four works presented here in annotated translations are characteristic expressions of his dedication to learning and his confidence in the values of classical literature for the modern world of his time.Īntibarbari (1520), translated and annotated by Margaret Mann Phillips, is a defence of the humanities against ignorant and misguided critics who question both their supposed worth and the appropriateness of pagan writings for Christian pupils. Though never a university teacher except briefly at Cambridge (1311-14), he was a 'teacher of teachers' through his treatises on pedagogy and rhetoric and his many works of scholarship. For centuries the classical curriculum was the core of liberal education, and Erasmus was long regarded as its exemplar.
Towards these ends the soundest training for youth was what Erasmus often called bonne litterae, 'good letters,' a literary and rhetorical training based on Greek and Latin authors. The aim of Erasmian education was a civilized life, expressed in Christian piety and the fulfilment of public and private duties and embellished by learning and literature. Genève: Librairie Droz.These volumes are the first in a series containing works by Erasmus 'that concern literature and education': interests which to him were scarcely separable. Frijoff, (Eds.), Erasmus of Rotterdam: The man and the scholar: Proceedings of the symposium held at the Erasmus University, Rotterdam, November 9–11, 1986. Erasmus as a practical educational reformer. DeMolen (Ed.), Essays on the works of Erasmus. The method of “words and things” in Erasmus’s De Pueris Instituendis (1529) and Comenius’s Orbis sensualium pictus (1658). New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
0 kommentar(er)
