Poetic Works

Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library #38

by Bernardus Silvestris, Winthrop Wetherbee (Translator)

Bernardus Silvestris exemplifies the scholastic culture of his time. Having studied with pioneers in philosophy and science, he became a renowned teacher of literary and poetic composition. His versatility as scholar, philosopher, and scientist is apparent in his masterpiece, the Cosmographia. In alternating verse and prose, this foundational text for later Latin and vernacular literature synthesizes important intellectual movements of the early twelfth century. It owes its deepest debt to the tradition of philosophical allegory, including Plato’s Timaeus, Cicero’s Somnium Scipionis, and the prosimetra of Martianus Capella and Boethius. Bernardus also displays a masterly awareness of classical Latin poetry. Though less widely influential than his great disciple, Alan of Lille, Bernardus is the most subtle of the twelfth-century Latin poets; the Cosmographia has been aptly compared to the poetry of Lucretius and Giordano Bruno, and a copy survives written in the hand of Boccaccio.

In Mathematicus (“The Astrologer”), a Roman hero, faced with an astrologer’s prediction that he will kill his father, resolves to defy fate by committing suicide. This text is the most substantial of the surviving twelfth-century poems based on the ancient exercises in rhetoric known as controversiae, and it illustrates the twelfth century’s concern with astral determinism.

Genres: Poetry, Philosophy

384 pages, Hardcover

First published April 20, 2015

About the author

Bernardus Silvestris, also known as Bernard Silvestris and Bernard Silvester, was a medieval Platonist philosopher and poet of the 12th century.

Bernardus' greatest work is the Cosmographia, a prosimetrum on the creation of the world, told from a 12th-century Platonist perspective. The poem influenced Chaucer and others with its pioneering use of allegory to discuss metaphysical and scientific questions. Bernardus also wrote the poem Mathematicus and probably the poem Experimentarius as well as some minor poems.

Reviews

[Rob Chappell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a wonderful collection of poems by the 12th-century Latin poet, Bernardus Silvestris (a/k/a/ Bernard Sylvester). My favorite piece contained herein is the Cosmographia, a fantastic tour through the medieval worldview, modeled on Plato's classic dialogue, the Timaeus. I had read the Cosmographia in English translation back in the early 1990s, and this edition of Bernardus' works features the original Latin text on facing pages to the English translation, which makes it all the more useful and enjoyable for scholars and for those exploring Latin just for the fun of it.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in understanding and appreciating the medieval worldview and in recapturing their sense of wonder and awe at the amazing cosmos in which we live.

[Joel Zartman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good introduction, good binding, nice parallel text.

Semper ut ex aliqua felices parte querantur, leges humane conditionis habent. “The laws that govern the human condition ensure that even fortunate people always find some grounds for complaint.”