We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2010
Estienne still worried in 1562 that if words lost their meanings, however conventionally established, the processes of language and learning became nonsense, decaying into madness:
Similar absurdity (indeed, even more) is found in certain other locutions, which nonetheless please many, and for no other reason than that they are spoken against all reason. And it is the case that if this idiotic (indeed, insane) desire for novelty continues to gain ground, overturning everything wherever it goes, I fear that in the end we will have to call head foot and foot head. Especially will this be so once such a desire has entered the heads of ignorant people, be they courtiers or others.
He tied this unreason directly to political conditions, arguing that bringing Machiavellian political practices into France had fatally undermined linguistic, and so conceptual, sureties. He blamed the matter on those who frequented the Medici-controlled court, and in this we may well see a continuation of that path of civic humanism to which I have already several times referred.
Like most others in France, as religious disturbances in the 1540s and fifties became increasingly vicious civil dynastic wars in the 1560s and seventies, Estienne grew warmer on the subject. By 1575, he had joined the Protestant polemicist Innocent Gentillet in directly attacking the queen: Discours merveilleux de la vie, actions & deportemens de Catherine de Medicis royne mere.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
