Henri Estienne

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Trésor de la langue grecque (reprint, 1830)

Henri (II.) Estienne (* 1531 in Paris , † 1598 in Lyon ), also Henricus Stephanus, was a Protestant French printer and philologist , also a representative of the humanist movement .

family

Henri Estienne belongs to the French printer family Estienne: He is the eldest son of the printer and publisher Robert Estienne (1499–1559) and the rich and learned Perette, daughter of one of the most influential booksellers in Paris at the time, Iodocus Badius Ascensius . His grandfather was the printer Henri (I) Estienne (approx. 1470–1520). From three marriages he had 14 children, including his son Paulus Estienne (born 1566).

Life & Education

Henri Estienne received the training of a scholar in the humanistic family tradition, but was trained mainly in the ancient languages. He also showed a great interest in manuscripts. In 1557 he left Paris and followed his father to Geneva, where he turned to Calvinism , as his father had asked his children to do in his will . But publishing production also played a role in this decision: he became the printer of Johannes Calvin and his colleague Théodore de Bèze . After his father Robert died in 1559, he united his printing house with his own, because he had been appointed by Robert Estienne as a universal heir, so that he should inherit the house and the printing house. Concerning the problem of the written language norm in France, Robert (like Louis Meigret for orthography, which is based on pronunciation) and Henri Estienne, seemed to adopt the usage, based on the French spoken in Paris. Rural idioms rejected both and criticized the language of the court. Since Estienne was critical of the authorities and used a very open or coarse language, there were conflicts with the authorities in Geneva. As a result, he was repeatedly forced to defend himself against the allegations of atheism and to change his writings. After he was imprisoned, he left Geneva and stayed in Lyon until his death.

Patrons

Henri Estienne was confronted with financial problems due to the abundance of activities. The Graecae Linguae thesaurus, for example, was so extensive that it ruined Estienne. He received financial support as well as permission to use the manuscripts from his own library from Augsburg merchant and bibliophile Ulrich Fugger between 1558 and 1568. Between 1565 and 1569 he found help from Laurent de Normandie (1510–1569 ) and after his death, with the widow Anne Colladon . From 1579 he also printed in the service of the French King Henri III .

to travel

He traveled frequently to Paris, but also to Germany, among other things because of the Frankfurt Book Fair but also because of his acquaintance with Philipp Melanchthon . Italy, England and Flanders were also among the destinations of his travels.

Effective range

Estienne brought out many works, particularly literature from ancient Greece and Rome. The suggestion to publish more of the legacy of ancient cultures is due in part to the increased development of translation activities in the years from 1549 to 1572. There are also a number of own writings. His own works include general dictionaries and thesauruses of the Latin and Greek languages ​​as well as language didactic writings. Some of these dictionaries are still used today in revised versions. For example, his Greek dictionary Thesaurus Graecae Linguae , published in five volumes, was reprinted in London and Paris in the 19th century. He had started work on the thesaurus Graecae Linguae in Geneva with his father Robert, after whose death he completed it on his own. His most important editorial work includes the first edition of Anakreon with Estienne's Latin translation (1554). This Odendicht was a model for the Pléiade and therefore Ronsard thanked Estienne for this edition in his poetry collection Les Odes (V, XVI). The authors edited, translated or commented on by him include Aristotle , Diogenes Laertius , Herodotus , Plutarch , Thucydides , Homer , Cicero and Virgil , who show his connection to antiquity. In his own works he also dealt with contemporary literature. The works of the Greek philosopher Plato are still cited today according to the page numbering of the complete edition published by Estienne in Geneva in 1578 ( Stephanus pagination ). This edition was the definitive Plato edition until the early 19th century.

Estienne's accomplishments include 170 editions in various languages, including multiple editions of the New Testament in the original Greek text. He was also active in the medical field and wrote medical dictionaries, for example Medicae artis principes Graeci (1567). Unlike other medical writers, however, Estienne was not a doctor. He is considered to be the representative of the French vernacular. The distribution of French pamphlets was also important for commercial reasons. These pamphlets contributed to the standardization and unification of the orthography and grammar of the French language.

His achievements based on some works

In the work Traicté de la Conformité du langage françois avec le Grec , the three maxims of the important language reformer come into play: In his opinion, the Greek language is the most beautiful of all, but if you look at modern languages, French is the language that closest to Greek, and for this reason it is the most important living language. With this script, he dared as early as 1565 to bring French closer to Greek in order to make a structural analogy between the two languages ​​visible. He discovered Greek roots in the most common, and even colloquial, words of the French language. In addition to the semantic correspondence of numerous additions in the Greek and French languages, he also found correspondences in the syntax.

