From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.science.mathematics.categories/5959 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine Newsgroups: gmane.science.mathematics.categories Subject: Re: The humility topos Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2010 13:02:16 +0100 Message-ID: Reply-To: Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v1078) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1278509915 29189 80.91.229.12 (7 Jul 2010 13:38:35 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 7 Jul 2010 13:38:35 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Categories list To: Vaughan Pratt Original-X-From: categories@mta.ca Wed Jul 07 15:38:33 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 1OWUpd-0007NF-CP for gsmc-categories@m.gmane.org; Wed, 07 Jul 2010 15:38:33 +0200 Original-Received: from Majordom by mailserv.mta.ca with local (Exim 4.61) (envelope-from ) id 1OWU8T-0001A6-QT for categories-list@mta.ca; Wed, 07 Jul 2010 09:53:57 -0300 Original-Sender: categories@mta.ca Precedence: bulk Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.science.mathematics.categories:5959 Archived-At: > One would suppose that the notions of literary topos and humility = topos were of ancient origin. Certainly "topos" appears in Aristotle's = Rhetoric in the original Greek. However its entry into the academic = lexicon as an English 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 century. The online OED confirms this; it does contain "topos", defining it as=20 > "A traditional motif or theme (in a literary composition); a = rhetorical commonplace, a literary convention or formula." and the earliest citation it gives is 1948, in Leo Spitzer's = "Linguistics and literary history" (presumably referring to Curtius's = work). Interestingly, though, its earliest cited uses of "topic" (16th/17th = century) are also as a translation of Aristotle's "topos", and with a = similar meaning to Curtius's "topos". -Peter. > 1. Volume Ti-Tz of the OED does not contain the word "topos," nor = does it appear under the entries for "humility" or "literary." = (Ordinarily the OED can relied on to record just about every English = word that has appeared in print prior to the 20th century.) >=20 > 2. Adams 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. >=20 > The Wikipedia article on Ernst Robert Curtius at >=20 > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Robert_Curtius >=20 > 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." >=20 > 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. --=20 Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine Carnegie Mellon University [For admin and other information see: http://www.mta.ca/~cat-dist/ ]