Opere complete di sir Thomas More edite dalla Yale University Press, New Haven-Londra (1963-1977)
Volume 1, English Poems, Life of Pico, The Last Things
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St. Thomas More; Edited by Anthony S. G. Edwards, Clarence H. Miller, and Katherine Gardiner Rodgers
Publication of this volume brings to conclusion the Yale Edition of the Complete Works of St. Thomas More, a thirty-year publishing project of landmark importance in the study of humanism in Western history. The volume contains More's earliest works, probably written between 1492 and 1522, including English poems, a translation and devotional adaptation of Giovanni Francesco Pico's life of his famous uncle Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and a devotional prose work.
These texts together trace More's earliest career as a humanist through his transition to maturity as a defender of the faith.
The English poems (c. 1492-1494) are lively and experimental works, written at a time when English poetry was in its doldrums. This collection includes verses for a series of painted hangings in More's father's house, a lament for Queen Elizabeth, wife of Henry VII, traditional and sober Fortune verses, and a lively medieval comic poem, "A Merry Gest of a Sergeant and a Friar." The Life of Pico (c. 1510) is very likely More's earliest prose work and is his only extended translation of another writer's Latin into English. The translation is remarkable for its time, when sophisticated Latin was difficult to translate into more primitive English. The Last Things (c. 1522) is an incomplete prose work that re-creates the tradition of writing on death, judgment, hell, and heaven as objects of meditation.
Volume 2, The History of King Richard III
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St. Thomas More; Edited by Richard S. Sylvester
Although it is generally accepted that More's Richard III initiates modern historical writing, there has been no scholarly edition of either the Latin of the English versions. The Yale St. Thomas More Project has now completed the formidable task of editing this work, and offers it complete, with parallel English (1557) and Latin (1565) texts, a full textual apparatus that lists all the major variant readings from Hardyng's and Halle's Chronicles, a collation of all extant manuscript versions, and, for the first time in full, the important early draft of the Latin text, manuscript Arundel 43 in the College of Arms. The Introduction discusses the development of the text and the circumstances under which it was composed, and there is a commentary which translates major passages preserved only in the Latin versions and examines the relationships between the texts. Richard Sylvester is assistant professor of English at Yale University and executive editor of the St. Thomas More Project. (Volume 1 in preparation.) Previously announced.
Volume 3, Part 1, Translations of Lucian
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St. Thomas More; Edited by Craig R. Thompson
In 1505 and 1506, More and Erasmus found a world of profit and delight in turning some of Lucian of Samosata’s writing into Latin. More translated the Cynicus, Minippus, Philopseudes, and Tyrannicida, and both he and Erasmus wrote declamations replying to the latter work—the only surviving example of literary competition between the two friends.
More’s Latin versions of Lucian provide valuable evidence of his tastes and scholarship a decade before Utopia was conceived, and they have an important place in the development of his literary career. Except for two letters, these translations and More’s reply to Tyrannicida are his earliest extant Latin prose compositions and were the first to be published. In his lifetime, they were printed more frequently than any other of his writings, even Utopia.
In this volume, the first scholarly edition of this material, More’s Latin translations of the Cynicus, Menippus, Philopseudes, and Tyrannicida are accompanied by facsimiles of the Greek edition More probably used. An English translation of the dialogues appears in the Appendix. The volume also contains More’s dedicatory letter to Ruthall and his declamation in reply to Lucian, with the editor’s translations of both. Mr. Thompson also provides full textual notes, a bibliography, and commentary. In his introduction, he discuss the various texts of More’s translations and, in tracing the history of More’s interest in Greek and in Lucian, he considers the significance of these early exercises in More’s literary career.
Volume 3, Part II, Latin Poems
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St. Thomas More; Edited by Clarence H. Miller, Leicester Bradner, and Charles A. Lynch
Volume 4, Utopia
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St. Thomas More; Edited by and J. H. Hexter
Although numbers as Volume 4, this is the second of the Complete Works to appear, following The History of King Richard III. The Latin text is based on the editions of 1516, 1517, and 1518, fully collated and with the variant readings; the parallel English text is a thoroughly revised version of the translation by G. C. Richards. Also included are the letters on the book exchanged by More and his friends, their tributes, and the marginal glosses of the early editions. The text is followed by a commentary on the relation of Utopia to its own age and as it has been interpreted by scholars. The editors' Introduction included an outline of the genesis and composition of Utopia, edited by Father Surtz, will also appear in the Yale Paperbound format. Father Surtz is professor of English at Loyola University, and Mr. Hexter is professor of history at Yale University. Previously announced.
