Renaissance Machinery

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:03 am By Peter Leithart

Another interesting review in the TLS , of Jessica Wolfe’s Humanism, Machinery, and Renaissance Literature (Cambridge), an exploration of the literary uses of machinery and machine imagery in Renaissance literature. According to Wolfe, Renaissance writers saw “the profound applicability of mechanical practices and principles to extra-scientific questions.” In political theory, Simon Sturtevant compared servants to machines as “the living instruments upon whom rulers rely,” and even the Machiavellian conception of virtu refered not only to “human power or ingenuity” but... Read more

Greenblatt on Will

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:43 pm By Peter Leithart

Alastair Fowler has an eviserating review of Stephen Greenblatt’s Will in the World in the February 4 issue of the TLS . He finds that Greenblatt, despite his new historicist interest in the historical embeddedness of literature, is rather sloppy with historical facts and contexts. Like other reviewers of the book, he notes Greenblatt’s tendency to construct his biography based on imagined events and connections. Such as: “Robert Nye’s novel Mr. Shakespeare is pressed into service to supply a visit... Read more

Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:43 pm By Peter Leithart

This is the first of what may turn out to be (but also may not turn out to be) a series of outlines or summaries of David Bentley Hart?s Beauty of the Infinite . My goal in this outline (or, these outlines) is not to critique Hart so much as to understand him. This is an outline of the Introduction to the book. I. The Question Here Hart describes his project as a defense of the inherent aesthetic appeal of... Read more

Garber on Julius Caesar

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:42 pm By Peter Leithart

More from Marjorie Garber?s book, this time on Julius Caesar . 1) Though the play is often assigned to high school students, Garber says that the play is ?one of Shakespeare?s most subtle and sophisticated,?Eexploring such issues as ?the nature of kingship, the relationship of the public to the private self, the limits of reason, and the necessity of coming to terms with the irrational . . . as it presents itself in omens and portents, soothsayers and signs.?ELike all... Read more

Translation, 1 Kings 18

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:51 pm By Peter Leithart

And it was many days. Now the word of Yahweh was to ?Eliyyahu in the third year, saying, ?Walk, cause-yourself-to-be-seen to ?Achav And I will give rain on the face of the earth.?E And walked ?Eliyyahu to cause-himself-to-be-seen to ?Achav Now the famine was strong in Shomron. And called ?Achav to ?Ovadyahu who [was] over the house ?E Now ?Ovadyahu feared Yahweh, very much, And it was in the cutting-off of ?Iyzevel of the prophets of Yahweh And took ?Ovadyahu... Read more

Notes on 1 Kings 18

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:09 am By Peter Leithart

1) There are repeated verbal links between the opening of 1 Kings 17 and the opening of chapter 18. The word of Yahweh comes to Elijah, telling him to ?go?E(17:2; 18:1). In both chapters, the word ?cut off?Eis used (the brook ?Cherith?E Jezebel?s ?cutting off?Eof prophets; the ?cutting off?Eof cattle). In both cases, there is a reference to ?years?E(17:1; 18:1). In both cases, Yahweh provides (the same verb in both places, in the same aspect) bread and water for a... Read more

Sermon Outline, February 20

Last updated on: September 7, 2017 at 12:01 am By Peter Leithart

INTRODUCTION Elijah is a new Moses, and like Moses he confronts the ?Pharaoh?EAhab and his hundreds of ?magicians.?EBy his victory in this context, Yahweh not only humiliates the gods of the Canaanites, and the Israelites who act like Canaanites. He also calls and leads Israel to repentance (vv. 39-40). This is a real renewal of covenant. THE TEXT ?And it came to pass after many days that the word of the Lord came to Elijah, in the third year, saying,... Read more

Theology and Metaphysics

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:51 pm By Peter Leithart

David Hart describes the work of theology, as opposed to the work of metaphysics, as follows: “Theology is not an art that abstracts from history toward eternity, from facts toward principles, but one that – under the pressure of the history it is called upon to interpret – finds the sphere of its narrative expanding into ever greater dimensions of the revealed, crossing the line between the creaturely and the divine (and so that between the ontic and the ontological)... Read more

Beauty

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 10:47 pm By Peter Leithart

Umberto Eco, ed. History of Beauty . Translated by Alastair McEwen. New York: Rizzoli, 2004. 438pp. Bursting with splashy reproductions of art work from the ancient Greeks to the present, Eco’s History of Beauty could pass for a survey of Western art. Eco’s purpose, however, is broader; he intends a history of beauty and conceptions of beauty. In earlier eras, the association of beauty with fine art was not so instinctive as it is with us. Instead, “Beauty was a... Read more

Liber Monstrorum

Last updated on: September 6, 2017 at 11:46 pm By Peter Leithart

From the anonymous 8th-century Liber Monstrorum , we learn about the following: Astomori: “The accounts of the Greeks say that there are also men devoid of a mouth, unlike all the others, and thus they allegedly cannot eat anything: according to the sources, moreover, they stay alive only by breathing through their nostrils.” Cynocephali: “In India there live the Cynocephali, dog-headed creatures that cannot say a single word without breaking off to bark, thus mixing baying and discourse. And, in... Read more