The Quantification of Literary Doubt in the Enlightenment

Kristine Haugen (Cal Tech) will present on “The Quantification of Literary Doubt in the Enlightenment” to the YISAP workshop on Friday, October 14th at noon. 

In the Renaissance and Enlightenment, humanists doubted more and more ancient books and authors:  Homer and Phalaris are only the best known.  The Homeric Question was already familiar, and Homer provoked special anxiety because in the field of historical chronology no writer could avoid addressing the dates of his life, of the compilation of his epics, and of the Greek alphabet.  But despite the apparent precision of the numerical method, the humanists seemed more concerned with originality than with consensus.  The talk explores Joseph Scaliger, Richard Bentley, Isaac Newton, F. A. Wolf, and others.

This interdisciplinary workshop serves as a meeting ground for those who work on the ancient world at Yale, and is an important forum that allows sustained conversation about a common theme. Presenters include Yale faculty and graduate students, as well as occasional visiting professors. The chronological scope of the seminar extends over the first millennium BCE and up through the premodern period; issues of reception are also considered. The theme for 2016-17 is “Fakes and Forgeries”.