Zachary Coke, The Art of Logic
Education, Freedom of Speech, and Liberty in the English Republic
Edited by Emma Wilson
Click cover to enlarge Booksellers & libraries: | Modern Humanities Research Association
ISBN: 978-1-839547-77-5 (hardback) • RRP £51.99, $69.99, €59.99 ISBN: 978-1-839547-78-2 (paperback) • RRP £18.99, $26.99, €22.99 ISBN: 978-1-839547-79-9 (JSTOR ebook) The Art of Logic (1653) by Zachary Coke (or Henry Ainsworth – its authorship is debated) is among the most complete early logical treatises in English. An adaptation of Bartholomäus Keckermann’s highly influential Systema Logicae (1600), it occupies an unusual and important place in the development of vernacular educational treatises in English in the seventeenth century. Produced in the glory years of the English Republic, from its opening paean to Oliver Cromwell through to its distinctive and purposefully-chosen technical terminology, Coke’s text is a wonder: far from being a dry and predictable instruction manual, it presents logic as a beacon of hope guiding the lapsed soul of humankind from ‘mazing errors’ to the light of the truth, and it does so in language transportive, inspiring, and on occasion flamboyant to the point of being absurd. Unashamedly a devotee of the Republican cause in both its political and religious ideals, Coke channels that affiliation into his logic book in a convincing and bold attempt to yoke the core of the liberal arts curriculum to the cause. This volume is the first scholarly edition of Coke’s text. It includes an introductory essay and supporting annotations tracing the treatise’s intellectual, literary, and polemical origins in sources ranging from antiquity to the early modern period. The edition explores Coke’s text in the context of the changing climate of vernacular works in the period, both in terms of its own status as a textbook, and in terms of how its ideas might be seen to participate in an emerging phase of vernacular literary and oratorical culture in England. Bibliography entry: Wilson, Emma (ed.), Zachary Coke, The Art of Logic: Education, Freedom of Speech, and Liberty in the English Republic, Critical Texts, 75 (MHRA, 2028) First footnote reference: 35 Zachary Coke, The Art of Logic: Education, Freedom of Speech, and Liberty in the English Republic, ed. by Emma Wilson, Critical Texts, 75 (MHRA, 2028), p. 21. Subsequent footnote reference: 37 Wilson, p. 47. (To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.) Bibliography entry: Wilson, Emma (ed.). 2028. Zachary Coke, The Art of Logic: Education, Freedom of Speech, and Liberty in the English Republic, Critical Texts, 75 (MHRA) Example citation: ‘A quotation occurring on page 21 of this work’ (Wilson 2028: 21). Example footnote reference: 35 Wilson 2028: 21. (To see how these citations were worked out, follow this link.) Permanent link to this title: www.mhra.org.uk/publications/Zachary-Coke-Art-Logic www.mhra.org.uk/publications/ct-75 |
Winter 2028