The Battle of the Books

The Battle of the Books is the name of a short satire written by Jonathan Swift and published as part of the prolegomena to his A Tale of a Tub in 1704. It depicts a literal battle between books in the St. James library, as ideas and authors struggle for supremacy. Because of the satire, "The Battle of the Books" has become a term for the Quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns.

Ancients vs. Moderns

In France at the end of the seventeenth century, a minor furor arose over the question of whether contemporary learning had surpassed what was known by those in Classical Greece and Rome. The "moderns" (epitomized by Fontenelle) took the position that the modern age of science and reason was superior to the superstitious and limited world of Greece and Rome. In his opinion, modern man saw farther than the ancients ever could. The "ancients," for their part, argued that all that is necessary to be known was still to be found in Virgil, Cicero, Homer, and especially Aristotle.

Related Topics:
France - Greece - Rome - Fontenelle - Virgil - Cicero - Homer - Aristotle

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This literary contest was re-enacted in miniature in England when Sir William Temple wrote an answer to Fontenelle entitled Of Ancient and Modern Learning in 1696. His essay proposed that modern man was just a dwarf standing upon the shoulders of giants, that modern man saw farther because he was standing on the learning of the ancients. He also saw modern man as a reflected light, while the ancients were sources of light: they possessed a clear view of nature, and modern man only reflected/refined their vision. Temple's essay was answered by Richard Bentley the classicist and William Wotton, the critic. Temple's friends/clients, sometimes known as the "Christ Church Wits," referring to their association with Oxford University and the guidance of Francis Atterbury, then attacked the "moderns" (and Wotton in particular). The debate in England lasted only for a few years.

Related Topics:
England - William Temple - Of Ancient and Modern Learning - Richard Bentley - William Wotton - Oxford University - Francis Atterbury

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William Temple was by that point a retired minister, the Secretary of State for Charles II who had conducted peace negotiations with France. As a noble, it was beneath his station to answer common and professional (known then as "hack") authors, so most of the battle took place between Temple's enemies and Temple's proxies. Notably, Jonathan Swift was not among the participants, though he was working as Temple's secretary. Therefore, it is likely that the quarrel was more of a spur to Swift's imagination than a debate that he felt interested in the particulars of.

Related Topics:
Charles II - France

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