Classical tradition

TheWesternclassical traditionis thereceptionofclassical Greco-Roman antiquityby later cultures, especially thepost-classicalWest,^[2]involving texts, imagery, objects, ideas, institutions, monuments, architecture, cultural artifacts, rituals, practices, and sayings.^[3]Philosophy,political thought,andmythologyare three major examples of how classical culture survives and continues to have influence.^[4]The West is one of a number of world cultures regarded as having a classical tradition, including theIndian,Chinese,andIslamictraditions.^[5]

The study of the classical tradition differs fromclassical philology,which seeks to recover "the meanings that ancient texts had in their original contexts."^[6]It examines both later efforts to uncover the realities of theGreco-Roman worldand "creative misunderstandings" that reinterpret ancient values, ideas and aesthetic models for contemporary use.^[7]The classicist and translatorCharles Martindalehas defined the reception of classical antiquity as "a two-way process... in which the present and the past are in dialogue with each other."^[8]

History

The beginning of a self-conscious classical tradition is usually located in theRenaissance,with the work ofPetrarchin14th-century Italy.^[9]Although Petrarch believed that he was recovering an unobstructed view of a classical past that had been obscured for centuries, the classical tradition in fact had continued uninterrupted during theMiddle Ages.^[10]There was no single moment of rupture when the inhabitants of what was formerly theRoman Empirewent to bed in antiquity and awoke in the medieval world; rather, the cultural transformation occurred over centuries. The use and meaning of the classical tradition may seem, however, to change dramatically with the emergence ofhumanism.^[11]

The phrase "classical tradition" is itself a modern label, articulated most notably in thepost-World War II erawithThe Classical Tradition: Greek and Roman Influences on Western LiteratureofGilbert Highet(1949) andThe Classical Heritage and Its BeneficiariesofR. R. Bolgar(1954). The English word "tradition", and with it the concept of "handing down" classical culture, derives from the Latin verbtrado, tradere, traditus,in the sense of "hand over, hand down."^[13]

Writers and artists influenced by the classical tradition may name their ancient models, oralludeto their works. Often scholars infer classical influence throughcomparative methodsthat reveal patterns of thought. Sometimes authors' copies of Greek and Latin texts will contain handwritten annotations that offer direct evidence of how they read and understood their classical models; for instance, in the late 20th century the discovery ofMontaigne's copy ofLucretiusenabled scholars to document an influence that had long been recognized.^[14]

References

^Anthony Grafton, Glenn W. Most, and Salvatore Settis, preface toThe Classical Tradition(Harvard University Press, 2010), pp. viii–ix.
^Anthony Grafton,Glenn W. Most,and Salvatore Settis, preface toThe Classical Tradition(Harvard University Press, 2010), pp. vii–viii.
^Grafton, Most, and Settis, preface toThe Classical Tradition,p. viii.
^Grafton, Most, and Settis, entry on "mythology", inThe Classical Tradition,p. 614et passim.
^Grafton, Most, and Settis, preface toThe Classical Tradition,p. x.
^Craig W. Kallendorf, introduction toA Companion to the Classical Tradition(Blackwell, 2007), p. 2.
^Grafton, Most, and Settis, preface toThe Classical Tradition,p. vii; Kallendorf, introduction toCompanion,p. 2.
^Charles Martindale, "Reception", inA Companion to the Classical Tradition(2007), p. 298.
^Kallendorf, introduction toCompanion,p. 1.
^Kallendorf, introduction toCompanion,p. 2.
^Kallendorf, introduction toCompanion,pp. 1–2.
^Peter Gillgren,Siting Federico Barocci and the Renaissance Aesthetic(Ashgate, 2011), pp. 165–167.
^Kallendorf, introduction toCompanion,p. 1.
^Kallendorf, introduction toCompanion,p. 2.

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Classical tradition

History

See also

References

Further reading