The Vocal Wit of John Dryden

2006 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 371-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tina Skouen
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
John Dryden ◽  
Literary Critic ◽  
Keen Interest ◽  
English Poet

Abstract The English poet-critic John Dryden (1631–1700) took a keen interest in refining the mother tongue. As a literary critic, he was particularly concerned with the contrast between the sound of the vernacular and that of Latin. This study establishes a connection between Dryden's observations on sound and the recommendations concerning elocution found in such seventeenth-century rhetorics as Some Instructions Concerning the Art of Oratory (1659) by Obadiah Walker. In order to appreciate Dryden's use of sound in his own poems, I argue that one should also take into account the phonetic theory provided by contemporary grammars. The study thus pays tribute to the fact that in the age of Dryden the concerns of rhetoric and grammar were closely interwoven.

On the Nomenclature of the Vinegar Eelworm

1927 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 133-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. G. Peters
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Keen Interest ◽  
Naked Eye ◽  
The World

This eelworm, only just visible to the naked eye, and quite common in vinegar in all parts of the world, has long been known to zoologists, and indeed was an object of keen interest and discussion to the naturalists of the seventeenth century. Petrus Borellus [3], for instance, enthusiastic over the recent adoption of the microscope for researches in natural history, published in 1656 his “Observationum Microcospicarum Centuria,” in which he leads off with a note “De Vermibus aceti.” In the twelfth edition of the “Systema Naturae” (1767), Linnaeus included a species redivivum in that final genus of the Regnum Animale so appropriately named Chaos. This species of animal he says, “Habitat in Aceto & Glutine Bibliopegorum.”.

From koine to standard: the early modern origin of a key linguistic term

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 283-302
Author(s):  
Raf Van Rooy
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Early History ◽  
John Dryden ◽  
Common Language ◽  
Regional Dialects ◽  
Language Studies ◽  
Linguistic Term ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact

Abstract In this paper, I explore the early history of the word standard as a linguistic term, arguing that it came to compete with the designation common language in the seventeenth century. The latter phrase was, in turn, formed by ideas on the Greek koine during the Renaissance and appears to have been the first widely used collocation referring to a standard language-like entity. In order to sketch this evolution, I first discuss premodern ideas on the koine. Then, I attempt to outline how the intuitive comparison of the koine with vernacular norms that were being increasingly regulated resulted in the development of the concept of common language, termed lingua communis in Latin (a calque of Greek hē koinḕ diálektos), in the sixteenth century. This phrase highlighted the communicative functionality of the vernaculars, which were being codified in grammars and dictionaries. Scholars contrasted these common languages with regional dialects, which had a limited reach in terms of communication. This distinction received a social and evaluative connotation during the seventeenth century, which created a need for terminological alternatives; an increasingly popular option competing with common language was standard, which was variously combined with language and tongue by English authors from about 1650 onwards, especially in Protestant circles, where the vernaculars tended to play a more prominent role than in Catholic areas. Of major importance for this evolution was the work and linguistic usage of the poet John Dryden (1631–1700). This essay uncovers the early history of standard as a key linguistic term, while also presenting a case study which shows the impact of the rediscovery of the Greek heritage on language studies in Western Europe, especially through the term common language.

The Muhammad Avatāra

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ayesha A. Irani
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
Salvation History ◽  
First Time ◽  
Islamic Literature

The Muhammad Avatāra: Salvation History, Translation, and the Making of Bengali Islam reveals the powerful role of vernacular translation in the Islamization of Bengal. Its focus is on the magnificent seventeenth-century Nabīvaṃśa of Saiyad Sultān, who lived in Arakanese-controlled Chittagong. Drawing upon the Arabo-Persian Tales of the Prophets genre, the Nabīvaṃśa (“Lineage of the Prophet”) retells the life of the Prophet Muhammad for the first time to Bengalis in their mother-tongue. This book delineates the challenges faced by the author in articulating the pre-eminence of Islam and its Arabian prophet in a land where multiple religious affiliations were common, and when Gauṛīya Vaiṣṇava missionary activity was at its zenith. Sultān played a pioneering role in setting into motion various lexical, literary, performative, theological, and, ultimately, ideological processes that led to the establishment of a distinctively Bengali Islam in east Bengal. At the heart of this transformation lay the persuasiveness of translation on a new Islamic frontier. The Nabīvaṃśa not only kindled a veritable translation movement of Arabo-Persian Islamic literature into Bangla, but established the grammar of creative translation that was to become canonical for this regional tradition. This text-critical study lays bare the sophisticated strategies of translation used by a prominent early modern Muslim Bengali intellectual to invite others to his faith.

