Tag Archives: Cambridge Society for Neo-Latin Studies Seminar

Cambridge Society for Neo-Latin Studies Seminar

Posted on by

Tuesday 1 March, 5.30pm, Junior Parlour, T Blue Boar, Trinity College

Sarah Knight (Leicester)

A fabulis ad veritatem: Latin Tragedy, Truth and Education in Early Modern England

 
In his Ash Wednesday sermon of 1582, Laurence Humphrey, head of Magdalen College, urged his Oxford congregation to make the transition ‘à Cothurno ad Cineres, à prophanis ad sacra, à fabulis ad ipsam veritatis inuestigationem & disciplinam’ (from tragic buskin to ashes, from the profane to the sacred, from stories to that same examination and practice of truth). Humphrey distinguishes between drama and sermon, between being a passive spectator and an active seeker of religious truth, but many authors of Latin tragedies in early modern England expected greater intellectual engagement from those who watched or read their works than Humphrey’s sermon perhaps implies. The context of delivery for Humphrey’s sermon was also the most active site of composition and performance of drama, and so a study of Latin tragedy in early modern England inevitably focuses first on the universities. Some examples taken both from Oxford and Cambridge, such as the work of Thomas Legge and William Alabaster, as well as plays written by its graduates who wrote for continental Catholic institutions, particularly Edmund Campion, show how college and university drama evolved into a rich didactic medium. These plays suggest that the staging and consumption of such drama was not just for entertainment – Humphrey uses the term ‘ludicra’ – in this period, although collective enjoyment could be part of their appeal, and in several cases their authors express concern about the impressionable young minds of the audience and the formative influence of curricular and other institutional activity on the performance of drama.

All are welcome. Wine is served during the discussion of the papers.

For other inquiries, please contact Andrew Taylor at awt24@cam.ac.uk.
More information here.

Events This Week

Posted on by

Wednesday 13 May

Centre for Material Texts: Material-Textual Breakfast
9-10.30 am, Social Space, English Faculty

Please join us in the Social Space on the ground floor of the English Faculty for the first ever CMT material-textual-breakfast. This is an opportunity to meet people, to discuss current projects and to firm up plans for the future. Grab a coffee from the ARB (or wherever) and come over. Freshly baked cakes will be provided.

Early Modern Interdisciplinary Seminar                                                                         12-1.30PM, Green Room, Gonville and Caius: 

Matthew Woodcock (University of East Anglia)
‘Tudor Soldier-Authors and the Art of Military Autobiography’

Faculty of History, Early Modern British and Irish History Seminar                             5.15pm, Graham Storey Room, Trinity Hall:

John Walter, ‘Career Reflections’

Thursday 14 May

Cambridge Society for Neo-Latin Studies                                                                  5.30pm in the Junior Parlour, The Blue Boar, Trinity College

Stuart M. McManus (Harvard University/Warburg Institute)                                            ‘Quo validis armis capta Manila fuit: inter-imperial rivalry in Bartolomé Saguinsín’s Epigrammata’

In the wake of the failure of the British Occupation of Manila at the end of the Seven Years’ War, a local Tagalog priest, Bartolomé Saguinsín (c. 1694-1772), composed a set of epigrams dedicated to the Lieutenant Governor of the Philippines that celebrated the triumph of Catholic Spanish and Filipino forces over the Protestant British. These epigrams, which I am currently editing, provide a window onto imperial and confessional rivalries in South East Asia in the context of rising British ambitions in the region. As the only surviving account of the Occupation by a Filipino, the work also speaks to the experience of the indigenous people of the Philippines caught in the midst of a global conflict between the “great powers”. In the paper, I will first address the historical and intellectual context of the Epigrammata, then focus on the text of my edition in progress and issues of intertextuality. (For a pdf of the text under discussion, please email Andrew Taylor: awt24@cam.ac.uk) Directions are here. For other inquiries, please contact Andrew Taylor. Sponsored by the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages.

Institute of Historical Research, University of London, Early Modern Italy Seminar 5.15pm Wolfson Room I, IHR, Basement

John Law (Swansea), ‘The Fall of the da Carrara: Insights’

To be followed by UK launch of the Festschrift for the historian of late medieval Padua and Venice, Ben Kohl (1938-2010).

Friday 15 May

Early Modern French Seminar, Fitzwilliam Museum                                              2pm Graham Robertson Study Room, Fitzwilliam Museum

The final seminar of the series will be given by Jane Munro, Keeper of Paintings, Drawings and Prints at the Fitzwilliam. In an appropriate conclusion to our examination of objects in the collections of the museum, Munro will discuss ‘Fitzwilliam’s French Connections‘: how the museum’s founder took a special interest in the objects and paintings he acquired from early modern France. Munro will be introduced by Lucilla Burn, Keeper of Antiquities. All welcome. For those unable to attend, a short account of the paper will be available on this site following the seminar.

Emmanuel College Library Special Collections Lecture                                               2.15pm Laing Centre Atrium, Emmanuel College Library

Giles Mandelbrote, Librarian and Archivist, Lambeth Palace Library

‘A Tale of Two Libraries (and one that got away) Lambeth Palace Library and Sion College Library in the Seventeenth Century’                                                                        Numbers are limited. Booking is essential and entry will be by free ticket only. Please book early by either e-mailing the College Library at library@emma.cam.ac.uk or telephone (01223) (3)34233. A ticket will be sent to you on receipt of booking.

Institute of Historical Research Seminar                                                                        5.15-7.15pm, Senate House, University of London

Jaap Geraerts (UCL) ‘Contested rights: the Dutch Catholic nobility and the jus patronatus, c. 1580-1720′

Saturday 16 May

Institute of English Studies, University of London, EMPHASIS (Early Modern Philosophy and the Scientific Imagination) Seminar                                                     2 – 4pm, Room 104, Senate House (first floor)

Katherine Hunt (Queen’s College, Oxford) ‘The Art of Variation: Church Bells and Combinations in Seventeenth-Century England’