Lecture 4: The Quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns Context - the quarrel broke out afresh

in the 1690s > a deliberate battle involving a specific set of rivalries whose outlines were first laid down in Antiquity and which were resumed during the Italian Renaissance with the revival of classical culture - it needs to be set into a framework of intellectual history as an episode in the age-old dispute between the ancients and the moderns - Swift as the most popular figure > limited by the inclinations of his discipline, did not look much beyond the printed te ts and their purely literary meanings and has thus failed to see the larger setting and significance of the quarrel - the !nglish quarrel cannot be understood without its continental origins" nor did the !nglish combatants ever lose contact with events across the #hannel $the %rench&' >> the first of the !nglish ancients in the battle of the books, Sir (illiam )emple, was half inspired by the %renchman, *ernard de %ontenelle" later called upon Racine and *oileau, while the first of the !nglish moderns, (illiam (otton, found equal support abroad, first in the recent work of #harles +errault, which he transcribed into his own book - the moderns could be represented vis-a-vis the ancients as dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants, was a thought that seems to go back at least as far as the twelfth century $the school of #hartres' - the quarrel - about literature and history as much as it was about science and philosophy" Swift,s own contributions, A Tale of a Tub and The Battle of the Books - the battle ignored the relationship of literature to life, the relationship of literature to politics and education - via Renaissance > the ancients - not simply defenders of tradition against the new, they had in fact come onto the !uropean scene in !ngland as elsewhere as innovators, humanists, in revolt against the culture of their own $late medieval' times - ancient rhetoric - questioned by modern rhetoricians, ancient philosophy was deliberately countered now by the new natural philosophies of *acon and -escartes - the real cru of the matter . /IS)0R1 - the purposes of the past, its usefulness and authority in the present2 the ancients of 3455 defended a special part of the past designated as classical, as offering models for practical life in the present 67> the moderns - persuaded that in some cases they had already matched or e celled the classics2 8In their acceptance of the alternative notions of imitation or emulation, the ancients and the moderns were both committing themselves to the same Renaissance view of history, to the idea that the whole of the human past could be divided into three large periods, Antiquity, the -ark or 9iddle Ages, and 9odern )imes: )hey accepted that the revival of Antiquity was the beginning of their own time, only disputing about the invention of modern philosophy in the dissemination of light:; $<oseph 9: =evine, 8Ancients and 9oderns Reconsidered;' the Ancients2 / > a narrative composed according to classical models $the Romans'" > a piece of rhetoric governed by the precepts of #icero, shaped as artistic prose, eloquent in its descriptions and speeches, teaching morality and politics by e ample the ancient works were actually taught in school as literature, read at the university, translated into !nglish, and imitated in practice the 9oderns conceded their failure in demolishing the Ancients? conception of /

 the Moderns alternati e2 philology $8grammatical criticism;' and antiquities as a type of history, a way of penetrating into the whole life of the past and recovering things otherwise unknown > refuted by (illiam )emple, as it fails to produce real knowledge and to be useful $no connection to the view of the Ancients due to accumulation of unknown details' no satisfactory conclusion to the quarrel" if there is one, this would be !dward @ibbon?s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - the emblematic work of eighteenth-century historiography, perhaps of the whole historiography of (estern culture to its time" it deliberately combines the best achievements of both the ancients and the moderns, classical rhetoric and the new philology, ancient narrative and modern scholarship The !n"lish #$attle o% the $oo&s - initiated by Sir (illiam )emple, continued by <: Swift and (illiam (otton A'M(: - new understanding of history2 human works > products, cultural constructions - relativisation of taste - interest in non-classical cultures past and present - development of late #3A Bhistoricism? $@ibbon' b) 16*+ in %rance, %ontenelle . defender of the 9odern cause $#artesian science' division of arts and sciences spread across !urope" science > theoretical understanding $modern usage in #3C'" art > practical activity acc: to rules" b) 1+00 . science>superior, art belongs to the Ancients $poetry D eloquence' new category of =I)!RA)ER! and criticism?s need to defend it" criticism $a posteriori, not a priori F+opeG, as rules and merit are known through the test of time" -IHISI0I 0% /E9AI JI0(=!-@!, previously regarded as an undifferentiated whole, into broad categories science and mathematics $sciences of the intellect' - for the first time discriminated from art and literature $products of the imagination' the quarrel led to a reconfiguration of the category of =I): under the new category of )/! A!S)/!)I# belles lettres > not polite learning, but imaginative lit: Fdivision into the poetic, dramatic and narrative to cultivate our tasteG in !ngland, the battle concerned with *00JS Fproduction, users, usesG, especially the rules and function of the critic (illiam )emple, An Essay upon the Ancient and Modern Learning $3KC5'2 9oderns > copies of Ancient originals" learning fails to equal that of the Ancients" 9odern inferiority because of avarice and decline of patronage, philology deals with Btrifles? $details, names of people, places, not te ts' influence on Swift?s Tale of a Tub and the Battle of the Books" the classics as a model for I9I)A)I0I" history related to eloquence !dward 1oung $like (illiam (otton' praises the 9oderns F#hristian revelation unknown to /omer D Hirgil" politeness and piety in the novel vs: superstition of the epic $romance'G #=ASSI#IS9 . a term coined in 3AL5" until the end of #3C, it meant an anti-Romantic reaction" some #3C historians revive the term 8Augustan; to refer to the uncertainly designated era falling between the Renaissance and that of modern times