From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/5963 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Colin McLarty Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: The humility topos Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2010 07:47:31 -0400 Message-ID: References: Reply-To: Colin McLarty NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1278510080 29863 80.91.229.12 (7 Jul 2010 13:41:20 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2010 13:41:20 +0000 (UTC) To: Categories list Original-X-From: categories@mta.ca Wed Jul 07 15:41:18 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from mailserv.mta.ca ([138.73.1.1]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1OWUsC-0000gH-Ay for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:41:12 +0200 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1OWU7G-00016s-7Y for categories-list@mta.ca; Wed, 07 Jul 2010 09:52:42 -0300 In-Reply-To: Original-Sender: categories@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:5963 Archived-At: Yes, but Aristotle was not known in Europe in the original Greek. He was known in Latin until well after the Renaissance, and in vernacular languages taking their terms from Latin in recent centuries. The Online Etymolgical Dictionary gives for English: Topics: 1634, "argument suitable for debate," singular form of "Topics" (1568), the name of a work by Aristotle on logical and rhetorical generalities, from L. Topica, from Gk. Ta Topika, lit. "matters concerning topoi," from topoi "commonplaces," neut. pl. of topikos "commonplace, of a place," from topos "place." The meaning "matter treated in speech or writing, subject, theme" is first recorded 1720. Topical "of or pertaining to topics of the day" is recorded from 1873. Colin 2010/7/5 Vaughan Pratt : > One would suppose that the notions of literary topos and humility topos w= ere > of ancient origin. =A0Certainly "topos" appears in Aristotle's Rhetoric i= n the > original Greek. =A0However its entry into the academic lexicon as an Engl= ish > word relevant to rhetoric and other literary forms would seem, as far as > I've been able to tell, to have occurred at some point in the 20th centur= y. > > 1. =A0Volume Ti-Tz of the OED does not contain the word "topos," nor does= it > appear under the entries for "humility" or "literary." =A0(Ordinarily the= OED > can relied on to record just about every English word that has appeared i= n > print prior to the 20th century.) > > 2. =A0Adams Sherman Hill, Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory in > Harvard University from 1876 to 1904, wrote "The Foundations of Rhetoric"= in > 1892 with no mention of the concept of topos as a notion in rhetoric. > > The Wikipedia article on Ernst Robert Curtius at > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Robert_Curtius > > says "He is best known for his 1948 work Europ=E4ische Literatur und > Lateinisches Mittelalter. It was a major study of the Medieval Latin > literature and its effect on subsequent writing in modern European > languages. The book was largely responsible for introducing the literary > topos concept as a scholarly and critical discussion of literary > commonplaces." > > So unless someone comes up with an earlier use, it looks like 1948 may be > the date, and German the language, of the first appearance of "topos" > outside the original Greek of Aristotle. > > Vaughan Pratt > [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]