Gradus ad Parnassum

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For other uses, see Gradus (disambiguation).

The Latin phrase gradus ad Parnassum means "steps to Parnassus". It is sometimes shortened to gradus. Parnassus is the prominence of a mountain range in central Greece, a few kilometres north of Delphi, of which the two summits, in Classical times, were called Tithorea and Lycoreia. In Greek mythology, one of the peaks was sacred to Apollo and the nine Muses, the inspiring deities of the arts, and the other to Dionysus.[1] The phrase came to be used by authors of various books of instruction with the aid of which gradual progress and mastery in an art or scholarly discipline is sought.

Classics

The first application of the phrase is to a kind of

metrical feet. The first 'step' or lesson is contained in the title phrase itself, because 'gradus' being a fourth-declension noun (a step), with a short '-us' in the singular, becomes 'gradūs', with a lengthened '-ūs', in the plural (steps). The difference in meaning teaches one to observe the difference in vowel quantity between two forms which look the same but have different grammatical properties, and so to pronounce the title of the dictionary correctly. Then 'Parnassus' is a poetic figure alluding to the Muse (of poetry): and the second function of the Thesaurus is even so, to illustrate such figures. Therefore, the whole expression Gradus ad Parnassum is not just a title but an epitome of the work itself, combining declension, construction, scansion and figure
.

The Gradus ad Parnassum made famous under the name of

epithets, verses and phrases in classical poetic usage. The work in Alers' form existed into the 19th century with the definitions as well as the entries written in Latin. Known to many generations of students throughout Europe, and passing through numerous editions, 19th century English-speaking schoolchildren knew the 1818 revision by Dr John Carey (1756–1826)[4]
simply as 'Carey's Gradus'. It was specially intended for the study and appreciation of Latin poetry of the classical period, and to aid students in the practice of verse composition. There is also a Latin gradus by C.D. Yonge (1850); English-Latin by AC Ainger and HG Wintle (1890); Latin-French by F.J.M. Noël (1810); Greek by Thomas Morell (1762, new ed. ed. by E. Maltby, Bishop of Durham, 1815); John Brasse (1828).

The large general dictionaries of Greek and Latin adopted this pattern of information. For example, the Liddell-Scott-Jones

Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short's A Latin Dictionary
(1879) and its derivatives. The synonyms, epithets, poetical expressions and extracts became incorporated under the more important headings.

Yonge

Charles Duke Yonge published A gradus ad Parnassum: For the use of Eton, Westminster, Harrow, and Charterhouse schools, King's college, London, and Marlborough college in 1850 a work that was still in print in 1902, by then titled ...For the use of Eton, Westminster, Harrow, Charterhouse and Rugby schools, King's college, London, and Marlborough college and bound with A Dictionary of Epithets: Classified according to their English meaning.

Music and art

Works entitled Gradus ad Parnassum include:

Doctor Gradus ad Parnassum is a satirical piano composition by Claude Debussy, from his suite Children's Corner, poking fun at one or the other of these sets of exercises (Czerny's according to Myriam Chimènes's notes to the Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli version).

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor wrote a nonet, his Op. 2, subtitled Gradus ad Parnassum, not as a pedagogical work but to display composition skills while he was a student at London's Royal College of Music.[6]

Ad Parnassum is a significant painting in the divisionist style by Paul Klee.[7]

Since the year 2000, the name Gradus ad Parnassum was incorporated as the name of a small music school in New Jersey, Gradus ad Parnassum Inc.

References

  1. ^ Warrington, John. (1961) Everyman's Classical Dictionary, J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., London. See also J. Carey, Gradus ad Parnassum (Stationers', London 1914), 404.
  2. ^ Early editions of Aler's work Gradus ad Parnassum: Novus synonymorum, epithetorum, versuum ac phrasium poeticarum thesaurus carry a reproduction of the Imprimatur of Robert Midgley, September 30th 1686.
  3. ^ Pierre Joulet, Synonymorum et Epithetorum Thesaurus (Paris 1652): see A. de Baecker, Publications de la Compagnie de Jésus (Somervogel), Vol. I (1890), columns 164–166. cf Hugh Chisholm, in Encyclopædia Britannica (1910) VIII, p. 192.
  4. ^ Carey drew upon the revision of Aler by Thomas Morell (1703–84), which was further improved by Adam Dickinson (S. Doig & A. Stirling, Edinburgh 1813).
  5. ^ Jean Rondeau - The Official Website
  6. ^ Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Nonet, Piano Trio, Piano Quintet Apple Music, 27 May 2022, Retrieved 27 May 2022.
  7. ^ The Artchive
  • Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Gradus" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 314.
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