In Search of Word Lovers
In Search of Word Lovers
It is not easy to explain what I do. Or, rather, it isn't easy to find a single completely satisfactory name for what I do. The variety of names for my field of study illustrates what I mean: Greek and Latin, classics, or classical studies, to which my own institution adds a further description—classical and early Christian studies.
For many years, however, the field was known by a name that has long since fallen out of favor---it was simply called philology, or sometimes classical philology. What is philology? According to the Oxford English Dictionary, philology is "love of learning and literature." It is "the branch of knowledge that deals with the historical, linguistic, interpretative, and critical aspects of literature," or simply "literary or classical scholarship." This is a fine definition because it respects the etymological texture of the word---philo- from the Greek for a certain kind of "love" and "-logy" from the Greek logos, which means simply "word" or "speech" or more generally "rational utterance" as well as "thinking, reasoning, deliberation, reflection." Philology is thus, most basically, love of words.
Like the kindred word philosophy, philology is an English version of a Greek word that resists ready translation. If, instead of merely calquing the Greek, we really try to translate the words, the closest approximation would be, for philosophy, "wisdom-love" and for philology, "word-love." Which is how I prefer to think of what I do. I belong to a small society of word lovers.
That old name philology has been much on my mind, ever since the recent decision by Princeton's Classics Department to make learning Greek and Latin optional for its majors. You can follow the story here and here.
Briefly, Princeton’s rationale is that this change will make very little difference for the kind of students who have been majoring in classics up to this point. Students who excel in learning Greek and Latin---those with a strong interest in Greek and Latin philology---will continue to learn the languages as Princeton classics majors always have. But now the department and its major will become more inclusive---a barrier that previously barred access to the less linguistically inclined students has been removed. To quote the Princeton Alumni Weekly article linked above:
In classics, two major changes were made. The “classics” track, which required an intermediate proficiency in Greek or Latin to enter the concentration, was eliminated, as was the requirement for students to take Greek or Latin. Students still are encouraged to take either language if it is relevant to their interests in the department. The breadth of offerings remains the same, said Josh Billings, director of undergraduate studies and professor of classics. The changes ultimately give students more opportunities to major in classics.
The discussions about these changes predate [President Christopher] Eisgruber’s call to address systemic racism at the University, Billings said, but were given new urgency by this and the events around race that occurred last summer. “We think that having new perspectives in the field will make the field better,” he said. “Having people who come in who might not have studied classics in high school and might not have had a previous exposure to Greek and Latin, we think that having those students in the department will make it a more vibrant intellectual community.”
And similarly from the Atlantic essay in the second link:
A classicist at Princeton told me that his department expects to teach just as much Greek and Latin as it ever did. No classes will be cut. But instead of making these courses a gateway to the classics, they’ll be an option the majority of majors will take—without the implication that philology is the best or only way to get into the subject. If that hypothesis is correct, he said, and classics attracts more undergraduate majors and most of them take Greek and Latin, Princeton will have more students proficient in these languages after dropping the requirement.
If one accepts this rationale, little or nothing has been lost from Princeton classics, while much has been gained, through this apparent---but only apparent---substantial curricular change.
Readers may remember a similar change enacted by the organization once known as the American Philological Association (APA), which in 2013 became the Society for Classical Studies. You can read (then) President Denis Feeney's report on the name change here.
Feeney first explains that "the APA was founded in 1869 as an umbrella group for scholars who were, in the broadest sense, students of language—'philologists'"; and that the languages involved were quite diverse. The titles of early articles included “On the German vernacular of Pennsylvania”, “On some mistaken notions of Algonkin grammar”, “Contributions to Creole grammar”, “On English vowel quantity in the thirteenth century and in the nineteenth”.
Eventually the various sub-groups of "philologists" broke off to form their own associations---the Modern Language Association of America (MLA), for example, in 1883, or the Linguistic Society of America (LSA), in 1924. "Classicists were left as the custodians of 'Philology', a term which had originally had a much broader application than what it fairly soon came to represent, 'Classics'".
Feeney then presents the rationale for the name change:
The resulting organization has been highly successful in adapting to all of the changes in life and education over the last century, but we have become more and more a professional organization as well as a learned society, and if we are to flourish then we must, as [former president] Jeffrey Henderson put it back in October, adapt to playing “ever broader roles as an academic, professional, and public resource”. While continuing to provide all the professional services which our core constituency needs, we must also advocate for the importance of the Classics in a more engaged way. . . . The Board believes that the current name of our organization has become an impediment to these new needs, however proud of and emotionally attached to the name we may be (in my own case, as a member since 1987, I feel very proud and emotionally attached). On the basis of their own personal experience, all members will acknowledge how hard it is to explain to “civilians” what the name of our organization actually means.
