"Edited for the Modern Reader"

In article <fuoc8h$1ev4$1@agate.berkeley.edu>,
David Goldfarb <goldfarb.TakeThisOut@OCF.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>
>
>In article <2008042313205816807-kurt@busiekcomics>,
>Kurt Busiek <kurt.TakeThisOut@busiek.comics> wrote:
>>It was Homer who had a vocabulary of 9000 words.
>>
>>All the above from Lederer's THE MIRACLE OF LANGUAGE
>
>I wonder how many entries there are in Autenrieth's Homeric lexicon?
>It's online, but the Perseus Project site doesn't have any obvious
>method of counting them.
>
>Homer is an odd case because his language combines words from
>many different dialects, thus resulting in a large number of
>synonyms for words like "go".
>

I read in one of Fagle's translations I think that having a lot of
different ways to say the same thing made it much easier for the
bard to fit the story into the very strict meter used. He (bards
before the final written form) might not memorize a whole text, but
he knew the story, and he always had a way to fit what he was saying
into the meter. (Conversely, there were apparently many greek words
which could *never* be made to fit into the Homeric meter and could not be
used at all).


Ted
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What's not in Columbia anymore..
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Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
> In article <fuoc8h$1ev4$1@agate.berkeley.edu>,
> David Goldfarb <goldfarb RemoveThis @OCF.Berkeley.EDU> wrote:
>>
>> Homer is an odd case because his language combines words from
>> many different dialects, thus resulting in a large number of
>> synonyms for words like "go".
>
> I read in one of Fagle's translations I think that having a lot of
> different ways to say the same thing made it much easier for the
> bard to fit the story into the very strict meter used. He (bards
> before the final written form) might not memorize a whole text, but
> he knew the story, and he always had a way to fit what he was saying
> into the meter. (Conversely, there were apparently many greek words
> which could *never* be made to fit into the Homeric meter and could not be
> used at all).

The meter is the reason one finds recurring phrases such as "the
wine-dark sea" and "cow-eyed Queen Hera".

See <http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/homer/qt/HomericEpithet.htm>.


--
Evelyn C. Leeper
All art at some time and in some manner becomes mass entertainment,
and if it does not it dies and is forgotten. --Raymond Chandler
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On Apr 20, 5:18 pm, "Cosmin Corbea"
<cosminc.TakeThisOut@spa_mtrap.canada.com.invalid> wrote:
> Christopher Adams wrote:
> > Jordan179 wrote:
>
> [Re: Sam Gamgee]
>
> >He's only ever excited by things which touch on
> > his commoner's interests (gardening, for instance), or which awe him
> > by their obvious superiority. He might be a hero, but he's a hero
> > because he never dares to think above his station - he's too
> > ensconced in a servile, humble mindset to be tempted by the power of
> > the Ring, which is Not For The Likes of Him.
>
> Neither statement is supported by the text. Sam Gamgee is excited by the
> tales he hears about dragons and wizards and especially elves; he learns
> poetry, and writes his own.

Indeed, Sam is one of the writers/editors of the _Red Book of
Westmarch_, the fictious work which Tolkien claimed as one of his
primary sources for his own work. This is high praise indeed, from a
scholar.
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On Apr 22, 9:37 pm, Kurt Busiek <k... RemoveThis @busiek.comics> wrote:
> On 2008-04-22 16:44:34 -0700, wdst... RemoveThis @panix.com (William December Starr) said:
>
> > (Suess, though not entirely my cup of tea, doesn't go anywhere near
> > as far in that direction.)
>
> Whether it's your cup of tea is irrelevant to whether it's in English,
> of course.  And since your argument was that people don't talk or write
> like that today, Seuss qualifies by your yardstick as "not English."  
> Closer than Shakespeare, perhaps, but not what you'll hear on the
> streets today, therefore not English.

Seuss, most of whose works could be classed as fantasy or science
fantasy, frequently neologized, and some of his neologisms have
entered common parlance today. _Everybody_ knows what a Grinch is.

He would sometimes ladle the neologisms on in list form, deliberately
unexplained or with explanations only vaguely implied by his
illustrations, as in _The Things That You'll Do_. Yet _small
children_ read him.