Volume 5, Part I, Responsio ad Lutherum
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St. Thomas More; Edited by John Headley
The Responsio ad Lutherum, written by Thomas More under the pseudonym of Guillielmus Rosseus, represents an important phase of the violent controversy that developed between Luther and Henry VII after the publication in 1521 of the King's Assertio Septem Sacrementorum. Here, for the first time, More entered the field of polemical, religious warfare, beginning a career as Catholic apologist which he was to continue in his English works during the next ten years, The present edition is based on the 1523 Rosseus text, with full collations from the earlier, and unique, Baravellus issue and from the 1565 Louvain printing. For the first time, More's racy diatribe is fully translated into English, with the Latin and English texts printed in parallel.The editor's Introduction traces the background of the controversy and analyzes at length More's important revisions in his text as he worked out his view of the papal primacy. The Commentary traces the nature of the conflict between More and Luther, emphasizing the shades of development in Luther's though. Historical, biblical, and patristic allusions in the text are explicated and analyzed. The Responsio should no longer, in view of this volume, occupy the position which it has held for so long—the most neglected of all More's major works.Mr. Headley is associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina. The translator, Sister Scholastica Mandeville of the Order of Sisters Adorers of the Most Precious Blood, teaches at the Provincial Motherhouse, Ruma, Illinois.
Volume 5, Part II, Responsio ad Lutherum
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St. Thomas More; Edited by John Headley
Introduction, Commentary, Index
Volume 6, Parts I & II, A Dialogue Concerning Heresies
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St. Thomas More; Edited by Thomas M.C. Lawler, Germain Marc`hadour, and Richard C. Marius
Volume 7, Letter to Bugenhagen, Supplication of Souls, Letter Against Frith
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St. Thomas More; Edited by Frank Manley, Clarence H. Miller, and Richard C. Marius
More's Latin reply to Bugenhagen (1526), given here with a facing English translation, is a comparatively brief but intense rebuttal of the principal points of Lutheran teaching concerning scripture ant tradition, faith and works, grace and free will, clerical celibacy, and the sacraments. It presents arguments elaborated at much greater length in More's other polemical works. Supplication of Souls (1529) refutes A Supplication for the Beggars, an anticlerical pamphlet by Simon Fish which Henry VIII seems to have regarded with some favor. More places his response in the mouths of the souls in purgatory. In the first book, he contemptuously demolished Fish's loose railery with accurate statistics and historical analysis. In the second, he defends the traditional doctrine of purgatory with brief arguments drawn from reason and a detailed analysis of scriptural passages. Letter against Frith (1532) answers John Frith's Zwinglian arguments against the physical presence of Christ in the more. Written to an unknown correspondent, it is the briefest and mildest of More's polemical works and anticipates arguments presented moer elaborately in More's The Answer to a Poisoned Book (1533). Besides full introductions and commentaries, a glossary, and an index, this volume contains seven appendices giving the works to which More is replying and other thematic, historical, and bibliographical matter closely related to the three works by More.
Volume 8, Parts I-III, The Confutation of Tyndale`s Answer
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St. Thomas More; Edited by Louis A. Schuster, Richard C. Marius, and James P. Lusardi
Volume 9, The Apology t. St, Thomas More; Edited by J. B. Trapp
Thomas More’s Apology (1533) is one of his most significant works of religious controversy. More’s defense focuses on an anonymously published pamphlet, A Treatise concerning the Division between the Spirituality and Temporality, issued in 1532 and generally attributed to the jurist Christopher St. German. This tract was part of a press campaign conducted by the king’s agents. In part, it repeats ancient grievances against the clergy—accusing them of oppression and corruption—and, more important, the Treatise attacks the ecclesiastical jurisdiction for its alleged partiality and its harsh suppression of criticism and dissent; St. German insists on the supremacy of the king and on the need for drastic curtailment of clerical power.
In the Apology, Thomas More defends both himself and the lives and actions of the clergy. He denies the need for control by lay authority and for revision in the procedure of the church courts against heresy. He steers carefully away from the most dangerous implication of the debate, royal supremacy.
J.B. Trapp provides a thorough introduction to and commentary on the issues addressed in the Apology. Textual variants are placed at the foot of the text pages, and a bibliography, glossary, and index are included. The Treatise concerning the Division is given in an appendix, as are the texts of earlier antiheretical legislation. Another appendix gives an account of the affair of Richard Hunne and Friar Standish, contributed by J. Duncan M. Derrett.
Volume 10, The Debellation of Salem and Bizance
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St. Thomas More; Edited by John Guy, Clarence H. Miller, and Ralph Keen
Volume 11, The Answer to a Poisoned Book
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St. Thomas More; Edited by Clarence H. Miller and Stephen M. Foley
Volume 12, A dialogue of comfort against tribulation
St. Thomas More; Edited by Louis L. Martz, Frank Manley
Volume 13, Treatise on the Passion, Treatise on the Blessed Body, Instructions and Prayers
St. Thomas More; Edited by Garry E. Haupt
Volume 14, De Tristitia Christi
St. Thomas More; Edited by Clarence H. Miller
Volume 15, In Defense of Humanism: Letters to Dorp, Oxford, Lee, and a Monk
Edited by Daniel Kinney; St. Thomas More; With a New Text and Translation of the History of Richard III