Thomas Urquhart
Encyclopedia
Scottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
and translator, most famous for his translation of Rabelais
François Rabelais
François Rabelais was a major French Renaissance writer, doctor, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar. He has historically been regarded as a writer of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, bawdy jokes and songs...
.
Life
Urquhart was born to an old landholding family in CromartyCromarty
The Royal Burgh of Cromarty is a burgh in Ross and Cromarty, Highland, Scotland.-History:It was previously the county town of the former county of Cromartyshire...
in northern Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. At the age of eleven he attended King's College
King's College, Aberdeen
King's College in Old Aberdeen, Scotland is a formerly independent university founded in 1495 and an integral part of the University of Aberdeen...
, University of Aberdeen
University of Aberdeen
The University of Aberdeen, an ancient university founded in 1495, in Aberdeen, Scotland, is a British university. It is the third oldest university in Scotland, and the fifth oldest in the United Kingdom and wider English-speaking world...
. Afterwards he toured the Continent, returning in 1636. In 1639, he participated in the Royalist uprising known as the Trot of Turriff; he was knighted by Charles I
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
at Whitehall
Palace of Whitehall
The Palace of Whitehall was the main residence of the English monarchs in London from 1530 until 1698 when all except Inigo Jones's 1622 Banqueting House was destroyed by fire...
for his support. In 1641 he published his first book, a volume of epigrams.
Urquhart's father died in 1642, leaving behind a large estate encumbered by larger debts. As the eldest son, Urquhart was from that time on harassed by creditors. He left for the Continent in order to economize, but returned in 1645 and published Trissotetras, a mathematical treatise.
In 1648, Urquhart participated in the Royalist uprising at Inverness
Inverness
Inverness is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for the Highland council area, and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands of Scotland...
. He was declared a traitor by Parliament, though he doesn't seem to have suffered any other consequences. Two years later he marched with Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
and fought in the Battle of Worcester
Battle of Worcester
The Battle of Worcester took place on 3 September 1651 at Worcester, England and was the final battle of the English Civil War. Oliver Cromwell and the Parliamentarians defeated the Royalist, predominantly Scottish, forces of King Charles II...
. The Royalist forces were decisively defeated and Urquhart was taken prisoner. He lost all his manuscripts, which he had brought with him for safekeeping, and he had to forfeit all his property. He was held first at the Tower of London
Tower of London
Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...
and later at Windsor
Windsor Castle
Windsor Castle is a medieval castle and royal residence in Windsor in the English county of Berkshire, notable for its long association with the British royal family and its architecture. The original castle was built after the Norman invasion by William the Conqueror. Since the time of Henry I it...
, but he was given considerable freedom by his captors. The following year he published Pantochronachanon, a work of genealogy, and The Jewel, a defense of Scotland. In 1652, he was paroled by Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
and returned to Cromarty. Soon after he published Logopandecteision
Logopandecteision
Logopandecteision is a 1653 book by Sir Thomas Urquhart, disingenuously detailing his plans for the creation of an artificial language by that name...
, his plan for a universal language
Universal language
Universal language may refer to a hypothetical or historical language spoken and understood by all or most of the world's population. In some circles, it is a language said to be understood by all living things, beings, and objects alike. It may be the ideal of an international auxiliary language...
, and his most celebrated work, his translation of Rabelais.
Urquhart returned to the Continent some time after 1653, perhaps as a condition of his release by Cromwell. Little is known of his life after this time. He died no later than 1660, because in that year his younger brother took up his hereditary titles. There is a legend that Urquhart died in a fit of laughter on receiving news of the Restoration
English Restoration
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
of Charles II.
Works
Epigrams, Divine and Moral (1641) : Collections of epigramEpigram
An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....
s were fashionable in the mid seventeenth century, but Urquhart's contribution to the genre has not been highly regarded. Most critics have concluded that the sentiments are largely banal and the versification inept.
Trissotetras (1645) : Trissotetras treats plane and spherical trigonometry
Trigonometry
Trigonometry is a branch of mathematics that studies triangles and the relationships between their sides and the angles between these sides. Trigonometry defines the trigonometric functions, which describe those relationships and have applicability to cyclical phenomena, such as waves...
using Napier
John Napier
John Napier of Merchiston – also signed as Neper, Nepair – named Marvellous Merchiston, was a Scottish mathematician, physicist, astronomer & astrologer, and also the 8th Laird of Merchistoun. He was the son of Sir Archibald Napier of Merchiston. John Napier is most renowned as the discoverer...
's logarithm
Logarithm
The logarithm of a number is the exponent by which another fixed value, the base, has to be raised to produce that number. For example, the logarithm of 1000 to base 10 is 3, because 1000 is 10 to the power 3: More generally, if x = by, then y is the logarithm of x to base b, and is written...
s and a new nomenclature designed to facilitate memorization. Urquhart's nomenclature resembles the names medieval schoolmen gave the various forms of syllogism
Syllogism
A syllogism is a kind of logical argument in which one proposition is inferred from two or more others of a certain form...