In the work L'introduction au traité des merveilles anciennes avec les modern ou Traité préparatif à l'Apologie pour Hérodote , published in Geneva in 1566 , a tendency to parallelize Greek and French subjects can be seen. Furthermore, Estienne pursues the intention to defend Herodotus of Halicarnassus against critics. In the extensive apology , in addition to the accusation of the Catholic Church, an anti-Italian tendency becomes clear. While at the beginning he dedicates himself to Herodotus, the “father of history”, from Chapter VI he turns to the evidence of Catholic immorality and for this he draws on ancient, medieval and contemporary sermons, anecdotes, fables, taunts and examples. He accuses church princes, nuns and monks, among other things, of adultery, homosexuality, sodomy, murder or blasphemy. In the form of a pamphlet directed against the Catholic Church, Estienne makes use of a series of satirical parallels between the idolatry of antiquity and contemporary Catholicism. The satirical depictions directed against Rome alternate with anti-clerical anecdotes, which are written in the manner of poems and traditional narratives. According to Henri Estienne, Marguerite de Navarre continued the oldest basic patterns, such as incest or punishing an adulteress with having to drink from the skull of her dead lover. As a typical feature of the Renaissance , the apology has an episode-like form in which the individual episodes are loosely linked. Furthermore, in this work, he equates the articulation of the Savoy with that of the Dorians .

In 1569, Estienne wrote a circular in which he commented on the state of the printing and publishing industry and expressed his displeasure with the poor work of some printers.

In Deux Dialogues du nouveau langage italianizé (1578), Estienne primarily criticizes the excessive use of both the Italian language and Italianisms, i.e. Italian loanwords in the French language. Since the court had made a pact with Italy, Estienne claimed that if this court had been the place of the better language, it would not have been at that time. In this writing, which on the way back from a stay Estienne at the court of Henri III. When he had arisen, he added characteristics of satire to the philological argument: French, which was a close cousin of Greek, owed nothing to Italian, this degenerate form of Latin which courtiers all over Paris were trying to bring into fashion. In the Deux Dialogues , various genres such as anecdotes, epigrams, narratives, but also well-founded details and quotations mix. When the Geneva Council examined this script in 1580, the reporters noted that the author allegedly mentioned several scandalous things and also various desecrations of the Holy Scriptures .

In 1579, in the Projet du livre intitulé de la précellence du langage françois, he attempted to prove the superiority of the French language over the Italian, which revealed an increased self-confidence of the French. Estienne also emphasized the pioneering role of the court, that is, the language of the Ile-de-France. Although he could not avoid denouncing the Italian loanwords in this writing either, he offered the Italians peace if they would grant the "précellence" of the French language and agree to a kind of alliance pact to recognize the inferiority of Spanish. In doing so, he put grammar at the service of the ideological and cultural struggle to glorify the national language. The debate against Italy led not only Huguenots like Henri Estienne, because under Henri III. this was actually a generally discussed topic.

List of some primary works

  • Ciceronianvm lexicon Græcolatinum. Id est, lexicon ex variis Græcorum scriptorum locis à Cicerone interpretatis collectum. Henric Stephani, Paris 1557 ( digitized ).
  • Dictionarium medicum, vel, expositiones vocum medicinalium, ad verbum excerptæ ex Hippocrate, Aretaeo, Galeno, Oribasio, Rufo Ephesio, Aetio, Alex. Tralliano, Paulo Aegineta, Actuario, Corn. Celso. Cum Latine interpretatione. Lexica duo in Hippocratem huic Dictionario præfixa sunt, unum, Erotiani, nunquã antea editũ: alterũ, Galeni, multo emendatius Quàm antea excusum. sn, sl 1564.
  • Traicté de la conformité du langage françois avec le grec. Henri Estienne, sl 1565 ( digitized ).
  • L'introduction au traité de la conformité des merveilles anciennes avec les modern, Ou Traité prepared à l'Apologie pour Hérodote. sn, sl 1566.
  • Annotations in Sophoclem et Euripidem. Quibus variae lectiones examinantur. sn, sl 1568.
  • Artis typographicae querimonia. Epitaphia graece et latina doctorum quorundam typographorum. sn, sl 1569.
  • Thesaurus græcæ linguæ. 4 volumes. A. Firmin-Didot, Paris 1572 ( digitized version ).
  • Discours Merveilleux De La vie, actions & deportemens de Catherine de Medicis Royne mere. Auquel sont recitez les moyens qu'elle a tenu pour usurper le gouvernement du royaume de France, & ruiner l'estat d'iceluy. sn, sl 1575.
  • De Latinitate falso suspecta. Henri Estienne, sl 1576.
  • Epistolia, Dialogi Breves, Orativncvlæ, Poematia. Ex variis utriusque linguae scriptoribus. sn, Paris 1577 ( digitized ).
  • Devx dialogves du nouueau langage François, italianizé, & autrement desguizé entre les courtisans de ce temps. sn, sl 1578 ( digitized version ).
  • De la precellence du langage François. Mamert Patisson, Paris 1579 ( digitized version ).
  • Hypomneses de Gall. lingva peregrinis eam discentibus necessariæ. sn, sl, 1582 ( digitized version ).
  • Ad Senecæ lectionem Proodopoeïa. sn, sl 1586 ( digitized version ).
  • Ad M. Ter. Varronis assertiones analogiæ sermonis Latini. Estienne, sl 1591 ( digitized ).
  • Les premices, ou le premier livre des proverbes epigramatizez, ou des epigram proverbializez. sl, sn 1594.

