humanism in renaissance scotland

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Book Reviews 145 somewhat traditionai line of attack. The books are studied in order of composition, each chapter being divided up into sahent ideological areas. Gurgu~j~~, for example, has sections on ‘The prologue, genealogy, Gargantua’s birth, his device, the colour symbolism, old versus new education, the Picrocholine war, the Abbey ofTh&eme’, i.e. the old and familiar chestnuts which have been the source of considerable discussion over the last few decades. Although the structure of this study may appear familiar, the text is full of illuminating and perceptive remarks. In Puntagruel, Schwartz sees Panurge as Pantagruel’s ironic Doppelgiinger (p. 27) and ‘the subversive deviant who is the instrument and metaphor of Rabelais’s challenge to the dominant ideologies, the established hierarchies and authorities and their spokesmen’ (p. 41). I particularly liked his analysis of the liminary texts for the Tiers Livre and the @art Lime which are so open to different interpretations. He brings out well the irony of the prologue to the Tiers Livre, showing how it is ‘associated with intellectual and moral freedom from established models of thought’ (P. 99). Schwartz’s method involves the constant juxtaposition of conflictual material- intra- and extratextual, as the case may be-and he uses the work of other scholars with all due reverence. He illustrates repeatedly how it is impossible to discover Rabelais’s ‘univocity’, the text of the Rabelaisian corpus contains so many ironic and subversive elements that no clear picture of Rabelais’s ideological position appears. The ‘contradictions’ are not necessarily of a purely ideological nature, but rather, come from the author’s style of writing. What should have been stressed is that Rabelais was above all a humourist and humourists have a way of distancing themselves from the surrounding society. Their main aim is to amuse and, in their desire to do so, they can often sacrifice ideological consistency. Schwartz believes that ‘in Rabelais’s ease, strategies of subversion and obliqueness may well have been his chief means of distancing himself not only from the ideology of his protestors and patrons, but also from the philosophical, theological and epistemological paradigms of medieval discourse’ (p. 200). This, then, is a study which needed to be undertaken. It indicates the need for the moderate, reasoned and well-balanced approach to Rabelaisian studies, Rahelais is complex and there is no quick way of explaining his work. Jerome Schwartz’s book will be of great comfort and help to many readers of Rabelais, whether they be readers of the original text or not, for virtually all the quotations are also given in translation. Keith Cameron Humanism in Renaissance Scotland, ed. John MacQueen (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990), ix + 199 pp., E25.00. A book of nine essays on this topic may surprise Europeans who see humanism in terms of Italy and France; and possibly some Scottish scholars who only Scotland and Geneva know. But it might be recalled that the Italian humanist Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (later Pope Pius II) thought that, while visiting Scotland in 1435, he might find lost works by Livy in the library on the island of Iona. Topically, Scats seeking to put Scotland firmly in Europe without English domination, may appreciate the stress on past continental

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Page 1: Humanism in renaissance Scotland

Book Reviews 145

somewhat traditionai line of attack. The books are studied in order of composition, each chapter being divided up into sahent ideological areas. Gurgu~j~~, for example, has sections on ‘The prologue, genealogy, Gargantua’s birth, his device, the colour symbolism, old versus new education, the Picrocholine war, the Abbey ofTh&eme’, i.e. the old and familiar chestnuts which have been the source of considerable discussion over the last few decades.

Although the structure of this study may appear familiar, the text is full of illuminating and perceptive remarks. In Puntagruel, Schwartz sees Panurge as Pantagruel’s ironic Doppelgiinger (p. 27) and ‘the subversive deviant who is the instrument and metaphor of Rabelais’s challenge to the dominant ideologies, the established hierarchies and authorities and their spokesmen’ (p. 41). I particularly liked his analysis of the liminary texts for the Tiers Livre and the @art Lime which are so open to different interpretations. He brings out well the irony of the prologue to the Tiers Livre, showing how it is ‘associated with intellectual and moral freedom from established models of thought’

