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Bellet ( Maurice )
Translation
Bayard 2011, broché, 258pp - très bon état
Reference : 60018
ISBN : 9782227482937
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5 book(s) with the same title
Narratives on Translation across Eurasia and Africa. From Babylonia to Colonial India
, Brepols, 2022 Hardback, 406 pages, Size:156 x 234 mm, Illustrations:2 b/w, 5 tables b/w., Language: English. ISBN 9782503594897.
Summary What has driven acts of translation in the past, and what were the conditions that shaped the results? In this volume, scholars from across the humanities interrogate narratives on the process of translation: by historical translators ranging from ancient Babylonia to early modern Japan and the British Empire, and by academics from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries who interpreted these translators' practices. In Part 1 the volume authors reflect on the history of the approaches to the phenomenon of translation in their specific fields of competence in order to learn what shaped the academic questions asked, what theoretical and practical tools were deployed, which arguments were privileged, and why certain kinds of evidence (but not others) were thought to be the basis for understanding the function and purpose of all translation performed in a given culture. Part II explores how translators and authors from antiquity to modern times described their own motivations and the circumstances in which they chose to translate. In both parts, the contributors disentangle histories of translation from the specialized intellectual fields (such as science, religion, law, or literature) with which they have been bound in order to make the case that we understand translation best when we take into account all cultural practices and translation activities cutting synchronically and diachronically through the entire societal fabric. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ? Sonja Brentjes, in cooperation with Jens H yrup and Bruce O'Brien Part 1: Observer Narratives Scholarly Translation in the Ancient Middle East: Ancient and Modern Perspectives ? C. Jay Crisostomo Interdisciplinary Interactions: Septuagint Studies, Classics, and Translation Studies ? Benjamin G. Wright III A Plurality of Voices: Fragmented Narratives on Syriac Translations ? Matteo Martelli Re-visiting the Translation Narratives: The Multiple Contexts of the Arabic Translation Projects ? Miriam Shefer-Mossensohn Philosophical Pahlavi Literature of the Ninth Century ? G tz K nig Changing Perceptions in Modern Scholarship on Tangut Translations of Chinese Texts ? Imre Galambos Biblical Theology, Scholarly Approaches, and the Bible in Arabic ? Miriam Lindgren Hj lm Translating inside al-Andalus: From Ibn Rushd to Ibn Juljul ? Maribel Fierro Part 2: Participant Narratives From Opheleia to Precision: Dionysius the Areopagite and the Evolution of Syriac Translation Techniques ? Emiliano Fiori Wisdom in Disguise: Translation Narratives and Pseudotranslations in Arabic Alchemy ? Christopher Braun Philology and Polemics?in the Prologues to the Latin Talmud Dossier ? Alexander Fidora Faraj ben Sal?m of Agrigento: Translation, Politics and Jewish Identity in Medieval Sicily ? Lucia Finotto Practices of Translation in Medieval Kannada Sciences: 'Removing the Conflict between Textual Authority and the Worldly' ? Eric Gurevitch The Trope of Sanskrit Origin in Pre-Modern Tamil Literature ? Eva Wilden Ibn al Quff the Translator, Ibn al-Quff the Physician: Translation and Authority in a Medieval Commentary on the Hippocratic Aphorisms ? Nicolas Carpentieri Isaac Aboab da Fonseca's Preface to his Hebrew Translation of Abraham Cohen De Herrera's Puerta del Cielo ? Federico Dal Bo Mahometism in Translation: Joseph Morgan's Version of Mohamad Rabad n's Discurso de la Luz (1723-1725) ? Teresa de Soto The Possibility of Translation: A Comparison of the Translation Theories of Ogy? Sorai and ?tsuki Gentaku ? Rebekah Clements The Hermeneutics of Mathematical Reconciliation: Two Pandits and the Benares Sanskrit College ? Dhruv Raina Index
Kapital. Kritika politicheskoj ekonomii. Perevod c nmetskago. Tom pervoej. Kniga I. Protschess proizvodstva Kapitala. (Russian, = The Capital. Critique of the Political Economy. Translated from German. Volume One. Book I [all].). - [FIRST TRANSLATION INTO ANY LANGUAGE OF ""THE BIBLE OF MARXISM""]
S.-Peterburg, N.I. Poliakov, 1872. Large 8vo. In a nice recent half calf binding with gilt lettering to spine and five raised bands. First few leaves with light soling and a closed tear and a few marginal repairs to title-page. pp. 11-18 with repairs to upper outer corner. Closed tears to last leaf, otherwise a fine copy. XIII, (3), 678 pp. (wanting the half-title).