literature

  • Hans Widmann : The printer-publisher Henri II Estienne. (Henricus II Stephanus) (= small print of the Gutenberg Society. No. 87, ISSN  0933-6230 ). Gutenberg Society, Mainz 1970.
  • Maxim W. Sergijewskij: History of the French language. CH Beck, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-406-03205-2 .
  • Elizabeth Armstrong: Robert Estienne, Royal printer. An historical study of the elder Stephanus (= Courtenay studies in reformation theology. Vol. 6). Revised edition. Sutton Courtenay Press, Abingdon 1986.
  • Robert Aulotte (ed.): Précis de littérature française du XVIe siècle. La Renaissance. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 1991, ISBN 2-13-043307-3 .
  • Frank-Rutger Hausmann : French Renaissance (= textbook Romance studies ). Metzler, Stuttgart et al. 1997, ISBN 3-476-01521-1 .
  • Margarete Lindemann: Robert Estienne, Dictionarum (1531) and the development of lexicography. In: Joachim-Felix Leonhard (Ed.): Media Studies. A guide to the development of media and forms of communication (= Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Studies. = Handbooks of linguistics and communication science. Vol. 15). Volume 1. de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 1999, ISBN 3-11-013961-8 , pp. 711-725.
  • Frank Lestringant, Josiane Rieu, Alexandre Tarrete: Littérature française du XVIe siècle (= Collection Premier cycle. Littérature, linguistique ). Presses Universitaires de France, Paris 2000, ISBN 2-13-048223-6 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g See archive link ( Memento of the original from June 15, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.haraldfischerverlag.de
  2. ↑ See Hans Widmann: The printer-publisher Henri II Estienne. 1970.
  3. ↑ a b Cf. Elizabeth Armstrong: Robert Estienne, Royal printer. 1986, p. 15.
  4. ↑ See Hans Widmann: The printer-publisher Henri II Estienne. 1970, p. 7.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f Frank-Rutger Hausmann: French Renaissance. 1997, p. 154.
  6. ↑ a b c cf. Hans Widmann: The printer-publisher Henri II Estienne. 1970, p. 9.
  7. ↑ a b c d e cf. Hans Widmann: The printer-publisher Henri II Estienne. 1970, p. 10.
  8. ↑ Cf. Margarete Lindemann: Robert Estienne, Dictionarum (1531) and the development of lexicography. 1999, p. 711.
  9. ↑ Cf. Maxim W. Sergijewskij: History of the French language. 1979, p. 132.
  10. ↑ See Robert Aulotte (ed.): Précis de littérature française du XVIe siècle. La Renaissance. 1991, p. 20.
  11. ↑ a b Cf. Hans Widmann: The printer-publisher Henri II Estienne. 1970, p. 12.
  12. ↑ a b c Cf. Frank-Rutger Hausmann: French Renaissance. 1997, p. 155.
  13. ↑ See Robert Aulotte (ed.): Précis de littérature française du XVIe siècle. La Renaissance. 1991, p. 32.
  14. ↑ See Hans Widmann: The printer-publisher Henri II Estienne. 1970.
  15. ↑ Cf. Frank-Rutger Hausmann: French Renaissance. 1997, p. 20.
  16. ↑ a b c cf. Frank Lestringant et al .: Littérature française du XVIe siècle. 2000, p. 277.
  17. ↑ See Robert Aulotte (ed.): Précis de littérature française du XVIe siècle. La Renaissance. 1991, p. 254.
  18. ↑ Cf. Frank Lestringant et al .: Littérature française du XVIe siècle. 2000, p. 318.
  19. ↑ See Robert Aulotte (ed.): Précis de littérature française du XVIe siècle. La Renaissance. 1991, p. 139.
  20. ↑ See Robert Aulotte (ed.): Précis de littérature française du XVIe siècle. La Renaissance. 1991, p. 249.
  21. ↑ Cf. Frank-Rutger Hausmann: French Renaissance. 1997, p. 182.
  22. ↑ See Robert Aulotte (ed.): Précis de littérature française du XVIe siècle. La Renaissance. 1991, p. 250.
  23. ↑ See Robert Aulotte (ed.): Précis de littérature française du XVIe siècle. La Renaissance. 1991, p. 165.
  24. ↑ Cf. Frank-Rutger Hausmann: French Renaissance. 1997, p. 123.
  25. ↑ See Robert Aulotte (ed.): Précis de littérature française du XVIe siècle. La Renaissance. 1991, p. 250.
  26. ↑ See Robert Aulotte (ed.): Précis de littérature française du XVIe siècle. La Renaissance. 1991, p. 45.
personal data
SURNAME Estienne, Henri
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Henricus Stephanus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French humanist
DATE OF BIRTH 1531
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris
DATE OF DEATH 1598
Place of death Lyon