(P. 99). Schwartz’s method involves the constant juxtaposition of conflictual material-

intra- and extratextual, as the case may be-and he uses the work of other scholars with all due reverence. He illustrates repeatedly how it is impossible to discover Rabelais’s ‘univocity’, the text of the Rabelaisian corpus contains so many ironic and subversive elements that no clear picture of Rabelais’s ideological position appears. The ‘contradictions’ are not necessarily of a purely ideological nature, but rather, come from the author’s style of writing. What should have been stressed is that Rabelais was above all a humourist and humourists have a way of distancing themselves from the surrounding society. Their main aim is to amuse and, in their desire to do so, they can often sacrifice ideological consistency. Schwartz believes that ‘in Rabelais’s ease, strategies of subversion and obliqueness may well have been his chief means of distancing himself not only from the ideology of his protestors and patrons, but also from the philosophical, theological and epistemological paradigms of medieval discourse’ (p. 200).

This, then, is a study which needed to be undertaken. It indicates the need for the moderate, reasoned and well-balanced approach to Rabelaisian studies, Rahelais is complex and there is no quick way of explaining his work. Jerome Schwartz’s book will be of great comfort and help to many readers of Rabelais, whether they be readers of the original text or not, for virtually all the quotations are also given in translation.

Keith Cameron

Humanism in Renaissance Scotland, ed. John MacQueen (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990), ix + 199 pp., E25.00.

A book of nine essays on this topic may surprise Europeans who see humanism in terms of Italy and France; and possibly some Scottish scholars who only Scotland and Geneva know. But it might be recalled that the Italian humanist Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (later Pope Pius II) thought that, while visiting Scotland in 1435, he might find lost works by Livy in the library on the island of Iona. Topically, Scats seeking to put Scotland firmly in Europe without English domination, may appreciate the stress on past continental

Page 2: Humanism in renaissance Scotland

Book Reviews

connections. This reviewer welcomes these essays as an Italian historian with passing interest in the impact of humanism, and as a part-Scot who has had all his teaching career at Glasgow University. The editor imposes no clear editorial policy (nor an entirely uniform referencing system), particularly as to preferred audience; Scottish scholars, or those of different geographical orientations awaiting enlightenment about the spread of humanist ideas and techniques to the far north? Some writers here keep the latter group well in mind: notably Martin Kemp with Clare Farrow on the Visual Arts, Alex Broadie on Philosophy, Alex Keller on Science, Medicine and Mathematics, and James K. Cameron on Religious Life. Readers less familiar with the Scottish scene may find it harder to follow John MacQueen on some aspects of humanism in Scottish literature, John Durkan on education, and the legal team on Scats Law (John W. Cairns, T. David Fergus and Hector L. MacQueen). R.J. Schoek provides a helpfuf short introduction on the Europe background, and the editor returns with a contextualising conclusion, where he rightly emphasises that the various authors have shown that there were many learned Scats of the first and second rank who were not isolated, but part of the European-wide intellectual scene of Renaissance humanism.

On this intellectual scene are different viewpoints; the perception of a number of Scats who travelled to the Continent and participated there, making major or minor contributions; and also the vision of how ideas and techniques brought back from the Continent changed the domestic scene. Among individuals who make the wider impact are John Mair (or Major) in logic, ethics, political theory, history-teaching in Paris and influencing Calvin, Knox, George Buchanan among others. Florence Wilson, moral philosopher and theologian, learned from Italian humanists and then participated in a cosmopolitan group at Lyons. Less known, but of interest are some scientists-Duncan Liddel, Thomas Seget and John Wedderburn-who acted as intermediaries between, and partial defenders of Galileo and Kepler. Most important is the mathematician John Napier, with his logarithms, trigonometry but also many other inventions or technical suggestions (discussed in Keller’s wide-ranging essay). Among those under continental humanist influence who have their impact mainly within Scotland are lawyers like John Skene and Thomas Craig, the logician William Cranston, and the post-Reformation educational reformer, and Ramist, Andrew Melville who had a key influence on Glasgow and St Andrews Universities.

