Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Petrarch letters outline and questions


Our Ad Fontes group decided to have a mission impossible theme for our avatar. He goes on a series of missions involving our texts. Here’s my (short, bare bones) outline for Alonzo’s the Ad Fontes Master’s mission regarding the Petrarch letters, along with some thought provoking questions:

Alonzo has a conversation with Homer and Cicero. They are concerned that people don’t remember their works. Alonzo’s mission is to use Petrarch’s letters to convince people that ancient writers are worth reading.

Questions:

In “Two Homer,” Petrarch discusses his yearning for “knowledge” about Homer. Petrarch learned that Homer “wrote about his instructors.” Petrarch was returning to a source in Homer, but Homer also was turning to the sources through his own ancient instructors. Do we follow the same pattern today? And if so, why do we do it?

Based on Petrarch’s letters, what was the importance of copyists? How does the relationship between copyists and printing relate to the Ad Fontes idea?

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