Roman authorship

Roman Perspectives

Friday, January 25, 13

Codifying Invention and asking “how” rather than “why.”

(Lauer 22-23)


first, a detour


St. BonaventureItalian, 1224 - 1271


A man might write the works of others, adding and changing nothing, in which case he is simply called a “scribe” (scriptor). Another writes the works of others with additions which are not his own; and he is called a “compiler” (compilator). Another writes both others’ works and his own, but with others’ work in the principal place, adding his own for purposes of explanation; and he is called a “commentator” (commentator). ... another writes both his own work and others’ but with his own work in principal place adding others’ for purposes of confirmation; and such a man should be called an “author” (auctor). (Eisenstein 122)


interpreter


Tamara:What’s wrong with a compiler? And why can’t a compiler be an author? Why can’t a commentator be an author?

Jess:Specifically thinking of my own work with community texts, I wonder: am I an author, if I write an introduction to a website of archived community publications? Am I merely a compiler and does this dismiss my own agency in the project, if I am relegated to a compiler rather than creator? I ask this because I still continue to go over this in my head about what my goals, my tasks, my roles are in this project. And I think it’s complicated because I’m not sure how to characterize myself.


Does unoriginality lack virtue?


Roman handbook tradition


Pliny: Naturalis Historia


Now, Rome



“Invention is the discovery of valid or seemingly valid arguments to render one’s cause plausible.” (VII)


eloquence


Can eloquence be an inventionary impetus

for civic development?


Topical invention systems (Lauer 25)


Progression of thought across Cicero’s works


interpretation, dialectic



Augustine & Davidson


the problems of interpretation


shared truthcoherence of belief


love / desire


The chief purpose of all that we have been saying in our discussion of things is to make it understood that the fulfillment and end of the law and all the divine scripture is to love the thing which must be enjoyed and the thing which together with us can enjoy that thing.

- De doctrina 1.84

Believing this enables one to know the truth - because it is the truth in its most general terms; or perhaps a better way to say it is that this double love of God and the neighbor who seeks God characterizes the truth. With this characterization in hand, the interpreter of scripture - which the interpreter believes to be revealing the truth - is able to tell when her initial (literal) reading must be wrong and so know to keep her mind open for another (transferred) meaning that will correspond with the truth as she already believes it to be characterized [38]


Documents

Roman authorship