, in which the construction of the name gives information about the thing being named. (Urquhart would make use of the same idea in his universal language.) The resulting effect is, however, bizarre, and the work is impenetrable without the investment of considerable time to learn Urquhart's system. Although Urquhart was a formidable mathematician and Trissotetras mathematically sound, his approach has never been adopted and his book is a dead end in the history of mathematics.
Pantochronachanon (1652) : Subtitled "A peculiar promptuary of time," this work is a genealogy of the Urquhart family. In it, Urquhart manages to name each of his ancestors in an unbroken hereditary line from Adam and Eve all the way up to himself through 153 generations. This work has been the subject of ridicule since the time of its first publication, though it was likely an elaborate joke.
The Jewel (Ekskybalauron) (1652) (ISBN 0707303273) : A miscellaneous work. It contains a prospectus for Urquhart's universal language, but most of the book is, as the title page says, "a vindication of the honor of Scotland," including anecdotes about many Scottish soldiers and scholars. It includes Urquhart's fictionalized life of the Scottish hero James Crichton (1560–82, "The Admirable Crichton"), Urquhart's most celebrated work outside of his Rabelais; this section has sometimes been reprinted separately.
Logopandecteision
Logopandecteision
Logopandecteision is a 1653 book by Sir Thomas Urquhart, disingenuously detailing his plans for the creation of an artificial language by that name...
(1653) : This book contains another prospectus for Urquhart's universal language. Although Urquhart does not give a vocabulary, he explains that his system would be based on a scheme in which the construction of words would reflect their meanings. Logopandecteision also contains a polemic against Urquhart's creditors.
The Works of Rabelais
François Rabelais
François Rabelais was a major French Renaissance writer, doctor, Renaissance humanist, monk and Greek scholar. He has historically been regarded as a writer of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, bawdy jokes and songs...
(Books I and II, 1653; Book III, 1693) : This is the work for which Urquhart is best known. It is considered one of the best translations of any work into English. There is a perfect match of temperament between author and translator. Urquhart's learning, pedantry and word-mad exuberance proved to be ideal for Rabelais's work. It is a somewhat free translation, but it never departs from the spirit of Rabelais. The third book was edited and completed by Peter Anthony Motteux and published after Urquhart's death.
Style
Urquhart's prose style is unique. His sentences are long and elaborate and his love of the odd and recondite word seems boundless. At its worst his style can descend into almost unintelligible pretension and pedantry ("a pedantry which is gigantesque and almost incredible," in the words of George SaintsburyGeorge Saintsbury
George Edward Bateman Saintsbury , was an English writer, literary historian, scholar and critic.-Biography:...
), but at its best it can be rich, rapid and vivid, with arresting and original imagery. He coined words constantly, although none of Urquhart's coinages have fared as well as those of his contemporary Browne
Thomas Browne
Sir Thomas Browne was an English author of varied works which reveal his wide learning in diverse fields including medicine, religion, science and the esoteric....
.
Posthumous appearances
Urquhart appears as the protagonist of Alasdair GrayAlasdair Gray
Alasdair Gray is a Scottish writer and artist. His most acclaimed work is his first novel Lanark, published in 1981 and written over a period of almost 30 years...
's short story "Sir Thomas's Logopandocy" (included in Unlikely Stories, Mostly), the title taken from Urquhart's Logopandecteision and some of the material pastiching The Jewel (Ekskybalauron). Urquhart appears in the illustrations throughout Unlikely Stories.
Urquhart appears as a major character in the novel A Hand-book of Volapük by Andrew Drummond
Andrew Drummond (author)
Andrew Drummond is a Scottish translator and novelist. He was born in Edinburgh and studied at the University of Aberdeen and the University of London...
. Urquhart's language proposal "The Jewel" as well as Volapük
Volapük
Volapük is a constructed language, created in 1879–1880 by Johann Martin Schleyer, a Roman Catholic priest in Baden, Germany. Schleyer felt that God had told him in a dream to create an international language. Volapük conventions took place in 1884 , 1887 and 1889 . The first two conventions used...
, Esperanto
Esperanto
is the most widely spoken constructed international auxiliary language. Its name derives from Doktoro Esperanto , the pseudonym under which L. L. Zamenhof published the first book detailing Esperanto, the Unua Libro, in 1887...
, and other constructed language are prominent plot devices in the novel.
External links
(so far just his translation of Rabelais)- Logopandecteision etext
- Lecture on Sir Thomas Urquhart's works by Dr John B. Corbett (close transcription)
- Sir Thomas Urquhart, Man of letters & Translator, 1611–1660 from Discovering Scottish writers
- Information from The Gazetteer for Scotland