Feeney concludes by reporting the judgment of the Board that "Classics" and "Classical", while not 100% transparent either, "are far more recognizable and accessible terms than 'philology'".
The Board of the APA then put the question of the proposed name change to the membership, who voted three to one in favor of the new name. (I myself, who have been a member since 2005, voted against the change.)
The recent decision of Princeton Classics, therefore, should be seen in the context of a broader movement in American classical study (I almost said American classical philology) away from its original philological identity towards “ever broader roles as an academic, professional, and public resource.” The idea seems to be that philology is necessarily restrictive, exclusive, and---though the authors of the APA official statements seemed at pains to avoid the word---elitist. And, further, that any field of study with such a character is necessarily out of step with the interests and values of our time. And that, finally, any such field---rather than the time in which we live---must become the object of our efforts for reform.
While reflecting on these matters, I received an email from a former student and reader of this newsletter. She had been a classical and early Christian studies major at Christendom College---and so therefore also a philologist---but in the years since graduation, life and its many dramatic changes of occupation and circumstance had given her little time for continuing her philological studies. What, she wondered, would I recommend for someone now resuming those studies?
I have written my advice in the form of a blog post here, for those who find themselves in a similar position. But the more I think about these two events---Princeton's dropping of their Greek and Latin requirements---and my former student's enduring philological interest, the more clearly I perceive the fault in Princeton's (and in the APA's or SCS's) rationale. My former student wants to resume the same kind of study she enjoyed in her college years. But to do that she must regain her facility with Latin and Greek.
She would not have been satisfied, had I written in response to her question, "Oh, don't worry about reviewing your Latin grammar: Just find a good translation of the Aeneid, or of whatever it is you want to read." She would not have been satisfied, because what she wants is not someone else's reproduction of Virgil's poem, but to enjoy again the singular, inimitable experience of reading Virgil's Latin itself---which is something like travelling to a different world, whereas reading a translation of the Aeneid is more like studying a map of that world. The map shows us what's there, how the parts are related, the physical extent and maybe even the topographical texture. But to read Virgil's Latin itself, is to feel the cool evening breeze of that world and hear the hum of bees in the hedge, while its shepherds pipe and sing to the growing shadows cast by its mountains. The map helps us attain a certain conceptual orientation, which has its uses. But only by direct experience---only by travelling ourselves to that world---can we ever know its living spirit.
It may be true that the qualities of mind and character necessary for enjoying this experience are not widely possessed; that the necessary talent and discipline will only ever belong to a few—or at least not to a great many. But to anyone interested in attempting the journey, this newsletter at least aims to be a small but hospitable home to all word lovers.
Halcyon Days
For a splendid example of philology at work: a note in T. E. Page's edition of Virgil's Eclogues and Georgics. Commenting on the phrase, in Georgics 1.399, dilectae Thetidi alcyones ("halcyons beloved to Thetis"), Page explains:
The 'halcyon' is an unknown bird which was said to build its nest on the waves, and during the fourteen days of winter when it broods the sea was said to be always calm: hence the phrase ἀλκυονίδες ἡμέραι ["halcyon days"] and the occasional spelling of the word with an aspirate [i.e. a "breathing" sound, now made by our letter "h"] as though from ἅλς 'the sea' and κύω 'to breed.'
Page further notes that the halcyon was later identified with the kingfisher, which has become the traditional identification. The phrase "halcyon days," deriving from the Greek, now has both a literal significance---"a period of calm weather occurring in winter; esp. such a period lasting fourteen days, occurring around the winter solstice, and traditionally associated with the breeding period of the halcyon or kingfisher" (OED)---and a metaphorical extension---"a period of calm, peace, happiness, prosperity, or success; esp. such a period in the past, viewed nostalgically. Often with of or possessive, indicating the person, institution, activity, etc., benefiting from such a period" (OED). Perhaps readers warmly remember their own time in college---perhaps spent studying classics---as their halcyon days.
Shannon on Hollywood and the Enlightenment
My friend and colleague Christopher Shannon is staying busy over at Catholic World Report with columns on Rethinking the Enlightenment from within the Catholic intellectual traditions and Lessons from Catholic censorship during Hollywood’s Golden Age.
If you like Dr. Shannon's essays, you may also like his book, co-authored with Dr. Christopher O. Blum, The Past as Pilgrimage: Narrative, Tradition, and the Renewal of Catholic History. It is a call for the renewal of Catholic history writing in particular, but contains principles relevant to the broader renewal of Christian humane study.
Seeking, Finding, and Seeking Again
From Evening Prayer (or Vespers) on Monday, July 12:
Da ómnibus, qui veritátem investígant, ut eam quæréndo invéniant, et inveniéndo semper requírant.
Grant to all who track the traces of truth that seeking they may find it, and finding it they may ever seek it anew.