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larryhammerReading Wednesday? Oh yeah, that. It's a meme thing.
Lessee -- in the weeks since I last posted, I read some more from Encyclopedia Britannica 11th edition (1911) volume 11, but spent far more time on:
The Library of the World's Literature ed. by Warner et al. (1917), which, yes, being from the same period has many of the same blindnesses as EB, but it DOES cover 19th century continental authors in greater detail than I've been familiar with. The alphabetical by author/topic makes a pleasing arrangement, as you never know what you'll beblindsided by served next.
I'm not sure whether the introduction to Japanese literature is from the first (1896) or revised for second (1917) edition, but I suspect from the chronology the latter -- either way, though, it's … interesting. The first part, the historical summary, is surprisingly less wrong than I expected, given the time (and many of the wrongs are omissions by apparent ignorance), but the evaluative second part is a hot mess, even with its appreciation of Japanese poetry. The poetry translations are, btw, pretty dire: tanka into rhyming quatrains. That they selected only seasonal poems from the Kokinshu is probably significant of … something.
Also, I am, to put it mildly, bemused to see that Melville has a handful of selections, all from Typee. That … would not be my first choice of representation.
OTOH, I've found at least one thing worth tracking down more of, the romance dealing with the life and legendary exploits of Antar aka Antarah ibn Shaddad. Especially if I can find a recent translation.
Anyway, this week, between bouts of World Literature, I've also found (hat tip to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thistleingrey) The Wheel, the Horse, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World by David W. Anthony, which is an attempt to synthesize current archaeological and linguistic evidence about the speakers of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and their homeland. The linguistics stuff is of course fascinating, but the modern steppe archeology (drawing on current Russian and Ukrainian work) even more so. Am about ⅓ in.
(Maybe it's just Yuletide season, but I want fic about anthropomorphic PIE words, like *kʷekʷlo- arguing with
*rotā-.)
---L.
Subject quote from "The Pass of Kirkstone," William Wordsworth.
Lessee -- in the weeks since I last posted, I read some more from Encyclopedia Britannica 11th edition (1911) volume 11, but spent far more time on:
The Library of the World's Literature ed. by Warner et al. (1917), which, yes, being from the same period has many of the same blindnesses as EB, but it DOES cover 19th century continental authors in greater detail than I've been familiar with. The alphabetical by author/topic makes a pleasing arrangement, as you never know what you'll be
I'm not sure whether the introduction to Japanese literature is from the first (1896) or revised for second (1917) edition, but I suspect from the chronology the latter -- either way, though, it's … interesting. The first part, the historical summary, is surprisingly less wrong than I expected, given the time (and many of the wrongs are omissions by apparent ignorance), but the evaluative second part is a hot mess, even with its appreciation of Japanese poetry. The poetry translations are, btw, pretty dire: tanka into rhyming quatrains. That they selected only seasonal poems from the Kokinshu is probably significant of … something.
Also, I am, to put it mildly, bemused to see that Melville has a handful of selections, all from Typee. That … would not be my first choice of representation.
OTOH, I've found at least one thing worth tracking down more of, the romance dealing with the life and legendary exploits of Antar aka Antarah ibn Shaddad. Especially if I can find a recent translation.
Anyway, this week, between bouts of World Literature, I've also found (hat tip to
thistleingrey) The Wheel, the Horse, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World by David W. Anthony, which is an attempt to synthesize current archaeological and linguistic evidence about the speakers of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and their homeland. The linguistics stuff is of course fascinating, but the modern steppe archeology (drawing on current Russian and Ukrainian work) even more so. Am about ⅓ in.(Maybe it's just Yuletide season, but I want fic about anthropomorphic PIE words, like *kʷekʷlo- arguing with
*rotā-.)
---L.
Subject quote from "The Pass of Kirkstone," William Wordsworth.
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no subject
Date: 6 October 2016 03:35 am (UTC)I would totally read that.
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Date: 6 October 2016 02:52 pm (UTC)