First Russian edition (first issue, with the issue-pointers), being the first translation into any language, of Marx' immensely influential main work, probably the greatest revolutionary work of the nineteenth century.Marx' groundbreaking ""Das Kapital"" originally appeared in German in 1867, and only the first part of the work appeared in Marx' lifetime. The very first foreign translation of the work was that into Russian, which, considering Russian censorship at the time, would seem a very unlikely event. But as it happened, ""Das Kapital"" actually came to enjoy greater renown in Russia than in any other country"" for many varying reasons, it won a warm reception in many political quarters in Russia, and it enjoyed a totally unexpected rapid and widespread success. The first Russian translation of ""Das Kapital"" came to have a profound influence the economic development of of Russia. It was frequently quoted in the most important economic and political discussions on how to industrialize Russia and the essential points of the work were seen by many as the essential questions for an industrializing Russia. "" ""Das Kapital"" arrived in Russia just at the moment that the Russian economy was recovering from the slump that followed Emancipation and was beginning to assume capitalist characteristics. Industrialization raised in the minds of the intelligentsia the question of their country's economic destiny. And it was precisely this concern that drew Mikhailovsky and many of the ""intelligenty"" to ""Das Kapital""."" (Resis, p. 232).The story of how the first printing of the first translation of ""Das Kapital"" came about, is quite unexpected. As the ""triumph of Marxism in backward Russia is commonly regarded as a historical anomaly"" (Resis, p. 221), so is the triumph of the first Russian edition of ""Das Kapital"". The main credit for the coming to be of the translation of ""Das Kapital"" must be given to Nicolai Danielson, later a highly important economist in his own right. The idea came from a circle of revolutionary youths in St. Petersburg, including N.F. Danielson, G.A. Lopatin, M.F. Negreskul, and N.N. Liubavin, all four of whom participated in the project. Danielson had read the work shortly after its publication and it had made such an impact on him that he decided to make it available to the Russian reading public. He persuaded N.I. Poliakov to run the risk of publishing it. ""Poliakov, the publisher, specialized in publishing authors, Russian and foreign, considered dangerous by the authorities. Poliakov also frequently subsidized revolutionaries by commissioning them to do translations for his publishing house. Diffusion of advanced ideas rather than profit was no doubt his primary motive in publishing the book."" (Resis, p. 222). Owing to Danielson's initiative, Poliakov engaged first Bakunin, and then Lopatin to do the translation. Danielson himself finished the translation and saw the work through press. It was undeniably his leadership that brought Marx to the Russian reading public. In fact, with the first Russian edition of ""Das Kapital"", Danielson was responsible for the first public success of the revolutionizing work. ""Few scholars today would deny that ""Das Kapital"" has had an enormous effect on history in the past hundred years. Nonetheless, when the book was published in Hamburg on September 5, 1867, it made scarcely a stir, except among German revolutionaries. Marx complained that his work was greeted by ""a conspiracy of silence"" on the part of ""a pack of liberals and vulgar economists."" However desperately he contrived to provoke established economists to take up ""Das Kapital""'s challenge to their work, his efforts came to nought. But in October 1868 Marx received good news from an unexpected source. From Nikolai Frantsevich Danielson, a young economist employed by the St. Petersburg Mutual Credit Society, came a letter informing Marx that N. P. Poliakov, a publisher of that city, desired to publish a Russian translation of the first volume of ""Das Kapital""" moreover, he also wanted to publish the forthcoming second volume. Danielson, the publisher's representative, requested that Marx send him the proofs of volume 2 as they came off the press so that Poliakov could publish both volumes simultaneously. Marx replied immediately. The publication of a Russian edition of volume 1, he wrote, should not be held up, because the completion of volume 2 might be delayed by some six months [in fact, it did not appear in Marx' life-time and was only published ab. 17 years later, in 1885]" and in any case volume 1 represented an independent whole. Danielson proceeded at once to set the project in motion. Nearly four years passed, however, before a Russian translation appeared. Indeed, a year passed before the translation was even begun, and four translators tried their hand at it before Danielson was able to send the manuscript to the printers in late December 1871."" (Resis, pp. 221-22). This explains how the book came to be translated, but how did this main work of revolutionary thought escape the rigid Russian censors? ""By an odd quirk of history the first foreign translation of ""Das Kapital"" to appear was the Russian, which Petersburgers found in their bookshops early in April 1872. Giving his imprimatur, the