Humanism and Style

Clarence H. Miller was the Dorothy Orthwein Professor in the English Department at St. Louis University from 1969 until his retirement in 2000. He was also a visiting professor at the Universities of Wüerzburg, Bochum, and Yale. Jerry Harp is the author of three books of poems and two scholarly works: Constant Motion: Ongian Hermeneutics and the Shifting Ground of Early Modern Understanding and For Us, What Music? The Life and Poetry of Donald Justice. He teaches at Lewis & Clark College.

• Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 1. Styles and Mixed Genres in Erasmus's The Praise of Folly Chapter 3 2. Some Medieval Elements and Structural Unity in Erasmus's The Praise of Folly Chapter 4 3. The Liturgical and Historical Context of Erasmus's Hymns Chapter 5 4. The Logic and Rhetoric of Proverbs in Erasmus's The Praise of Folly Chapter 6 5. The Epigraphs of More and Erasmus: A Literary Diptych Chapter 7 6. Style and Meaning in More's Utopia Hythloday's Sentences and Diction Chapter 8 7. More's Use of Patristic Evidence in the Eucharistic Controversy Chapter 9 8. The Heart of the Final Struggle: More's Commentary on The Agony in the Garden Chapter 10 9.Thomas More, a Man for All Seasons:Robert Bolt's Play and the Elizabethan Play of Sir Thomas More Chapter 11 10. Extraordinary Friends Chapter 12 Notes Chapter 13 Bibliography Chapter 14 Index

Miller (St. Louis Univ.) is eminently qualified to discuss the Latin style of Erasmus and More, having been executive editor of the 'The Yale Edition of the Complete Works of St. Thomas More,' collaborator on the Toronto 'Collected Works of Erasmus,' and editor of the Encomium Moriae of Amsterdam's Opera Omnia of Erasmus. These congenial essays concentrate on the Latin styles of the two writers. For Erasmus's Praise of Folly, he examines the mixture of the serious and the comic styles; for More's Utopia, he provides a close analysis of the diction of Hythloday, the chief character of the work. In his comparison of the poetry of the writers, Miller reaches the sagacious conclusion that More's epigrams exhibit his wit, humor, and dramatic skill whereas Erasmus excels more in religious poetry. The most absorbing essay, for this reviewer, was Miller's fantastic account of More's last work, De tristitia Christi, a meditation on martyrdom in the light of Christ's agony in the garden of Gethsemane, written in the Tower of London. Written in a personal, engaging style, these essays offer penetrating insights into the writing of these two great humanists, in whom one soul did indeed seem to inhabit two bodies. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.