"Edited for the Modern Reader"

Gene Ward Smith wrote:
> "Francis A. Miniter" <faminiter DeleteThis @comcast.net> wrote in
> news:jc-dndcqp49YYGXanZ2dnUVZ_sqinZ2d@comcast.com:
>
>> And for
>> first sentences, I rank the opening lines of LOTR among the
>> top five I have come across.
>
> You mean "When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he
> would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with
> a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and
> excitement in Hobbiton."?

IOW, Tolkien hadn't yet figured out how much darker the sequel would
be than The Hobbit was.
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Gene Ward Smith wrote:
> "Francis A. Miniter" <faminiter.TakeThisOut@comcast.net> wrote in
> news:jc-dndcqp49YYGXanZ2dnUVZ_sqinZ2d@comcast.com:
>
>> And for
>> first sentences, I rank the opening lines of LOTR among the
>> top five I have come across.
>
> You mean "When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he
> would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with
> a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and
> excitement in Hobbiton."? Judging by a recent thread on
> rec.arts.sf.written, it's the last line which sticks to the
> roof of people's brain.
>

The very one!

Francis A. Miniter
 >> Stay informed about: "Edited for the Modern Reader" 

erilar wrote:
>
> AHA ! A "modern reader", obviously. You like your Mark Twain abridged,
> I take it? And I shudder to think how you want Shakespeare rewritten.

I hope everyone is aware that almost all editions of Shakespeare do at
least modernize the spelling.

I was reading some of the "doubtful" Shakespeare plays in a book
called THE SHAKESPEARE APOCRYPHA. These are taken directly from the
various quartos, etc., and have not had the spelling regularized. So
here is a sample speech from "Edward III":

Shee was, my Lord; and onlely Issabel
Was all the daughters that this Phillip had,
Whome afterward your father tooke to wife;
And from the fragrant garden of her wombe
Your gratious selfe, the flower of Europes hope,
Deriued is inheritor to Fraunce.
But note the rancor of rebellious mindes:
When thus the lynage of (le) Bew was out,
The French obscurd your mothers Priuledge,
And, though she were the next of blood, proclaymed
Iohn, of the house of Valoys, now their king:
The reason was, they say, the Realme of Fraunce,
Repleat with Princes of great parentage,
Ought not admit a gouwenor to rule,
Except he be discnded of the male;
And thats the speciall ground of their contempt,
Whereiwth they stufy to exclude your grace;
But they shall finde that forged ground of theirs
To be but dusty heaps of brittile sande.
Perhaps it will be thought a heynous thing,
That I, a French man, shoudl discouer this;
But heauen I call to recorde of my vowes:
It is not hate nor any priuat wronge,
But loue vnto my country and the right,
Prouokes my tongue, thus lauish in report.
....

Every edition of Shakespeare that I have seen for general use
standardizes the spelling so that the last four lines, for example,
would read:

But heaven I call to record of my vows:
It is not hate nor any private wrong,
But love unto my country and the right,
Provokes my tongue, thus lavish in report.

--
Evelyn C. Leeper
All art at some time and in some manner becomes mass entertainment,
and that if it does not it dies and is forgotten. --Raymond Chandler
 >> Stay informed about: "Edited for the Modern Reader" 

Ed Augusts wrote:
>
> The editor of THIS horrible attempt at adapting a text for the modern
> reader, should just put HIS name on the new, edited book, with a
> "...suggested by the work of..." below. That way the responsibility
> for all the bare limbs of trees, denuded of their supple, wind-rustled
> leaves, that is to say, their beautiful images and allusions, is ON
> HIM and doesn't try to insult the original author by associating him
> with any of it.

Or as Helene Hanff said, "WHAT KIND OF A PEPYS'S DIARY DO YOU CALL THIS?
this is not a pepys' diary, this is some busybody editor's miserable
collection of EXCERPTS from pepys' diary may he rot. I could just spit.
where is jan 12, 1668, where his wife chased him out of bed and round
the bedroom with a red-hot poker?" [all sic]

--
Evelyn C. Leeper
All art at some time and in some manner becomes mass entertainment,
and that if it does not it dies and is forgotten. --Raymond Chandler
 >> Stay informed about: "Edited for the Modern Reader" 

Dan Clore <clore RemoveThis @columbia-center.org> wrote:

