The history and changes of topoi as an impulse for the renaissance reform of dialectic

The following article presents the most important stages in the history of dialectic in the light of the changes of the topoi theory, from Aristotle’s Topics and Rhetoric, to Cicero’s Topica, Boethius’s tractates (In Ciceronis topica and De topicis differentiis) to the Medieval tradition. The author explains the most important shifts in the nature and function of loci between the 4th c. BC and the 16th c. AD, which allows a better understanding of the reasons of the fierce criticism of dialectic by Renaissance humanists, such as Lorenzo Valla or Rudolf Agricola, as well as the attempts they made to reform it.
Aristotle is considered the first creator of topoi that he discussed in the Topics and the second book of the Rhetoric. The right context for understanding the function of loci is a dialectical disputation with its specificity. It seems that for Aristotle topoi were sources of arguments as well as sources of argumentation premises. He acknowledged topos in at least two ways: as a strategy for finding an argument that allows to win a dialectical discussion and as a rule of inference.
For the later tradition of loci Cicero’s and Boethius’s commentaries on Topics were significant. Cicero wrote his Topica for a lawyer, Gaius Trebarius Testa, and ignored the context of dialectical disputation that was so important for Aristotle. For Cicero, topos (or locus) is the seat of arguments (sedes argumentorum). Referring to Aristotle’s division of rhetorical modes of persuasion, Cicero divided loci into intrinsic and extrinsic topics. Loci seem to work as pigeon holes, general headings under which one should look for arguments. Following the Stoics, Cicero considered dialectic and rhetoric to be two parts of the general science of logos. He also adopted the Stoics’ conception of dialectic as ars bene disserendi and divided it into two parts: the finding of arguments, i.e. ratio inveniendi (topike), and the judging of them (ratio iudicandi).
Boethius, a crucial figure in the history of dialectic as a translator of Aristotle’s Organon, abandoned Cicero’s definition of topos as the seat of arguments and adopted Themistius’ (an early commentator on Aristotle) understanding of locus as a tool for justifying inference. Moreover, he identified topics with propositiones maximae, which are universal and well-known propositions that ‘need no proof (probation), but rather themselves provide proof for things that are in doubt’. Loci are also understood by Boethius to be genera of these universal and undoubted propositions (so called differentiae) and to contain them.
According to Boethius, loci are principles of demonstration, they guarantee the validity of an argument. Such approach distinctly subordinates the art of inventing an argument (inventio) to the art of justifying its conclusion (iudicium). Medieval logicians, such as Abelard, Petrus Juliani, Albert the Great, William Sherwood or Lambert of Auxerre, adopted Boethius’ rather than Cicero’s or Aristotle’s approach to the loci.
It was not until the Renaissance humanists tried to change the state of the matters, that projects of “new dialectic” were created. Humanists, such as Lorenzo Valla and Rudolf Argicola, aimed to rediscover the real meaning of Aristotle’s Topics and to broaden the way loci were used. Their efforts had a common source: the belief that scholastic dialectic was inadequate to what it was supposed to be in Aristotle’s view.

 

Horatian Imitation in Jan Kochanowski’s Latin Poetry

The aim of this study is to show how Kochanowski imitated Horace in various ways and at different levels of his poetry. As to this moment, the matter has been discussed, mainly in regard to the Lyricorum libellus, by Zofia Głombiowska and Józef Budzyński. In this paper, the author briefly summarises their statements and comments upon them expressing her own view. She also mentions some other publications dealing with the Horatianism of the Polish poet to a lesser degree.
The text is divided into four sections. In the first one, the author makes a brief comparison between Kochanowski and Petrarca in the context of their mental kinship with Horace that resulted in poetry which is “Horatian” not only in terms of the verba but also some ideas.
The second section is devoted to the Horatianism of Kochanowski’s collection of odes (Lyricorum libellus). The author begins with a brief summary of the previously mentioned scholars’ views. She also demonstrates that some of these views may oversimplify the question of Horatian imitation in case of at least several of Kochanowski’s poems. To illustrate this, she presents an analysis of ode XI (In equum) in the context of its Horatian models; the conclusion is that in this poem, as well as in the entire collection, Kochanowski imitates Horace in a sophisticated and polyphonic way.
The third part of the text, after a brief mention of the “loci Horatiani” in Kochanowski’s elegies, shows the interplay of ideas between Horatian poetry and Kochanowski’s Elegy III 1. The author puts emphasis on the fact that Kochanowski adapted some of the elegiac themes to the Horatian rhetoric.
Concluding her disquisition, the author argues that Kochanowski’s Horatian imitation is neither superficial nor confined to the imitation verborum, but reaches deep in the structures of Horace’s poetry.

 

Where did Stephen Báthory study, or the birth of a legend

The main purpose of the paper is to take a closer look at the question of Stephen Báthory’s (Polish: Stefan Batory, Hungarian: Báthory István) studies in Padua. Stephen Báthory was the prince of Transilvania and next the king of Poland and Great Duke of Lithuania. In the first paragraphs the author reminds that since the end of the 18th century historians have taken it for granted that young Báthory studied in Padua. The author presents a number of sources and argues that we do not actually have any evidence that can support this conviction. At the end of his paper he explains what might be the cause of this misunderstanding.
 