- Jordan
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Am Fri, 04 Apr 2008 23:34:28 -0500 schrieb Rebecca Rice:

> Francis A. Miniter wrote:
>> Barb wrote:
>>> "Dan Clore" <clore.RemoveThis@columbia-center.org> wrote in message
>>> news:47F5BF42.5090201@columbia-center.org...
>>>> 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:
>>>
>>>
>>> My opinion - it's simply because most people are more familiar with
>>> the course of events of addiction these days, whereas it didn't even
>>> appear on the radar of the "great unwashed" ?
>>>
>>> Barb UK
>>>
>>>
>> The original text was not intended to be instructive. What it was
>> doing was depicting the self-justifications the character employed at
>> each stage. The text is concerned with the ease with which the
>> character slipped into self-deception.
>>
>>
> It is? I didn't get that at all. I don't see him justifying why he's
> doing it... just describing the affect that using it has had on him.
> After all, the largest part that got chopped was the description of the
> highs alternating with the lows and the mundane, which is pretty well
> known to anyone now.
>
> Rebecca

Which is telling pretty much about the conception of a modern reader
anyway...
Why are we supposed to know these feelings? I mean yes, I know them and I
know many other people do too, but does everybody?
And how is it to justify to edit out these pieces from a work of art
which can and should be read only in the context it was written in?
Obviously this wasn't the most important thing in terms of plot, but it
was intended to be in there by the author.
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Am Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:28:19 +0000 schrieb Mike Schilling:

> Dan Clore wrote:
>> Mike Schilling wrote:
>>> Most of it is simplication and toning down of what today might seem
>>> over-dramatic, but WTF is :"Indian attendent" about? Did the
>>> translator used to have a beter-paying job that got offshored?
>>
>> The character had had servants in India.
>
> But only the "modern" version feels the need to emphasize their
> nationality.

Hmm... maybe for the original reader it would have held the connotations
"drug-addicted attendand" = "Indian/Chinese/other sort of foreigner"
I think the reasoning might be to also show the mindset of these days, in
which obviously no European could be addicted to drugs in the first place
without the malicious influence of a foreigner.
My guess... trying to show the racism of these days?
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Am Fri, 04 Apr 2008 09:24:23 -0700 schrieb Arthur Hansen:

> On Apr 4, 1:01 am, "Mike Schilling" <mscottschill... RemoveThis @hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Most of it is simplication and toning down of what today might seem
>> over-dramatic, but WTF is :"Indian attendent" about?  Did the
>> translator used to have a beter-paying job that got offshored?
>
> That is the point, it was overly boring and 'information overload'
> narrative that was bogging a concept which modern people are more
> familiar with these days.
>
> I'll probably have people with shotguns showing up at my house, but The
> Lord of the Rings Trilogy is in serious need of a modern rewrite to be
> relevant for todays audience.
>
> J.R.R. Tolkien's writing style is very, very dry and bogged down
> greatly.
>
> Arthur

The problem is that this actually is the intent of Tolkien who did not
write for readers (at least not solely) but for himself instead. In fact
I always was amazed at the way he actually managed to shift between
different styles of writing for different regions the tale was set in
(compare the language he uses when people are in Gondor with the one in
Rohan or the Shire)
I would actually say that Tolkiens Style is as eloquent as possible for
Fantasy, I never read any story in this genre which was written better or
more fluent (although Gaiman comes near that ideal sometimes), and I
normally can't start reading the book without getting captured
immediately.
The reason for that is that Tolkien uses language not only to tell his
tale but also to set a certain mood and describe actions and surroundings
by more than just descriptive language.
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Am Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:59:54 -0400 schrieb Sean O'Hara:

> In the Year of the Earth Rat, the Great and Powerful Arthur Hansen
> declared:
>> On Apr 4, 1:01 am, "Mike Schilling" <mscottschill....TakeThisOut@hotmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> Most of it is simplication and toning down of what today might seem
>>> over-dramatic, but WTF is :"Indian attendent" about? Did the
>>> translator used to have a beter-paying job that got offshored?
>>
>> That is the point, it was overly boring and 'information overload'
>> narrative that was bogging a concept which modern people are more
>> familiar with these days.
>>
>>
> If you believe "modern people" are morons, sure. But if that's the case,
> they should refrain from reading rather than having literature dumbed
> down for their reading level.

But "modern people" ARE morons!
Just like the people of every age since the beginning of time.
And most people actually refrain from reading either way.
But otherwise than that, I totally second your emotion!
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Am Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:17:45 -0700 schrieb Quadibloc:

> On Apr 3, 11:40 pm, Dan Clore <cl... DeleteThis @columbia-center.org> wrote:
>
>> I open the field for comment as to what this implies about "today's
>> reader".
>
> The horror!
>
> And supposedly, humanity wasn't going to revert to being unintelligent
> animals until Cthulhu rose and suppressed our minds with his telepathic
> powers. It seems to be starting early.
>
> John Savard

It's all Nyarli's fault, he likes to tamper with human brains way too
much...
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