On Good Authority: Tradition, Compilation and the Construction of Authority in Literature from Antiquity to the Renaissance

This book brings together views from various disciplines on the concept of authority in Greek and Latin literature from Antiquity to the Renaissance. More specifically it deals with the questions how texts attempt to gain authority, and if and how they use-or abuse-earlier writings in the construction of their own authority. Moreover, this volume examines to what extent a text's authoritative claims influence its transmission and reception and how these claims themselves are subject to evolution over time. In this context, special attention is devoted to compilation literature (such as anthologies and commonplace books), which is characterized by extensive use of existing source material and thus specifically poses the problem of the role played by compilers in transmitting and establishing authority. The volume contains 15 articles in which the contributors discuss various cases and texts that illustrate the different factors at stake in dealing with and constructing authority.