Jan Latosz’s Przestroga (A Warning) of 1595:  Prolegomena to a critical edition based on a seventeenth-century manuscript from the National Library in Warsaw

The aim of this paper is to draw attention to an understudied mid-seventeenth-century manuscript copy of Przestroga (A Warning) by Jan Latosz (Joannes Latosinus, ca. 1539–1608). All three copies of the printed version of Przestroga, published in Cracow in 1595, that were known before the World War II are now considered to be lost and the manuscript held at the National Library in Warsaw (MS 6631 III) appears to be the only extant witness to this text. In the article, the author gives a brief characteristics of the manuscript, provides an outline of its contents and makes an attempt to draw further research and editorial trajectories related to this document. He makes an argument that the future critical edition of the text of Przestroga should shed some new light on the astrological and chronological views of this controversial Cracow scholar, and that the further study of the manuscript as a material object can provide additional information about the possible reception and reinterpretation of Latosz’s text half-century after its publication.
 

The absent book “penned by one of the fairer sex”. Women, canon and the studies of early modern Polish literature

The main goal of the paper is to focus on the image of the past suggested by the present state of the studies of early modern Polish literature and to propose a new and more inclusive approach to it. Using the debate on Western canon and its formation as well as the specific example of A Transaction, or an Account of the Entire Life as an Orphan, a memoir by a 17th century author, Anna Stanisławska, the author of the paper argues that what is believed now to be the canon of early modern Polish literature is rather a result of conscious decisions made by present scholars rather than an adequate representation of the past literature. The paper proposes answers to the following questions: What is lost from the image of the past as argued by the scholars when they fail to mention texts like the Transaction? How does the image of the cultural past change when one decides to acknowledge such texts?
In Canon’s discourse. Fragments, the first part of the paper, the author relates briefly the debate on Western canon and its formation. He reminds that the different answers to the central question ‘what Western canon is and how it came to be’ translate to different sets of professional and political responsibilities associated with being a scholar. In Canons, syllabuses, reading material. What is ‘early modern Polish literature’?, which is the second part of the paper, the author tries to pinpoint texts which form the canon of early modern Polish literature. It consists of the texts that are actually taught at the faculties of Polish literature and are presented to their students as the early modern literature. The author analyses the curriculums of certain literary courses held in six Polish universities and finds ten recurring authors. He argues then that these authors, although respected, represent only one type of early modern Polish literature – written by the well-educated, Latin-speaking men. Consequently, the author proposes to broaden the perspective of literary studies by including in their focus such texts as the above mentioned Transaction. In Case study. Anna Stanisławska, women’s literacy and writing in the 17th century, the third part of the paper, he recapitulates briefly Stanisławska’s life and proceeds to show strong connection between Anna’s memoir and literary culture of her age (which can be seen in the way she employs topos humilitatis). He also points out that the appearance of such a text in the 17th century of all periods was no accident. During Stanisławska’s life, the number of schools dedicated solely to educating women in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was increasing. Although the literacy remained far below the level achieved in Western Europe, reading and writing became much more widespread among women. The author argues that leaving Stanisławska’s text out of the curriculum results also in failing to properly represent cultural shifts which came to pass in the 17th-century Poland.
The author of the paper concludes that practicing literary history focused both on writers well-known as well as neglected like Stanisławska is a valid opportunity for a modern scholar. Not only does it enable them to create more complete narration about the past, but it also helps them grasp the consequences of the images of the past produced by their narration.
 

Figurative language. Stanisław Kostka Potocki on tropes and rhetorical figures

In this paper, the author presents a critical edition of three chapters on rhetorical de-vices excerpted from the treatise O wymowie i stylu (On Eloquence and Style, Warsaw 1815) written by Stanisław Kostka Potocki (1755–1821), an enlightened man of letters. He begins with a brief introduction to a reading of Potocki’s text on some figurative uses of language. The author explains the circumstances in which Potocki wrote his rhetorical manual (the request of the Warsaw Society of Friends of Learning) and discusses its most important sources, both classic (Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, Cicero’s On the Ideal Orator, Quintilian’s Institutions of Oratory) and modern (César Chesneau Dumarsais’ Traité des Tropes, Paris 1730, Hugh Blair’s Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, Dublin, Edinburgh 1783).
With a few explanatory remarks on the three chapters presenting the nature of figurative language (in particular metaphor, personification, hyperbole and apostrophe) the author examines the connection between the rhetorical considerations on style and the Enlightenment philosophy of language. According to Stanisław Kostka Potocki, the tropes and rhetorical figures, being almost natural expressions of emotions, passions and imagination, should be regarded as the primordial origin of the human language. Thus the Enlightenment, the triumph of analytical (‘pure’) reason over imagination tinged with emotionality, is a period when authors intentionally limited the use of figurative language (although never totally rejected it) in order to reach the simplicity of the linguistic expression.