The now-forgotten genre of the bellum grammaticale flourished in the sixteenth- and seventeenth centuries as a means of satirizing outmoded cultural institutions and promoting new methods of instruction. Butler examines representations of language as war in texts written in Latin, French, and German; the study, by exploring the relationship between tradition and innovation, also illuminates the shift from a Latin-based understanding of learning to the acceptance of vernacular erudition and the emergence of national literatures.

Erik Butler is Assistant Professor of German Studies at Emory University, where he also teaches comparative literature and film

Contents: Introduction; Civil war in the Republic of Letters; Frontiers and first causes: humanism, Renaissance, Reformation and the language war; The language war and absolutist eloquence; Greatness lost and regained: dialectic of the German language war; Conclusion: fighting words and the liberal arts; Bibliography; Index.