The humanist impact on Scottish literary and visual culture is diverse, diffuse and controversial. Scotland has its neo-Latin writers like George Buchanan; its translators of the classics from the famous Gavin Douglas and hisdeneid, to John Bellenden’s versions of Livy (discussed by John MacQueen). Livy influences Scottish historiography, as through Hector Boece. Classical allusions and motifs are incorporated into literary works; and into the visual arts, though (as Kemp and Farrow argue in a most appealing but murkily illustrated article) there is no strict humanist style in Scotland-but there might have been had Mary ruled longer. There are classical elements that affect architectural facades (as at Stirling Castle or Falkland Palace), painted and then plaster ceilings, tapestries, jewelry etc.; but arguably it is the mixture of classical elements with dominant native, ‘baronial’, styles that makes the surviving Scottish Renaissance scene most attractive.

John Durkan, in the longest article ranging across the broad educational scene, includes a foretaste of his major work revealing more and more schools and schoolmasters before and through the Reformation period. He also discusses the input of new grammars, and the quarrels about them. Many Scats traveled abroad for further education; many received legal and humanist training in textual analysis and historical perspective (especially in France) that had a major impact on Scats law. It is a pity that there was no essay on the influence of humanist education on the careers of those who returned to be lawyers, government officials, businessmen and clergy; though there are foundations for

Page 3: Humanism in renaissance Scotland

Book Reviews 147

such a study in the articles on legal humanism, and on religious life. A fuller discussion of music might also have been illuminating. However these essays are a valuable contribution to understanding the spread and influence of humanism, and the breadth of Scottish Renaissance learning.

GIasgow University Christopher F. Black

The Language of Psyche: Mind and Body in Enlightenment Thought, ed. G.S. Rousseau (University of California Press, 1990), xix + 480 pp. $55.00 cloth, $16.95 paper.

This is a large, sumptuously presented, wide-ranging book, heavy with bibhographical footnotes, complete with 27 black and white plates and a 20 page list of suggestions for further reading. It consists of a series of nine Clark Library lectures by different speakers from different disciplines, delivered in Los Angeles in 1985-6. Their aim is ‘to demonstrate how widespread throughout culture was the concern with the mind-body relation’ in the period of the enlightenment. The lectures, which are divided into four sections, are prefaced by an introductory historical romp through views on the topic from Homer to the present day.

The first section, quite misleadingly entitled ‘Theories of Mind and Body’, begins with a survey by Roy Porter emphasising the, hitherto neglected, influence which the early eighteenth century laid on the body in contrast to the mind as an explanation of so-called ‘mental’ disorders, such as madness and drunkenness, as well as imagination and sexual urges. This is followed by Philippa Foot’s claim that the Locke-Hume explanation of acting for a reason, including acting for a moral reason, in terms of a prior cause, identified as a desire, uneasiness or passion, still influences the majority of twentieth- century philosophers, though it is, in her opinion, nevertheless mistaken. I feel, however, that the fashionable opposition of reason versus cause requires a closer look than she gives at the differences not only between reason why and reason for, but also between cause of and cause for.

The second section, entitled ‘Mind and Body in Practice’, consists of two medically orientated lectures and one literary. Robert Frank examines the life and the origin and development of the work on the anatomy of the brain of an Oxford medical professor, Thomas Willis, who tried to relate all our so-called ‘mental’ functions to the nervous system. Antoine Luyendijk-Elshout surveys the eighteenth-century medical study and treatment of fear, its objects, causes, expression, and control, as it was revealed to the doctor by his patient. The literary essay by Car01 Flynn covers that century’s suggestions of the therapeutic benefit of exercise for psycho-somatic ailments, with special reference to Smollett’s and Sterne’s application of this to a cure for the spleen.

The third section, ‘The Politics of Mind and Body’, opens with Simon Schaffer’s claim-in a five part essay whose inter-connections I found it difficult to unravel-of a connection between the Enlightenment and Bentham’s idea of a Panopticon or Inspection-House which could oversee both social behaviour and the details of a materialistically interpreted mind. David Morris’s contention-which would have fitted more appropriately in section two-that de Sade’s literary theory of pain is based largely on ‘transvaluations of medical knowledge’ avoids any discussion of the philosophically