> I recently purchased a volume purporting to contain three novels by
> George MacDonald. They turned out to be "edited for today's reader". Out
> of curiosity, I checked a sample passage that caught my interest against
> the original text via Google Books. Here is the result:
>
> Thomas Wingfold, Curate
>
> pp. 226-27
>
> From a sad accident of his childhood, he had become acquainted with
> something of the influences of a certain baneful drug, to the use of
> which one of his attendants was addicted, and now at college, partly
> from curiosity, partly from a desire to undergo its effects, but chiefly
> in order to escape from ever-gnawing and passionate thought, he began to
> make _experiments_ in its use. Experiment called for repetition--in
> order to verification, said the fiend,--and repetition led first to a
> longing after its effects, and next to a mad appetite for the thing
> itself; so that, by the time of which my narrative treats, he was on the
> verge of absolute slavery to its use, and in imminent peril of having to
> pass the rest of his life in alternations of ecstasy and agony, divided
> by dull spaces of misery, the ecstasies growing rarer and rarer, and the
> agonies more and more frequent, intense and lasting; until at length the
> dethroned Apollo found himself chained to a pillar of his own ruined
> temple, which the sirocco was fast filling with desert sand.
>
> Retitled and "edited for today's reader":
>
> The Curate of Glaston
>
> pp. 60-61
>
> From a tragic accident of his childhood, he had become acquainted with
> the influences of a certain baneful drug, to which one of his Indian
> attendants was addicted. Now at college, partly from curiosity but
> chiefly to escape from gnawing and passionate thought about Emmeline, he
> began to experiment with it. Experiment called for repetition, and
> repetition led first to a longing after its effects, and next to a mad
> appetite for the thing itself. By the time of my narrative he was on the
> verge of absolute slavery to its use.
>
> *****
>
> I open the field for comment as to what this implies about "today's reader".

You failed to disclose what publisher altered the text. It really
doesn't say anything about readers as much as it does about publishers.
 >> Stay informed about: "Edited for the Modern Reader" 

Evelyn C. Leeper wrote:
> erilar wrote:
>>
>> AHA ! A "modern reader", obviously. You like your Mark Twain
>> abridged, I take it? And I shudder to think how you want Shakespeare
>> rewritten.
>
> I hope everyone is aware that almost all editions of Shakespeare do at
> least modernize the spelling.
>
> I was reading some of the "doubtful" Shakespeare plays in a book
> called THE SHAKESPEARE APOCRYPHA. These are taken directly from the
> various quartos, etc., and have not had the spelling regularized. So
> here is a sample speech from "Edward III":
>
> Shee was, my Lord; and onlely Issabel
> Was all the daughters that this Phillip had,
> Whome afterward your father tooke to wife;
> And from the fragrant garden of her wombe
> Your gratious selfe, the flower of Europes hope,
> Deriued is inheritor to Fraunce.
> But note the rancor of rebellious mindes:
> When thus the lynage of (le) Bew was out,
> The French obscurd your mothers Priuledge,
> And, though she were the next of blood, proclaymed
> Iohn, of the house of Valoys, now their king:
> The reason was, they say, the Realme of Fraunce,
> Repleat with Princes of great parentage,
> Ought not admit a gouwenor to rule,
> Except he be discnded of the male;
> And thats the speciall ground of their contempt,
> Whereiwth they stufy to exclude your grace;
> But they shall finde that forged ground of theirs
> To be but dusty heaps of brittile sande.
> Perhaps it will be thought a heynous thing,
> That I, a French man, shoudl discouer this;
> But heauen I call to recorde of my vowes:
> It is not hate nor any priuat wronge,
> But loue vnto my country and the right,
> Prouokes my tongue, thus lauish in report.
> ...
>
> Every edition of Shakespeare that I have seen for general use
> standardizes the spelling so that the last four lines, for example,
> would read:
>
> But heaven I call to record of my vows:
> It is not hate nor any private wrong,
> But love unto my country and the right,
> Provokes my tongue, thus lavish in report.
>

An excellent passage you have chosen. It sets forth the
casus belli of the Hundred Years' War.


Francis A. Miniter
 >> Stay informed about: "Edited for the Modern Reader" 

On 6 huhti, 19:43, "Francis A. Miniter" <famini... DeleteThis @comcast.net> wrote:

[...]

> I have read The Lord of the Rings more times than
> I have any other book.  And still, or should I say still
> more, I appreciate the richness of his prose.   There are
> many passages where he deliberately uses vague allusion to
> stimulate the imagination of the reader.  And it works.
> Just look at the discussions in r.a.b.tolkien.   And for
> first sentences, I rank the opening lines of LOTR among the
> top five I have come across.

