When John Milton, mentioned above, studied at Cambridge University, Ramist logic dominated the curriculum just as it did at Harvard College (founded in 1636). But Shakespeare did not receive a university education.
Later in Milton's life, he wrote (in Latin) a textbook in logic titled A Fuller Course in the Art of Logic Conformed to the Method of Peter Ramus (Artis Logicae Plenior Institutio, ad Petri Rami Methodum Concinnata ), edited and translated by Walter J. Ong and Charles J. Ermatinger. Volume eight of the Complete Prose Works of John Milton: 1666-1682, edited by Maurice Kelley (Yale University Press, 1982, pages 206-407). Ong's lengthy introduction (pages 139-205) is reprinted, slightly shortened, as "Introduction to Milton's Logic" in volume four of Ong's Faith and Contexts, edited by Thomas J. Farrell and Paul A. Soukup (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1999, pages 111-141).
But does it make any difference that Ramist logic dominated the curriculum at seventeenth-century Harvard College? In the book Varieties of Transcendence: A Study in Constructive Postmodernism (Collegeville, Minnesota: A Michael Glazer Book/ Liturgical Press, 2000), the American Jesuit philosopher and theologian Donald L. Gelpi (1934-2011) repeatedly refers to what he terms the American Protestant dialectical imagination (pages 82, 132, 164, 172, 174, 192, 193, 206, 223, 224, 280(?), 281, and 282), which he distinguishes from the Roman Catholic analogical imagination.
Had Gelpi been familiar with Miller's massively researched 1939 book about the seventeenth-century New England mind, mentioned above, or with Ong's massively researched 1958 book Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason, mentioned above, then Gelpi would have recognized that what he refers to as the American Protestant dialectical imagination is the Ramist dialectical imagination. Because Gelpi touts the Roman Catholic analogical imagination, I would say that the 1599 Jesuit plan of studies helped Jesuit educational institutions foster the development of the Catholic analogical imagination.
Now, you may be wondering what, if anything, Perry Miller's 1939 book and Walter Ong's 1958 book and Donald Gelpi's 2000 book have to do with James Shapiro's new 2020 book about William Shakespeare.
In Shapiro's "Conclusion," he quotes Eustis as saying the following: "'Part of that divide [in American culture today] is between those of us who believe in this democracy and those of us who believe that this democracy has utterly failed. And those that believe that it has failed believe they are victims, they are oppressed by the intellectuals, by the liberals, by the elite, and that that's the source of their problem. And of course it isn't the actual source of their problem, but they are being fed constantly a lie in order to protect the interests of the ultra-rich. And it drives me crazy'" (quoted on page 220; my bracketed insertion).
For all practical purposes, Eustis is here describing people who are trapped in their own dialectical logic in the terminology that Gelpi uses, those people are, in effect, using the American Protestant dialectical imagination whether or not they happen to be American Protestants.
However, historically, many Americans, including many American Protestants, put a wee bit of space between themselves and the American Protestant dialectical imagination after the American Revolution when they embraced Shakespeare and what Ong refers to in the subtitle of his 1958 book as the Art of Discourse, rather than the Art of Reason.
For a bibliography of Ong's 400 or so publications that includes bibliographic information about translations and reprintings, see Thomas M. Walsh's "Walter J. Ong, S.J.: A Bibliography 1929-2006" in the book Language, Culture, and Identity: The Legacy of Walter J. Ong, S.J., edited by Sara van den Berg and Thomas M. Walsh (New York: Hampton Press, 2011, pages 185-245).
For further reading about Ramus and Ramism, here are some relevant references:
Feingold, Mordechai and Joseph S. Freedman and Wolfgang Rother, editors. The Influence of Petrus Ramus: Studies in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Philosophy and Science (Basel: Schwabe, 2001).
Freedman, Joseph S. Philosophy and the Arts in Central Europe, 1500-1700: Teaching and Texts at Schools and Universities (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999).
Sharratt, Peter. "The Present State of Studies of Ramus." Studi francesi, 47-48 (1972): pages 201-213.
--. "Ramus 2000." Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric, 18 (2000): pages 399-455.
--. "Recent Work on Peter Ramus (1970-1986)." Rhetorica: A Journal of the History of Rhetoric, 5 (1987): pages 7-58.
(Article changed on March 22, 2020 at 00:03)
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