censor, one Skuratov, had written ""few people in Russia will read it, and still fewer will understand it."" He was wrong: the edition of three thousand sold out quickly"" and in 1880 Marx was writing to his friend F.A. Sorge that ""our success is still greater in Russia, where ""Kapital"" is read and appreciated more than anywhere else."" (PMM 359, p.218). Astonishingly, Within six weeks of the publication date, nine hundred copies of the edition of three thousand had already been sold.""Under the new laws on the press, ""Das Kapital"" could have been proscribed on any number of grounds. The Temporary Rules held, for example, that censorship must not permit publication of works that ""expound the harmful doctrines of socialism or communism"" or works that ""rouse enmity and hatred of one class for another."" The Board of Censors of Foreign Publications was specifically instructed to prohibit importation of works contrary to the tenets of the Orthodox Church or works that led to atheism, materialism, or disrespect for Scriptures. Nor did the recent fate of the works of Marx and Engels at the hands of the censors offer much hope that ""Das Kapital"" would pass censorship. As recently as August 11, the censors of foreign works had decided to ban importation of Engels' ""Die Lage der arbeitenden Klassen in England"", and, according to Lopatin, the censors reprimanded Poliakov for daring to run announcements on book jackets of the forthcoming publication of ""Das Kapital"". By 1872 the censors had prohibited the importation and circulation of all works by Marx and Engels except one - ""Das Kapital"". The book, as we shall see, had already won some recognition in Russia shortly after its publication in Germany. Not until 1871, however, did the censors render a judgment on the book, when the Central Committee of Censors of Foreign Publications, on the recommendation of its reader, permitted importation and circulation of the book both in the original language and in translation. The official reader had described the book as ""a difficult, inaccessible, strictly scientific work,"" implying that it could scarcely pose a danger to the state. [...] The length and complexity of the book prompted the office to divide the task of scrutinizing it between two readers, D. Skuratov, who read the first half of the book, and A. De-Roberti, who read the last half. Skuratov dutifully listed objectionable socialist and antireligious passages, taking special note of Marx's harsh attack on the land reforms General Kiselev had instituted in the Danubian Principalities. But in his report Skuratov dismissed these attacks as harmless, since they were imbedded in a ""colossal mass of abstruse, somewhat obscure politico-economic argumentation."" Indeed, he regarded the work as its own best antidote to sedition. ""It can be confidently stated,"" he wrote, ""that in Russia few will read it and even fewer will understand it."" Second, he said, the book could do little harm. Since the book attacked a system rather than individual persons, Skuratov implied that the book would not incite acts threatening the safety of the royal family and government officials. Third, he believed that the argument of the book did not apply to Russia. Marx attacked the unbridled competition practiced in the British factory system, and such attacks, Skuratov asserted, could find no target in Russia because the tsarist regime did not pursue a policy of laissez faire. Indeed, at that very moment, Skuratov stated, a special commission had drafted a plan that ""as zealously protects the workers' well-being from abuses on the part of the employers as it protects the employers' interests against lack of discipline and nonfulfillment of obligations on the part of the workers."" Repeating most of Skuratov's views, De-Roberti also noted that the book contained a good account of the impact of the factory system and the system of unpaid labor time that prevailed in the West. In spite of the obvious socialist tendency of the book, he concluded, a court case could scarcely be made against it, because the censors of foreign works had already agreed to permit importation and circulation of the German edition. With the last barrier removed, on March 27, 1872, the Russian translation of ""Das Kapital"" went on sale in the Russian Empire. The publisher, translators, and advocates of the book had persevered in the project for nearly four years until they were finally able to bring the book to the Russian reading public."" (Resis, pp. 220-22). The Russian authorities quickly realized, however, that Skuratov's statement could not have been more wrong, and the planned second edition of the Russian translation was forbidden"" thus it came to be published in New York, in 1890. That second edition is nearly identical to the first, which can be distinguished by the misplaced comma opposite ""p. 73"" in the table of contents (replaced by a full stop in the 2nd ed.) and the ""e"" at the end of l. 40 on p. 65 (replaced by a ""c"" in the 2nd ed.). A third edition, translated from the fourth German edition, appeared in 1898. Volumes 2 and 3 of ""Das Kapital"" appeared in Russian translation, also by Danielson, in 1885 and 1896.See: Albert Resis, Das Kapital Comes to Russia, in: Slavic Review, Vol. 29, No. 2 (Jun., 1970), pp. 219-237.
