Philology

March 17, 2014
In this weighty, scholarly tome, Turner (Religion Enters the Academy), Cavanaugh Professor of humanities at Notre Dame, attempts to cover the concept of philology, “the multifaceted study of texts, languages, and the phenomenon of language itself.” He expresses a rather peculiar affinity for the maligned and forgotten progenitor of the humanities, claiming it to be “put down, kicked around, abused, and snickered at” by modern academics, personifying it as “totter along with arthritic creakiness... its gaunt torso clad in a frock coat.” But, he says, “it used to be chic, dashing, and much ampler in girth.” That characterization aside, he traces philology’s origins and history, from Greek rhetoric to the Renaissance, on through the dawn of the modern humanities in the 19th-century and finally into its 20th-century decline. The story he tells is of a wide-ranging, all-encompassing field of learning that was forced to grow, evolve, and eventually spawn its successors over the centuries. “Philology began a prolonged process of fragmentation and re-formation. Tasks long seen as facets of a single enterprise hived off as semiautonomous areas of scholarship.” Turner’s examination is thorough, occasionally wry, passionate, and yet painfully dense, suited more for a doctoral program than casual reader; the sort of work that may be heralded as a masterpiece in the field, as overlooked and ill-appreciated as its subject.

Starred review from June 15, 2014

Turner (Cavanaugh Professor of Humanities, Univ. of Notre Dame) has written an extensive work on the forgotten subject of philology. He explains that while philology has "fallen on hard times" it is the discipline in which many of the humanities and certain social sciences had their origins. While, according to Turner, the subject has become largely forgotten today because many view it as just the study of old texts. He illustrates that it has a much broader application and includes the study of the history, evolution, and structures of not only texts but also languages. In the author's examples throughout history, he shows how philology's methods of scholarship reached many different areas, from history to biblical research to literature studies. Turner's work is very thorough and yet easy to read. VERDICT Scholars and students will find this a rewarding volume. Turner does a fantastic job of introducing how the history of philology is also, in turn, a chronicle of the various branches of the humanities and why looking at this connection might help demonstrate the humanities' worth among academic disciplines.--Scott Duimstra, Capital Area Dist. Lib., Lansing, MI

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