Philology: The Forgotten Origins of the Modern Humanities (The William G. Bowen Book 70)

This updates the work that Edwin Sandys did in his old book, A History of Classical Scholarship. Turner has less detail (Sandys' book is very big), but Turner is writing for a modern audience and is as willing to make the story about the scholars and the intellectual shifts over the centuries as he is about establishing accurate readings.Personally, I think that Turner kind of falls between 2 stools here: there could be more detail about either the value of the classical texts or the lives of the scholars who recovered them. I kept thinking that Antony Grafton, Hugh Lloyd Jones, Stephen Greenblatt and Arnaldo Momigliano had told individual episodes better. But, Turner's book is an overview from the Greeks to the modern world and the virtue of this book is presenting that story clearly, without fuss and in a more reader-friendly tone/style.I like this stuff (enough to pay for the book) and was impressed enough to give it 4 stars. Perhaps more info on German scholarship for a 5th star (not a sentence I ever thought i would be writing!)

This is a terrific book. It contains a history of the development of philology and a good account of the consequences of that development for academia. Written for the general reader (like me) I found it well-written, clear and reader-friendly. It is clearly the product of immense scholarship. I’m interested in the development of universities and this book helped to fill what was clearly a large gap in my knowledge. Highly recommended.

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The origins of languages.

The fluent and highly accessible way in which James Turner, Cavanaugh Professor of Humanities at the University of Notre Dame, recounts the evolution of the science of philology makes for relatively easy reading, which is especially exceptional when one considers the complexity of the subject matter of this 550-page book. Attention-grabbing from the start, Professor Turner begins his prologue by discussing a highly apposite adage of the leading humanistic scholar, Erasmus of Rotterdam, namely: “The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog [knows] one big thing.” He explains the importance and relevance of the adage to a central issue of this work: whether humanistic scholarship in the West consists of many disciplines, or just one overarching discipline. Clearly, Turner is a dab hand at unpacking multidimensional and intertwined concepts that might otherwise leave the reader floundering in the midst of an academic maze. His competence and ease in exploring a subject to which he has devoted much of his own academic career instils a sense of trust in the reader that this is an expert who is not only on intimate terms with his material, but who is also vitally concerned with conveying his understanding of the matter to his readers, no matter how new they are to the field. While in no way being condescending towards his audience, Turner explains even the most fundamental of ideas and practices in a pragmatic and fulsome way that gives heart and feeling to Philology: The Forgotten Origins of the Modern Humanities. Making no undue assumptions as to the pre-existing level of understanding among his audience, he animates and informs all aspects of the evolution of philology, leaving no stone unturned in his portrayal of the history of the discipline, from the time of the ancient Greeks to the modern day.Turner has a delightful sense of humor—he manifests none of the academic stuffiness that is typically associated with the science of philology, and is, in fact, prone to take the mickey out of pedantic claptrap. For instance, he personifies the appearance of philology in academic circles in Northern America and the British Isles as tottering “along with arthritic creakiness. One would not be startled to see its gaunt torso clad in a frock coat.” The author traces the development of the science from its once “chic” and “dashing” form to its present state of apparent decrepitude with the ease and fluency of a skilled rhetorician who is a master of his art. He shows how, from philology’s once all-embracing encompassment of the study of all language and languages, as well as of all texts, the seeming deterioration of the discipline into its present attenuated state came about through its birthing of the many disciplines that currently comprise not only the humanities, but also the social sciences. By giving rise to a plethora of children, as many parents have done since time immemorial, it can clearly be seen to have sacrificed some of its own integrity so that it could give life to a host of new entities, each strong and growing by leaps and bounds in its own right.In addition to the present volume, Professor Turner has also authored The Liberal Education of Charles Eliot Norton and Religion Enters the Academy, as well as coauthored The Sacred and the Secular University. He is well-known for the depth of his professional insight and for the fluency and accessibility of his writing, of which the present volume is yet another memorable instance.

Higher education and, specifically, the humanities are under unprecedented pressure in the US and UK both in terms of funding and as cultural capital: one unexpected spin-off has been a turn towards self-analysis and a productive social defence. This book, a history of the humanities, contributes to that project.Turner traces, in broad terms, the way in which the humanities, now fragmented into constructed disciplines (English, History, Classics, European Literature, Philosophy, Linguistics etc.), were once collected under the broad term of Philology. Only in the nineteenth century do what we recognise as separate disciplines evolve, a division which foregrounds difference rather than the common roots of the humanities.This is written for a non-academic audience and is generalist in tone, and readers may be surprised at how recently, for example, English Literature became a recognised academic subject (nineteenth century).This is an interesting and entertaining history of intellectual endeavour, but is also one which looks to the future. Many more doctoral students and scholars are doing interdisciplinary work than Turner perhaps acknowledges – but he’s right that universities (and the all-important recruitment and promotion systems) are still based around adherence to disciplines. As someone who works across classical Latin, Renaissance French and English, I agree wholeheartedly with his emphasis on what the individual disciplines share in terms of methodology and philosophical orientation – but we’re all still waiting for this to be recognised within the academe more broadly.A lucid and entertaining read.(This review is from an ARC courtesy of the publisher)