Acquisition through Translation. Towards a Definition of Renaissance Translation
, Brepols, 2020 Paperback, 380 pages, Size:156 x 234 mm, Illustrations:12 b/w, Languages: English, Italian, German. ISBN 9782503589541.
Summary The definition of translation in Renaissance Europe is here proposed as a process of acquisition: the book studies how a number of European languages, finding their identification in the newly evolving concept of nation, shape their countries' vernacular libraries by appropriating ancient and contemporary classics. The emergence of standard modern languages in early modern Europa entailed a competition with the dominant Latin culture, which remained the prevalent medium for the language of science, philosophy, theology and philology until at least the eighteenth century. In this process, translation played a very special role: in a number of significant instances we can identify in the undertaking of a specific translation a policy of acquisition of classical - and by definition authoritative - texts that contributed to the building of an intellectual library for the emerging nation. At the same time, the transmission of ideas and texts across Europe constructed a diasporic and transnational culture: the emerging vernacular cultures acquired not only the classical Latin models, incorporating them in their own intellectual libraries, but turned their attention also to contemporary, or near-contemporary, vernacular texts, conferring on them, through the act of translation, the status of classics. Through the examination of case studies, that take into account both literary and scientific texts, this volume offers an overview of how early modern Europe developed its vernacular national literatures, following the model suggested in the late Middle Ages, through a process of acquisition and translation. TABLE OF CONTENTS Alessandra Petrina (University of Padua) and Federica Masiero (University of Padua) Introduction: acquisition through translation in early modern Europe Biblical and classical literature in translation Camilla Caporicci Translating Solomon's Song: Gervase Markham's Poem of Poems. Or Sions Muse Bryan Brazeau 'I write sins, not tragedies': manuscript translations of Aristotle's hamartia in late sixteenth-century Italy Carla Suthren Iphigenia in English: Reading Euripides with Jane Lumley Angelica Vedelago Plutarch in sixteenth-century France and England: an insight into the Life of Coriolanus as translated by Amyot and North Marta Balzi Lodovico Dolce's Italian translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses and the canonization of the Orlando furioso Francesco Roncen Stesso corpo in 'cangiate forme': traduzione fedele e ottava rima nelle Metamorfosi di Fabio Marretti (1570) Ilaria Pernici The revolution of Ovid's Metamorphoses in Golding's translation: the case of Thomas Lodge Petr Valenta Virgil in Czech seventeenth-century translations and Past ?sk rozmlouv n o narozen P n? by V clav Jan Rosa Horizontal translation and the definition of literature Valentina Gallo Dall'Agrigento del III sec. a.C. alla Londra di Jonathan Swift Giulio Vaccaro Tra traduzione, tradizione e identit : il Libro dell'Aquila Lucia Assenzi bersetzen f r die Muttersprache. bersetzung und Fremdwortpurismus in der barocken Sprachreflexion am Beispiel der Verdeutschung des Novellino (1624) Andrea Rado?evi? - Marijana Horvat Translation strategies in the Sermon Collection Besjede (1616) written by the Franciscan Matija Divkovi? Alice Equestri The first English translation?of Tommaso Garzoni's Ospidale De' Pazzi Incurabili: cultural context and representation of idiocy Heritage and archives at the close of the early modern period Dominika Bopp Das Sprachlehrbuch Janua linguarum reserata von J.A. Comenius (1592-1670) und seine ersten deutschsprachigen bersetzungen Roberto De Pol Il contributo dell'editore Georg M ller e del traduttore Johann Makle alla ricezione della letteratura italiana in Germania nel XVII secolo Anna Just bersetzungstexte aus der ehemaligen Bibliotheca Zalusciana (1747-1795) als Indikator einer transnationalen Literatur im fr hneuzeitlichen Polen
Translation Automatisms in the Vernacular Texts of the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period
, Brepols, 2023 Paperback, 528 pages, Size:178 x 254 mm, Illustrations:1 col., 1 tables b/w., Language: English. ISBN 9782503600338.
