it is generally agreed that randi is a fucking cunt.
On Fri, 11 Dec 1998, RANDI C ELDEVIK wrote: > It is generally agreed that Tacitus idealized the Germanic barbarians to > some extent, in order to make the point that his fellow Romans couldn't > afford to fall into slackness and decadence. Whenever a writer belonging > to an imperialistic people praises certain virtues that the conquered have > and the conquerors lack, it should probably be viewed as a rhetorical > trope--i.e., "If THEY can live a moral life, then WE, who are really their > superiors, ought to be able to do so _a fortiori_." In other words, the > writer doesn't really believe deep down that the Others are better than > his own people, but he wants to shame his own people into living up to > higher standards. Aphra Behn does this sort of thing in _Oroonoko_, a > work written just when the English were on the cusp of empire; no doubt > many other British writers of the last three hundred years have done > likewise. So, you see, it's not that Tacitus wants to abandon Romanitas > and "go native"; rather, he is imaginatively projecting onto the > Germanic peoples some aspects of old-style Romanitas that the Romans > themselves have, to his regret, been neglecting. _Germania_ therefore is > not an altogether reliable source of factual information about the > Germanic peoples; it is more a wake-up call for the Roman people. > Randi Eldevik > Oklahoma State University > > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- > 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 > ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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