SIR RALPH VERNEY WRITES TO HIS GODDAUGHTER ABOUT BOOKS SUITABLE FOR A YOUNG GIRL OF 1652

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 51 (5) ◽  
pp. 839-839
Author(s):  
T. E. C.
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Young Girl ◽  
Intellectual Curiosity ◽  
Common Prayer

As an example of what was offered to satisfy the intellectual curiosity of a mid-seventeenth-century English girl, an apt and entertaining document is Sir Ralph Verney's letter of 1652 to his goddaughter Nancy Denton which follows: Good sweet hart bee not so covitous; believe me a Bible (with ye Common prayer) and a good plaine cattichisme in your Mother Tongue being well read and practised is well worth all the rest and much more suitable to your sex; I know your Father thinks this false doctrine, but bee confident your husband will bee of my opinion. In French you cannot bee too cunning, for that language affords many admirable bookes fit for you, as Romances, Plays, Poetry, Stories of illustrious (not learned) Woemen, receipts for preserving, makinge creames and all sorts of cookeryes, ordring (sic) your gardens and in Brief all manner of good house-wifery. If you please to have a little patience with yourselfe (without Hebrew, Greeke, or Latin), when I goe to Paris again I will send you halfe a dozen of the french (sic) bookes to begin your Library.1

Queen Christina of Sweden as a Patron of Music in Rome in the Mid-Seventeenth Century

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
TESSA MURDOCH
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Chamber Music ◽  
Musical Instruments ◽  
Keen Interest ◽  
Commissioned Works ◽  
Queen Christina Of Sweden

Following her abdication, Queen Christina of Sweden took up residence in the Palazzo Farnese, Rome from 1655. She had already developed a keen interest in music, gained from tuition from a French dancing master, and playing the star role in the ballet The Captured Cupid in honour of her mother's birthday in 1649. Christina's arrival in Rome was marked by performances in her honour in the Palazzo Barberini and Palazzo Pamphili of specially commissioned works by contemporary composers Marco Marazzoli and A.F. Tenaglia, and by her favourite Giacomo Carissimi. Inspired by the chamber music proportions of the cappella of the Collegio Germanico, many of Carissimi's secular arias were composed for his royal Swedish patron. After two years in France, Christina returned to Rome, where she took up residence in the Palazzo Riario on the Janiculum. Inventories record her musical instruments and describe the contents of the Great Hall in which concerts were held.

Thinking with Ferrar Papers 1422: A c. 1681 Verse Miscellany

The Library ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 192-215
Author(s):  
Adam Smyth
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
John Dryden ◽  
Katherine Philips

Abstract This article explores a late seventeenth-century manuscript verse miscellany held amongst the Ferrar Papers in Magdalene College, Cambridge, not previously discussed by critics. By attending to both the specific features of this manuscript miscellany (including poems by John Dryden, Katherine Philips. and others), and the larger Ferrar archive, the article considers broader questions about how to read and interpret manuscript miscellanies.

Michael Boym’s Medicus Sinicus: New Facts, Reflections, Conclusions

T oung Pao ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 103 (4-5) ◽  
pp. 448-472
Author(s):  
Edward Kajdański
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Chinese Medicine ◽  
Keen Interest ◽  
Le Fort ◽  
Seminal Work ◽  
The Many

