Vehicles of Transmission, Translation, and Transformation in Medieval Textual Culture
Edited by Robert Wisnovsky Edited by Faith Wallis Edited by Jamie Fumo Edited by Carlos Fraenkel
In this volume the McGill University Research Group on Transmission, Translation, and Transformation in Medieval Cultures and their collaborators initiate a new reflection on the dynamics involved in receiving texts and ideas from antiquity or from other contemporary cultures. For all their historic specificity, the western European, Arab/Islamic and Jewish civilizations of the Middle Ages were nonetheless co-participants in a complex web of cultural transmission that operated via translation and inevitably involved the transformation of what had been received. This three-fold process is what defines medieval intellectual history. Every act of transmission presumes the existence of some ‘efficient cause’ – a translation, a commentary, a book, a library, etc. Such vehicles of transmission, however, are not passive containers in which cultural products are transported. On the contrary: the vehicles themselves select, shape, and transform the material transmitted, making ancient or alien cultural products usable and attractive in another milieu. The case studies contained in this volume attempt to bring these larger processes into the foreground.They lay the groundwork for a new intellectual history of medieval civilizations in all their variety, based on the core premise that these shared not only a cultural heritage from antiquity but, more importantly, a broadly comparable ‘operating system’ for engaging with that heritage.Each was a culture of transmission, claiming ownership over the prestigious knowledge inherited from the past. Each depended on translation. Finally, each transformed what it appropriated.
In this volume the McGill University Research Group on Transmission, Translation, and Transformation in Medieval Cultures and their collaborators initiate a new reflection on the dynamics involved in receiving texts and ideas from antiquity or from other contemporary cultures. For all their historic specificity, the western European, Arab/Islamic and Jewish civilizations of the Middle Ages were nonetheless co-participants in a complex web of cultural transmission that operated via translation and inevitably involved the transformation of what had been received. This three-fold process is what defines medieval intellectual history. Every act of transmission presumes the existence of some ‘efficient cause’ – a translation, a commentary, a book, a library, etc. Such vehicles of transmission, however, are not passive containers in which cultural products are transported. On the contrary: the vehicles themselves select, shape, and transform the material transmitted, making ancient or alien cultural products usable and attractive in another milieu. The case studies contained in this volume attempt to bring these larger processes into the foreground.They lay the groundwork for a new intellectual history of medieval civilizations in all their variety, based on the core premise that these shared not only a cultural heritage from antiquity but, more importantly, a broadly comparable ‘operating system’ for engaging with that heritage.Each was a culture of transmission, claiming ownership over the prestigious knowledge inherited from the past. Each depended on translation. Finally, each transformed what it appropriated.
Acknowledgments List of Illustrations Introduction. Vehicles of Transmission, Translation, and Transformation in Medieval Textual Culture ROBERT WISNOVSKY, FAITH WALLIS, JAMIE C. FUMO, AND CARLOS FRAENKEL Integrating Greek Philosophy into Jewish and Christian Contexts in Antiquity: The Alexandrian Project CARLOS FRAENKEL Theophrastus, Alexander, and Themistius on Aristotle's De anima III. 4-5 SARA MAGRIN The Universal Chronicle in Antiquity and in the Middle Ages HERVE INGLEBERT The Heritage of Jewish Apocalypticism in Late Antique and Early Medieval Judaism, Christianity, and Islam GERBERN S. OEGEMA Prolegomena as Historical Evidence: On Saadia's Introductions to his Commentaries on the Bible SARAH STROUMSA Towards a Natural-History Model of Philosophical Change: Greek into Arabic, Arabic into Latin, and Arabic into Arabic ROBERT WISNOVSKY Abbreviation in Medieval Latin Translations from Arabic DAG NIKOLAUS HASSE Why Was the Aphorisms of Hippocrates Retranslated in the Eleventh Century? FAITH WALLIS Arabic into Greek: The Rise of an International Lexicon of Medicine in the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean? ALAIN TOUWAIDE The Introductions of Thirteenth-Century Arabic-to-Hebrew Translators of Philosophic and Scientific Texts STEVEN HARVEY Secondary Forms of Philosophy: On the Teaching and Transmission of Philosophy in Non-Philosophical Literary Genres JAMES T. ROBINSON Hasdai Crescas's Aristotle: Transmission, Translation, Transformation WARREN ZEV HARVEY Avicenna's 'Vague Individual' and its Impact on Medieval Latin Philosophy DEBORAH L. BLACK William of Thiegiis and Latin Commentary on the Metamorphoses in Late Medieval France FRANK T. COULSON Ovid's New Clothes: Text and Image in Caxton's 'Booke of Ouyde' (1480) and Contemporary Prose Moralizations of the Metamorphoses JAMIE C. FUMO Monastic Manuscripts and the Transmission of the Classics in Late Medieval England JAMES G. CLARK Greek Roots, Arab Authoring, Latin Overlay: Reflections on the Sources for Avicenna's Canon RAPHAELA VEIT Bibliography Index
- Edited by Robert Wisnovsky
- Edited by Faith Wallis
- Edited by Jamie Fumo
- Edited by Carlos Fraenkel
Other Titles in this Series
Andreas Vesalius and the ‘Fabrica’ in the Age of Printing
Art, Anatomy, and Printing in the Italian Renaissance
Volume 33
Material Restoration
A Fragment from Eleventh-Century Echternach in a Nineteenth-Century Parisian Codex
Volume 7
Saints and their Lives on the Periphery
Veneration of Saints in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe (c.1000-1200)
Volume 9
Eclipse of Empire?
Perceptions of the Western Empire and its Rulers in Late-Medieval France
Volume 1
Jerusalem in the Alps
The Sacro Monte of Varallo and the Sanctuaries of North-Western Italy
Volume 37
Guests, Strangers, Aliens, Enemies
Ambiguities of Hospitality in the Middle Ages, c. 1000-1350
Volume 45
Pregnancy and Childbirth in the Premodern World
European and Middle Eastern Cultures, from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance
Volume 36
Visions of Unity after the Visigoths
Early Iberian Latin Chronicles and the Mediterranean World
Volume 26
The Presence of Medieval English Literature
Studies at the Interface of History, Author, and Text in a Selection of Middle English Literary Landmarks
Volume 14
Visions of Medieval History in North America and Europe
Studies on Cultural Identity and Power
Volume 41
King John’s Delegation to the Almohad Court (1212)
Medieval Interreligious Interactions and Modern Historiography
Volume 23
A Renaissance Baron and his Possessions
Paolo Giordano I Orsini, Duke of Bracciano (1541-1585)
Volume 15
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