Summary The volume deals with the issue of translation automatisms in early vernacular texts predating 1650. It introduces the novel concept of ?translation clusters', first defined in machine translation theory, but equally considering a wider array of situations that involve ?translation units', ?language automatisms', ?culturemes', and ?formulaic borrowings' in vernacular texts. Contrary to contemporary languages, where translation units, clusters, and automatisms appear frequently due to the influence of standard language varieties or dialects, the vernacular idioms of the Middle Ages and Early Modern period are often pluricentric. Consequently, automatisms are limited to specific cases where diachronic, diatopic, diastratic, and diaphasic variants align similarly in two otherwise different translations. This is a crucial topic for philology, as it can explain accidents that ecdotic methods tend to mistake for variant readings of a single ?redactio'. The volume aims to determine the organic interplay between three primary situations in which common coincidences between translations or texts occur. Firstly the volume explores the shared elements resulting from the transfer of textual units between multiple translations or adaptations (quotations, corrections, formulas). Secondly chapters study the shared elements arising from the existence of a common source text (translation clusters, based on translation units); and lastly, the volume questions the fixed, inherent, and unchangeable aspects of the target language (language automatisms, often coinciding with translation units). The chapters of this volume focus on numerous vernacular languages and a multitude of case studies, with a particular emphasis on biblical translation?a cornerstone of contemporary translation studies. The chapter format encourages diverse perspectives to push the boundaries of philology, translation studies, and ?vernacular theologies?.
Ueber die Lehre des Spinoza in Briefen an den Herrn Moses Mendelssohn. Neue vermehrte Auflage. - [THE FIRST EVER TRANSLATION OF BRUNO'S ""DE UNO ET CAUSA""...]
Breslau, Gottl. Löwe, 1789, 8vo. Very beautiful contemporary red full calf binding with five raised bands and gilt green leather title-label to richly gilt spine. elaborate gilt borders to boards, inside which a ""frame"" made up of gilt dots, with giltcorner-ornamentations. Edges of boards gilt and inner gilt dentelles. All edges gilt. Minor light brownspotting. Marginal staining to the last leaves. Engraved frontispiece-portrait of Spinoza, engraved title-vignette (double-portrait, of Lessing and Mendelssohn), engraved end-vignette (portrait of Jacobi). Frontispiece, title-page, LI, (1, -errata), 440 pp. Magnificent copy.
