Talk:Vox Clamantis

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Comment[edit]

Question: That last paragraph is extremely valuative, and therefore proposes a very strong point of view. "Has recently been determined" by whom? The style is fairly good "by the medieval standard" means what? There is some sneaky (and dusty) prejudice in that latter, and there are assumptions in the former. I don't like Gower much at all, but we don't get to sneer at him because he's dead and anti-democratic! Please cite sources for all those judgments on Gower's unworthiness and inferiority, and please also establish that citation or originality were priorities for him or other authors of his own time. That last seems quite Romantic to me, since poets generally didn't cite sources, or they cited non-existent sources, if the sources were contemporaries, unless they wanted to pay a compliment to a friend. (Cf Chaucer's lack of citation for his sources and his attribution to imaginary sources, or, earlier, Geoffrey of Monmouth's claim of having a book by Waltherius.)

If we can't get a tone down or some citations, let's do a rewrite and cut that paragraph, eh? Geogre 22:43, 21 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Dartmouth and the significance of the title[edit]

The article currently reads:

The motto of Dartmouth College, "Vox Clamantis in Deserto," alludes to this poem.

I find that doubtful. It is more likely that Dartmouth's motto alludes to the same source to which this poem is alluding: the Bible. In Isaiah 40:3, the KJV has "The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God," which in Latin is vox clamantis in deserto parate viam Domini rectas facite in solitudine semitas Dei nostri. The expression became famous early on, as it is alluded to a couple times in the New Testament. There are some serious disagreements on how this phrase should actually be translated, but they aren't really in the scope of this article.

So do we have any evidence that the Dartmouth motto is actually intended to allude to this poem, or can we remove that sentence? Whether or not we remove that, we'll have to add in information about the biblical reference (but I'm holding off on that until I get an answer about Dartmouth.) --Iustinus 18:36, 28 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'd certainly see it changed. Additionally, I'm not happy with an uncited denigration of Gower's Latin. I fully believe that it's bad, but I wouldn't say so without citations, as that's not NPOV. Additionally, the cribbing from other poets is presented as if it were a shocking crime, when, in the 14th century, it would have been the use of "authority" in a classical oration. The Dartmouth thing is even more suspect, as there are multiple Bible verses that could be the source, and Isaiah is the most logical. Geogre 11:08, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've tried to de-fang some of the worst of it. (Claiming Dartmouth got the motto from here is pretty much of a stretch. If we want an American university borrowing from an English poet, we have to go to Auburn University, which borrowed its name and mascot from Oliver Goldsmith's The Deserted Village.) Geogre 11:15, 6 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]