Book recommendation. You might enjoy _The Keys of Middle-Earth:
Discovering Medieval Literature through the Fiction of J.R.R.
Tolkien_,
by Stuart Lee. It's a study of which passages of medieval English
literature inspired specific passages of Tolkien's fiction. I'll give
you
just one example of the sort of thing it does. In _The Hobbit_ Bilbo
engages in a game of "riddes in the dark" underground with Gollum
(to stop Gollum from attacking him). That's a memorable passage.
In addition, in Peter Jackson's film Ian McKellen as Gandalf intones
these same words "riddes in the dark" in quite another context,
pondering over the mystery of the One Ring. Anyway, in _The Keys of
Middle-Earth_, Stuart Lee has dug up a medieval passage about a
game of riddles that is uncannily similar to Bilbo and Gollum's game.
It's an Old English passage to do with such a game of riddles between
the Biblical king Solomon and wise men from Persia. When I read this
explanation of the phrase "riddles in the dark" I knew I had to get
the book.

http://www.amazon.com/Keys-Middle-Earth-Discovering-Medieval-Literatur...p/14039
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erilar wrote:
>
> AHA ! A "modern reader", obviously. You like your Mark Twain
> abridged, I take it? And I shudder to think how you want Shakespeare
> rewritten.

I can't imagine the thought processes which would unironically rank J. R. R.
Tolkien with Mark Twain or William Shakespeare.

--
Christopher Adams
Sydney, Australia

For theirs is the power and this is their kingdom
As sure as the sun does burn
So enter this path, but heed these four words:
You shall never return
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"Christopher Adams" <mhacdeinvalidbhandia.TakeThisOut@yahoo.invalid>
wrote in news:u2eKj.6626$n8.4632@news-server.bigpond.net.au:

> I can't imagine the thought processes which would
unironically rank J. R. R.
> Tolkien with Mark Twain or William Shakespeare.

It's been fifty years, still too soon. Give it another fifty.
 >> Stay informed about: "Edited for the Modern Reader" 

On Sun, 06 Apr 2008 21:10:05 -0400, "Evelyn C. Leeper" <eleeper.TakeThisOut@optonline.net>
wrote:

>But heauen I call to recorde of my vowes:
>It is not hate nor any priuat wronge,
>But loue vnto my country and the right,
>Prouokes my tongue, thus lauish in report.
>...
>
>Every edition of Shakespeare that I have seen for general use
>standardizes the spelling so that the last four lines, for example,
>would read:
>
>But heaven I call to record of my vows:
>It is not hate nor any private wrong,
>But love unto my country and the right,
>Provokes my tongue, thus lavish in report.

Have they done that to the "King James" Bible too?


--
Steve Hayes
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/litmain.htm
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/hayesstw
http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/Methodius
 >> Stay informed about: "Edited for the Modern Reader" 

On Sun, 6 Apr 2008 12:44:51 -0700, "Mike Schilling"
<mscottschilling.DeleteThis@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Gene Ward Smith wrote:
>> "Francis A. Miniter" <faminiter.DeleteThis@comcast.net> wrote in
>> news:jc-dndcqp49YYGXanZ2dnUVZ_sqinZ2d@comcast.com:
>>
>>> And for
>>> first sentences, I rank the opening lines of LOTR among the
>>> top five I have come across.
>>
>> You mean "When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he
>> would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with
>> a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and
>> excitement in Hobbiton."?
>
>IOW, Tolkien hadn't yet figured out how much darker the sequel would
>be than The Hobbit was.

Unlikely.

As in "The hobbit", Tolkien is making the reader aware that hobbits are the
last kind of people one would expect to have heroic adventures.



--
Steve Hayes
Web: http://hayesfam.bravehost.com/litmain.htm
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/hayesstw
http://www.bookcrossing.com/mybookshelf/Methodius
 >> Stay informed about: "Edited for the Modern Reader" 

Christopher Adams wrote:
> erilar wrote:
>
>>AHA ! A "modern reader", obviously. You like your Mark Twain
>>abridged, I take it? And I shudder to think how you want Shakespeare
>>rewritten.
>
>
> I can't imagine the thought processes which would unironically rank J. R. R.
> Tolkien with Mark Twain or William Shakespeare.
>

You've talked with me often enough. Though I admit, you probably
can't imagine my thought processes any more than I could imagine yours.

Though I'd rank Tolkien above Twain, slightly.

--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
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In article <47f97464$0$5603$607ed4bc@cv.net>,
"Evelyn C. Leeper" <eleeper.TakeThisOut@optonline.net> wrote:

> erilar wrote:
> >
> > AHA ! A "modern reader", obviously. You like your Mark Twain abridged,
> > I take it? And I shudder to think how you want Shakespeare rewritten.
>
> I hope everyone is aware that almost all editions of Shakespeare do at
> least modernize the spelling.
>

It's not as if English spelling was particularly regular back then--just
a bit messier than it has become. Changing the spelling is one thing;
changing or cutting the words is quite another.

--
Mary Loomer Oliver (aka Erilar)

You can't reason with someone whose first line of argument is
that reason doesn't count. --Isaac Asimov

Erilar's Cave Annex: http://www.chibardun.net/~erilarlo 
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