First edition thus, being the seminal second edition, the ""neue vermehrte Auflage"" (new and expanded edition), which has the hugely important 180 pp. of ""Beylage"" for the first time, which include the first translation into any language of any part of Giordano Bruno's ""de Uno et Causa..."" (pp. 261-306) as well as several other pieces of great importance to the ""Pantheismusstreit"" and to the interpretation of the philosophy of Spinoza and Leibniz, here for the first time in print. The present translation of Bruno seems to be the earliest translation of any of Bruno's works into German, and one of the earliest translations of Bruno at all - as far as we can establish, the second, only preceded by an 18th century translation into English of ""Spaccio della bestia trionfante"". It is with the present edition of Jacobi's work that the interest in Bruno is founded and with which Bruno is properly introduced to the modern world. Jacobi not only provides what is supposedly the second earliest translation of any of Bruno's works ever to appear, he also establishes the great influence that Bruno had on two of our greatest thinkers, Spinoza and Leibnitz. It is now generally accepted that Spinoza founds his ethical thought upon Bruno and that Lebnitz has taken his concept of the ""Monads"" from him. It is Jacobi who, with the second edition of his ""Letters on Spinoza..."", for the first time ever puts Bruno where he belongs and establishes his position as one of the key figures of modern philosophy and thought. Bruno's works, the first editions of which are all of the utmost scarcity, were not reprinted in their time, and new editions of them did not begin appearing until the 19th century. For three centuries his works had been hidden away in libraries, where only few people had access to them. Thus, as important as his teachings were, thinkers of the ages to come were largely reliant on more or less reliable renderings and reproductions of his thoughts. As Jacobi states in the preface to the second edition of his ""Letters on Spinoza..."", ""There appears in this new edition, under the title of Appendices (""Beylage""), different essays, of which I will here first give an account. The first Appendix is an excerpt from the extremely rare book ""De la causa, principio, et Uno"", by Jordan Bruno. This strange man was born, one knows not in which year, in Nola, in the Kingdom of Naples"" and died on February 17th 1600 in Rome on the stake. With great diligence Brucker has been gathering information on him, but in spite of that has only been able to deliver fragments [not in translation]. For a long time his works were, partly neglected due to their obscurity, partly not respected due to the prejudice against the new opinions and thoughts expressed in them, and partly loathed and suppressed due to the dangerous teachings they could contain. On these grounds, the current scarcity of his works is easily understood. Brucker could only get to see the work ""De Minimo"", La Croce only had the book ""De Immenso et Innumerabilibus"" in front of him, or at least he only provides excerpts from this [also not in translation], as Heumann does only from the ""Physical Theorems"" [also small fragments, not in translation]"" also Bayle had, of Bruno's metaphysical works, himself also merely read this work, of which I here provide an excerpt."" (Vorrede, pp. (VII)-VIII - own translation from the German). Jacobi continues by stating that although everyone complains about the obscurity of Bruno's teachings and thoughts, some of the greatest thinkers, such as Gassendi, Descartes, ""and our own Leibnitz"" (p. IX) have taken important parts of their theorems and teachings from him. ""I will not discuss this further, and will merely state as to the great obscurity (""grossen Dunkelheit"") of which people accuse Bruno, that I have found this in neither his book ""de la Causa"" nor in ""De l'Infinito Universo et Mondi"", of which I will speak implicitly on another occasion. As to the first book, my readers will be able to judge for themselves from the sample (""Probe"") that I here present. My excerpt can have become a bit more comprehensible due to the fact that I have only presented the System of Bruno himself, the ""Philosophia Nolana"" which he himself calls it, in its continuity... My main purpose with this excerpt is, by uniting Bruno with Spinoza, at the same time to show and explain the ""Summa of Philosophy"" (""Summa der Philosophie"") of ""En kai Pan"" [in Greek characters - meaning ""One and All""]. ... It is very difficult to outline ""Pantheism"" in its broader sense more purely and more beautifully than Bruno has done."" (Vorrede pp. IX-XI - own translation from the German). So not only does Jacobi here provide this groundbreaking piece of Bruno's philosophy in the first translation ever, and not only does he provide one of the most important interpretations of Spinoza's philosophy and establishes the importance of Bruno to much of modern thought, he also presents Bruno as the primary exponent of ""pantheism"", thereby using Bruno to change the trajectory