Two points:
1. I agree that the Aeneid in translation generally fails to "grab" students as strongly as the Iliad and the Odyssey in translation do (I began studying Greek because I liked the Iliad and the Odyssey in English translation so much, but it took the Latin text of the Aeneid for me to get interested in the Aeneid), but even so I've had fairly good success with Robert Fitzgerald's translation of the Aeneid, and that's the one I would recommend to teachers.
2. Tolkien certainly was not ignorant of the Greek and Latin languages, and he knew Classical literature. But they weren't his priorities. As a medievalist and a philologist of Germanic languages, he somewhat resented the larger amount of attention that Classical literature and languages generally received, and he had a vested interest in overturning the then-accepted hierarchy that placed Classical literature at the top. So as a rhetorical strategy Tolkien tended to disavow any interest in Greek and Roman epic, and he liked to deny that they had any influence on _The Lord of the Rings_. This has always exasperated me a bit, since I can't help thinking of the Iliad every time I read the chapters on the Siege of Minas Tirith in _The Lord of the Rings_. But it's a complicated situation. In a way, Tolkien is being disingenuous in his dismissal of Classical epic, but for all that he's being utterly sincere when he says he treasures the scraps of Saxon and Gothic we have extant more than all of Greek and Roman literature, and when he says he would gladly trade all of Homer's poems for more information on the lost legend of Wade Partly it comes down to glosso-esthetics, if I may coin such a term: Tolkien was acutely sensitive to the sounds of different languages, and he didn't much care for the sounds Latin and Greek, but he was utterly ravished by the sounds of Gothic, Old English, etc. And partly it's also a Keatsian attitude: "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard/ Are sweeter..." I can see it both ways, myself. I treasure the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid more than any other poems extant, but at the same time I'm ravenously curious to know the story of Wade--and I could tear my hair with frustration when I read about Charlemagne commanding traditional Germanic legends to be written down in the vernacular, and I reflect that not a single copy of any of them is extant!
Randi Eldevik
Oklahoma State University
| Larry Swain <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 01/06/04 05:14 PM
|
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] cc: (bcc: Randi C Eldevik/engl/cas/Okstate) Subject: RE: VIRGIL: teaching Aeneid in translation |
--- vincenzo crupi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
---------------------------------
Larry Swain scripsit:
AMen. One of the reasons I use Tolkien in a course
that deals in European epic literature is because he
drew so much from Vergil and Homer. If I recall
correctly, Classical Language and Literature was his
first "major" before! he switched to philology under
Sisam.
Et, mehercules, categoriae historiae aliquantum hic
strident:
horresco referens monstrum istud quod "European epic
literature" appellas!
Europaeae litterae nec revera sunt nec, si vestro
iudicio sint, tamen eundem vultum exhibent et
temporibus et locis. Tolkien animum applicat
philologiae impulsore Sisam ! Sed id quod tu
philologiam vocas rectius philologia Anglorum ad
Medium Aevum pertinens appell!
I'll only make a few brief comments to this diatribe.
First, I used philology in the sense that it was used
in British universities before World War I.
"Philology" at that period was used to describe the
nascent field undertaken in English departments by and
large of Indo-European linguistics. This of course
has changed drastically over the century, but in 1912,
that's the way it was. I also didn't say "impulsore
Sisam", I said under Sisam. Kenneth Sisam was
Tolkien's tutor in 1912 and it was during this time
that he migrated from the Classical faculty to the
English faculty.
Most of the rest of the message is beside the point.
Tolkien et al came from a period in which all of
European literature was seen as a continuum, two of
the great works that this generation produced was
Auerbach's Mimesis covering material from the ancient
to the modern world, and Curtius' magnum opus,
European Literature in the Latin Middle Ages which
assumed a continuity between the Classical past and
Medieval literature. That Tolkien also participated
in this view is apparent to anyone who has read any of
his scholarly pieces. That his fiction is influenced
by his scholarly life is also quite well known. That
he was embued with the Latin and Greek classics is
plain as day. That the classics, as well as other
sources, influenced his work is easily demonstrated.
Si ergo tam multiplex implicatumque est quod
Vergilius Graecis debet, ut qui duas tantum litteras
(latinas et Graecas) docent persaepe Vergilium ab
Homero disiunctum teneant, quo se res habet cum ad
Tolkenium fuga temporum locorumque ducit?
So the epic hero died with Vergil eh? And epic themes
were never dealt with in any subsequent literature?
And our great epics didn't influence later writers to
mimetic works and scenes? Please, spare us.
An impassioned plea to not do comparative literature
or to engage in studies that cross our dearly held
boundaries. I'm afraid I'm not going to try and
defend interdisciplinary studies, or interperiod
studies and comparative literature against the fear
that by doing so we have somehow devalued the context
of Vergil or of the study of that context. The best I
can do at the moment is to invite you to come and sit
in on my class, perhaps you'll learn something.
ljs
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply.
Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message
"unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You
can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