Following the author’s previous work on reconstituting the transmission to Europe, disappearance, and eventual publication under other names of the Polish Jesuit Michael Boym’s manuscript work on Chinese medicine, this article recounts the recent discovery of some of these manuscripts. They are kept at the Jagiellonian Library in Krakow, and were originally part of the Chinese Library of the Elector of Brandenburg, where they were acquired from Dutch officials who had earlier bought them from the Jesuit Philippe Couplet (who had obtained them from Boym’s last companion). The complex story of these manuscripts’ travels documents the keen interest in Chinese medicine among the many competing European powers and institutions in the seventeenth century; it also shows that we should be careful in assessing whether the publication of Boym’s seminal work under other names was willful plagiarism, or a result of contemporary tensions and confusion.
Cet article fait suite aux travaux antérieurs de l’auteur sur la transmission en Europe, la disparition puis la publication sous d’autres noms des travaux manuscrits sur la médecine chinoise du jésuite polonais Michael Boym. Il relate la découverte récente d’une partie de ces manuscrits dans la bibliothèque Jagiellonienne à Cracovie, et montre qu’ils viennent de l’ancienne bibliothèque chinoise du Grand Electeur de Brandebourg, où ils ont été originellement acquis auprès d’officiers hollandais qui les avaient achetés auprès du jésuite Philippe Couplet, qui lui-même les avait obtenus du dernier compagnon de Boym à la mort de celui-ci. L’histoire complexe des voyages de ces manuscrits met en lumière le fort intérêt pour la médecine chinoise de la part des diverses puissances et institutions européennes du 17e siècle, alors en vive concurrence ; elle nous engage aussi à la prudence quant aux jugements que l’on peut porter sur la publication des travaux pionniers de Boym sous d’autres noms, qui doit autant aux tensions et confusions politiques du temps qu’à un plagiat intentionnel.


“Would India had beene never knowne”

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristina Bross
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Historical Fiction ◽  
John Dryden ◽  
Archival Material ◽  
East Indies ◽  
Representations Of Women

This chapter analyzes two representations of women based on the print record of a 1623 incident in which English traders were tortured and killed by their Dutch rivals on the island of Amboyna in the East Indies. William Sanderson imagined the reaction of one “Amboyna widow” in a pair of publications in the 1650s, and John Dryden created characters for his 1673 play Amboyna based on reports published years earlier. If we consider these works as early modern examples of historical fiction we can see that the writers construct the role of colonial women in the seventeenth-century English imagination as a symbol of the righteousness of English imperial actions and colonizing claims. Taken together, the “wives’ tales” of this chapter suggest that the reach of the East India Companies—both English and Dutch—and of their governments into people’s lives was powerful. Yet the stories of these women suggested by their traces in the archives indicate the limits of that power and the limits of the archival function to control the stories of marginalized people. Dryden’s play in particular points readers back to the archives and suggests what they tell us (or fail to tell us) about the subjects of the English global fantasies inscribed in the literature and other print records of the seventeenth century. The coda pieces together contextual and archival material to speculate on the experiences of a woman, held as a slave by the Dutch, who was intimately connected to the Amboyna incident.

Unravelling the Enigma of the ‘Particular Language’ of the Incas

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
RODOLFO CERRÓN-PALOMINO
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Archaeological Evidence ◽  
Garcilaso De La Vega ◽  
Third Language ◽  
Major Language ◽  
Titicaca Basin ◽  
Linguistic Material

Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century chroniclers call attention to the Incas having had a ‘particular language’, used exclusively by members of the court. The sparse linguistic material attributed to it consists of barely a dozen proper names which ‘El Inca’ Garcilaso de la Vega, unable to explain through his Quechua mother tongue, assumed must belong to the purported secret language. On closer inspection most of these words do turn out to be explicable in terms of either a Quechua or an Aymara origin. Nevertheless, a small amount of extant onomastic material — mostly Inca institutional names — cannot be traced back to either, and points to a third language instead. This chapter makes the case that this could have been Puquina, once a major language of the Titicaca Basin, whence the mythical Incas set out on their journey to Cuzco. Linguistic, mythohistorical, and archaeological evidence are offered support of this hypothesis.

Introduction: remapping early modern literature

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Matthew C. Augustine
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
John Milton ◽  
Early Modern Literature ◽  
John Dryden ◽  
Modern Literature ◽  
High Definition ◽  
Andrew Marvell ◽  
History Of ◽  
Century Literature

The argument of this book follows two main themes: the first has to do with periodicity; the second with politics, especially as a framework within which to view seventeenth-century literature. This chapter maps the disciplinary paradigms which have long produced a view of the seventeenth century saturated by high-definition contrasts: between the earlier and later Stuart periods, but also between factions and ideologies. It then asks what it would look like to write the history of seventeenth-century literature anew, to tell a story about imaginative and polemical writing in this age that remained open to accident and unevenness, to contradiction and uncertainty. Giving illustrative consideration to John Dryden, Andrew Marvell, and John Milton, the chapter begins to suggest some new ways of conceiving how these writers might relate to one other and to the politics and aesthetics of a long seventeenth century.

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