of modern thought and influencing all philosophy of the decades to come. After the second edition of Jacobi's ""Ueber die Lehre des Spinoza"", no self-respecting thinker could neglect the teachings of Bruno"" he could no longer be written off as having ""obscure"" and insignificant teachings, and one could no longer read Spinoza nor Leibnitz without thinking of Bruno. It is with this edition that the world rediscovers Bruno, never to forget him again.WITH THE FIRST EDITION OF ""UEBER DIE LEHRE DES SPINOZA"" (1785), JACOBI BEGINS THE FAMOUS ""PATHEISMUSSTREIT"", which focused attention on the apparent conflict between human freedom and any systematic, philosophical interpretation of reality. In 1780, Jacobi (1743-1819), famous for coining the term nihilism, advocating ""belief"" and ""revelation"" instead of speculative reason, thereby anticipating much of present-day literature, and for his critique of the Sturm-und-Drang-era, had a conversation with Lessing, in which Lessing stated that the only true philosophy was Spinozism. This led Jacobi to a protracted and serious study of Spinoza's works. After Lessing's death, in 1783 Jacobi began a lengthy letter-correspondende with Mendelssohn, a close friend of Lessing, on the philosophy of Spinoza. These letters, with commentaries by Jacobi, are what constitute the first edition of ""Ueber die lehre des Spinoza"", as well as the first part of the second edition. The second edition is of much greater importance, however, due to greatly influential Appendices. The work caused great furor and the enmity of the Enlightenment thinkers. Jacobi was ridiculed by his contemporaries for attempting to reintroduce into philosophy belief instead of reason, was seen as an enemy of reason and Enlightenment, as a pietist, and as a Jesuit. But the publication of the work not only caused great furor in wider philosophical circles, there was also a personal side to the scandal which has made it one of the most debated books of the period: ""Mendelssohn enjoyed, as noted at the outset, a lifelong friendship with G. E. Lessing... Along with Mendelssohn, Lessing embraced the idea of a purely rational religion and would endorse Mendelssohn's declaration: ""My religion recognizes no obligation to resolve doubt other than through rational means"" and it commands no mere faith in eternal truths"" (Gesammelte Schriften, Volume 3/2, p. 205). To pietists of the day, such declarations were scandalous subterfuges of an Enlightenment project of assimilating religion to natural reason... While Mendelssohn skillfully avoided that confrontation, he found himself reluctantly unable to remain silent when, after Lessing's death, F. H. Jacobi contended that Lessing embraced Spinoza's pantheism and thus exemplified the Enlightenment's supposedly inevitable descent into irreligion.Following private correspondence with Jacobi on the issue and an extended period when Jacobi (in personal straits at the time) did not respond to his objections, Mendelssohn attempted to set the record straight about Lessing's Spinozism in ""Morning Hours"". Learning of Mendelssohn's plans incensed Jacobi who expected to be consulted first and who accordingly responded by publishing, without Mendelssohn's consent, their correspondence - ""On the Teaching of Spinoza in Letters to Mr. Moses Mendelssohn"" - a month before the publication of ""Morning Hours"". Distressed on personal as well as intellectual levels by the controversy over his departed friend's pantheism, Mendelssohn countered with a hastily composed piece, ""To the Friends of Lessing: an Appendix to Mr. Jacobi's Correspondence on the Teaching of Spinoza"". According to legend, so anxious was Mendelssohn to get the manuscript to the publisher that, forgetting his overcoat on a bitterly cold New Year's eve, he delivered the manuscript on foot to the publisher. That night he came down with a cold from which he died four days later, prompting his friends to charge Jacobi with responsibility for Mendelssohn's death.The sensationalist character of the controversy should not obscure the substance and importance of Mendelssohn's debate with Jacobi. Jacobi had contended that Spinozism is the only consistent position for a metaphysics based upon reason alone and that the only solution to this metaphysics so detrimental to religion and morality is a leap of faith, that salto mortale that poor Lessing famously refused to make. Mendelssohn counters Jacobi's first contention by attempting to demonstrate the metaphysical inconsistency of Spinozism. He takes aim at Jacobi's second contention by demonstrating how the ""purified Spinozism"" or ""refined pantheism"" embraced by Lessing is, in the end, only nominally different from theism and thus a threat neither to religion nor to morality."" (SEP).The Beylagen, which are not included in the 1785 first edition and only appear with the 1789 second edition, include: I. Auszug aus Jordan Bruno von Nola. Von der Ursache, dem Princip und dem Einen (p. 261-306) II. Diokles an Diotime über den Atheismus (p. 307-327) translation of Lettre ... sur l'Athéisme by F. Hemsterhuis.
