At 12:13 24.11.98 -0600, you wrote:
>A great deal has been written on arithmology by David R. Howlett and by
>Robert D. Stevick. I would recommend Howlett's recent studies on the
>numerical ratios of Biblical style and Stevick's _The Earliest Irish and
>English Bookarts: Visual and Poetic Forms before A.D. 1000_ (U
>Pennsylvania Press, 1994), ISBN 0-8122-3220-8. Stevick's bibliography
>will suggest further reading.
>
>Stephen
Dear Stephen,
Both are excellent reading suggestions, but Stevick and Howlett do not
really deal with arithmology. Arithmology is, roughly, the interpretation
of numbers in their religious or cosmological *meaning* and is distinct
from the analytic and descriptive character of arithmetic (and of geometry
or music). Arithmology uses a certain amount of arithmetic knowledge for
its own purposes but nevertheless is something different. The difference is
not unlike the one between astronomy and astrology (the first being
concerned with the movements of celestial bodies, the latter with their
influences on the sublunar sphere). Whereas the topic of Stevick's book is
geometric design in Insular bookart: he is concerned with geometric ratios
organising the 'space' of the manuscript page and its illustrations, not
with the meaning of such ratios. As regards Howlett, his work is very
different from Stevick's book (though not so different from Stevick's
earlier publications on numerical design in AS poetry): Howlett is
interested in numerical (esp. arithmetic and musical) ratios organising the
number of letters, syllables, words and verses (or prose 'lines') in
biblical and medieval texts. It is true that he assumes that the
compositional techniques which he investigates are based on Platonic and
Neopythagorean notions of a cosmos created according to numerical ratios,
notions which are also essential for arithmology, and he does not exclude
the possiblity that the numbers or numerical ratios which he believes to
find applied in textual design were applied with the purpose to convey
certain meanings. But he nevertheless confines his interest to the formal
structure, believing that this formal structure has a more factual
character than the meanings which may or may not be underlying this
structure. Whether these convictions are reasonable is another question,
but they are strong and so are Howlett's reactions if anybody dares to
suggest that the object of his research is numerology (which is only a
wider term including 'arithmology').
Best,
Otfried
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