It's not as certain as if we possessed a syllabus with the title on it, I
admit. H. M. Adams, _Catalogue of Books Printed on the Continent of Europe,
1501-1600 in Cambridge Libraries_ lists a whopping 66 copies of _La Divina
Commedia_published and presumably acquired in the sixteenth century or
shortly thereafter by Cambridge libraries. For a standard of popularity,
note that Adams lists only 27 copies of Calvin's Institutes published and
presumably acquired during the same time. While some of these copies may
have been acquired later, it is inconceivable that librarians _after_1600
would be scarfing up 66 copies of pre-1600 imprints, or that an individual
donor or donors would dump this many on the library if they hadn't
previously amassed multiple copies for their students. Some background:
Elizabeth Leedham-Green says there was no store that sold multiple copies
of textbooks where the students could purchase them. When Elizabeth
Leedham-Green finds multiple copies of the same book in a _private_ library
at Cambridge, she says they must be textbooks in the owner's class, since
tutors customarily supplied their own textbooks. Hence I infer that this
huge number must have been amassed by tutors and then given or willed to
the library (which was the usual way a college library grew; they didn't
have an acquisitions person who bought in accordance with a plan,
Leedham-Green tells me). I admit it's an inference; can anyone give a
better explanation?. Oddly, Leedham Green did not find multiple copies, nor
any copies, in private libraries in Cambridge from the sixteenth century,
as there should be if my inference is correct. Leedham-Green will be
responding to our session "Spenser's Books" at the Spenser Conference in
Cambridge in July (in the final time-slot); let's make a point of checking
the validity of my inference with her then; in fact, I'll see if she's
willing to comment on this extraordinary number of copies right now. At any
rate, textbook or not, since copies were more than twice as plentiful as
Calvin's Institutes, Spenser could hardly have overlooked the work. At
10:19 PM 1/6/01 -0500, you wrote:
>Interesting! Carol, how do we know he was studied at Cambridge?
>
>D
>
>
>At 06:49 PM 1/6/2001 -0500, you wrote:
>>Dante Pilgrim reprimands characters in Hell and tells them to expect
>>considerable unhappiness for their friends and relatives up top. And Dante
>>was studied at Cambridge.At 03:00 PM 1/3/01 -0500, you wrote:
>> >I don't recall Dan Geoffrey reprimanding anyone. He sympathizes and
>> >worries a lot. But Chaucer does enter his fiction under a well-known
>> >persona more than most later poets, doesn't he?
>> >
>> >
>> >At 07:33 AM 1/3/2001 -0500, you wrote:
>> >>Is Spenser's act in FQ 6.10.20 unique in literature, namely a poet
entering
>> >>into his fiction under his well-known persona to reprimand one of his own
>> >>characters, so ticked off that he tells him to expect considerable
>> >>unhappiness when the story continues. In the next stanza, he denies even
>> >>knowing him. A.C. Hamilton
>> >>
>> >>A.C.Hamilton
>> >>[log in to unmask]
>> >>Cappon Professor Emeritus
>> >>Queen's University, Canada
>> >>Phone & Fax: 613- 544-6759
>> >
>> >David Lee Miller
>> >
>> >Department of English
>> >University of Kentucky
>> >Lexington, KY 40506-0027
>> >
>> >859-257-6965 (office)
>> >859-252-3680 (home)
>> >859-323-1072 (fax)
>> >
>
>David Lee Miller
>
>Department of English
>University of Kentucky
>Lexington, KY 40506-0027
>
>859-257-6965 (office)
>859-252-3680 (home)
>859-323-1072 (fax)
>
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