Editing Translatio studii (section)

==History of the concept==

''Translatio studii'' is a celebrated [[Literary topos|topos]] in [[medieval literature]], most notably articulated in the prologue to [[Chrétien de Troyes]]'s ''[[Cligès]]'', composed ca. 1170. There, Chrétien explains that [[Ancient Greece|Greece]] was first the seat of all knowledge, then it came to Rome, and now it has come to France, where, by the grace of God, it shall remain forevermore.

In the [[Renaissance]] and later, historians saw the metaphorical light of learning as moving much as the light of the sun did:  westward.  According to this notion, the first center of learning was [[Garden of Eden|Eden]], followed by [[Jerusalem]], and [[Babylon]].  From there, the light of learning moved westward to [[Athens]], and then west to [[Rome]].  After Rome, learning moved west to [[Paris]].  From there, enlightenment purportedly moved west to [[London]], though other nations laid claim to the mantle, most notably [[Russia]], which would involve a retrograde motion and rupture in the westerly direction.  The [[metaphor]] of ''translatio studii'' went out of fashion in the 18th century, but such English Renaissance authors as [[George Herbert]] were already predicting that learning would move next to America.

A pessimistic corollary metaphor is the ''translatio stultitiae'' ["transfer of stupidity"].  As learning moves west, as the earth turns and light falls ever westward, so night follows and claims the places learning has departed from.  The metaphor of the ''translatio stultitiae'' informs [[Alexander Pope]]'s ''[[Dunciad]],'' and particularly book IV of the ''Greater Dunciad'' of 1741, which opens with the [[nihilism|nihilistic]] invocation:

<blockquote><poem>
Yet, yet a moment, one dim Ray of Light
Indulge, dread Chaos, and eternal Night!" (''B'' IV 1-2)

[...]

Suspend a while your Force inertly strong,
Then take at once the Poet, and the Song. (ibid. 7-8)
</poem></blockquote>