I've added a Content Notice to this Blogger account's main page, just below the profile. It places a copyright on everything I've written here, 'except where noted'. The exceptions are those versions of the poem called "My Mandolin Sings", all of which are covered by a Creative Commons license, along with all posts those versions appeared in or directed the reader to see. Other than those, everything in this blog is copyrighted by me.
The individual copyright notices on other separate poems I wrote, posted and commented on here remain, just to make sure the distinction between them and "My Mandolin Sings" is crystal clear.
When I started this blog almost five years ago, I decided against including a specific copyright notice, because I wanted this material to be freely adaptable by anyone interested in doing so. I wanted to avoid inhibiting any reuse in any way.
But things have changed since then. This blog became longer and more involved, and the ideas and techniques within it became several entities that others could spin into a book or two, and -- for all I know -- earn themselves a considerable reputation and maybe even some money. This is a sensitive topic with me, so I have decided to copyright everything that rests herein, except "My Mandolin Sings" and its various versions and comments.
That this weblog could be adapted into a book of my own has obviously also occurred to me. That's why I created the Chronological Archive sidebar and the book-like organization under Pages, so clearly I have no problem with either approach, as long as I'm the one providing them.
I also have no problem with anyone using materials herein to stimulate their own original creative thinking and writing. That is, in fact, this blog's purpose.
One of my heroes is John Milton, who wrote many things with no expectation of any financial return whatsoever. We'd probably nowadays call that his pro bono work, borrowing a term from lawyers who take clients unable to pay them 'for the public good'. I doubt whether you can separate Milton's work like that -- he wrote everything he did largely for others' benefit -- but I think you get my drift. This blog is here for you to use as you see fit, but it's not here to steal.
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I want to acknowledge those who transmitted, informed and otherwise contributed to the contents of this blogbook. It was my great good fortune to have some of the best professors I could have had during my college years, and parts of their lectures remain with me like gems in a vault.
For various reasons, I don't want to mention the most influential by name at this time. However, I will say my courses in literature, language, philosophy and science at Pfeiffer College in Misenheimer, NC, during the early 1970s, and English literature (especially for Chaucer, Shakespeare and the British novel) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the mid-1970s fill that storehouse I've found so valuable.
This is also true largely of the brother blog to this one
notinourstarsbutinourselves.blogspot.com
though the acknowledgements there would cull from a much larger list of courses and professors. As to my true teaching master the whole time, I think the titles to both blogs say it all.
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Monday, October 1, 2012
Homework
Ancient Greek had two 'hands' -- a cursive or 'running' hand that was used for everyday writing and a 'book' hand that was used by scribes on scrolls. This book hand was called 'uncial' -- from a term that means 'twelfth part'. In short (ow), you could get twelve letters (formally called 'characters') per line on average in a scroll book.
This Greek uncial created scrolls in papyrus and much later on parchment for an early type of book called a 'codex'. But, as the ancient world gave way to the Middle Ages, this uncial hand got less readable as less-able hands put quill to vellum.
In the 9th Century, some Greek monks reformed the whole thing, creating 'minuscule'. This prompted a publishing revolution -- partly because you could get a lot more letters per book in minuscule, and partly because they were easier for copyists to make. Books got smaller, cheaper and then more widespread, as demand increased production.
But making sure scribes had the best texts to copy in the first place took painstaking research and careful forethought. Awareness that this was even necessary for holy writ took centuries, as did methods for doing it right, since ideas about and techniques for both largely passed with pagan antiquity. The whole process, such as it was, stayed inside the monastery until Renaissance humanism put another revolution in motion.
Though the famous Aldine press in Venice had been publishing typeset Greek literary classics for some time before that, the first New Testament in Greek set in movable type was printed in 1514 at a university in Spain under the auspices of a cardinal there as part of a multi-language project for the entire Bible. Some 200 characters were created for this and similar projects to represent all 24 Greek letters and their many scribal variations, along with combinations of Greek letters called 'ligatures'.
While this multi-language (called a polyglot) version was waiting for the pope's OK, Erasmus edited his own version of the Greek NT and got it published by a Swiss printer named Froben before the Catholic polyglot came out. (That's why Erasmus gets the credit. Whether he was racing to do that remains unclear.)
After the success of Erasmus, presses in France, Switzerland and Italy got busy with their versions in several sizes. Soon afterward, most of the literate Western world could get hold of a Greek book in some form with a far more familiar (to them) Latin translation on the facing page.
That's what I found, in a nutshell. However, the details of this story are much more complex. I'll let those interested find more on their own.
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BTW, the digamma's name was pronounced more like 'vau'. And there were several other Greek letters that had dropped out of the ancient written language besides that one.
And one more note: I got all the above from books I have, not from the Internet. You do need books. Written by knowledgeable people. There just is no substitute.
This Greek uncial created scrolls in papyrus and much later on parchment for an early type of book called a 'codex'. But, as the ancient world gave way to the Middle Ages, this uncial hand got less readable as less-able hands put quill to vellum.
In the 9th Century, some Greek monks reformed the whole thing, creating 'minuscule'. This prompted a publishing revolution -- partly because you could get a lot more letters per book in minuscule, and partly because they were easier for copyists to make. Books got smaller, cheaper and then more widespread, as demand increased production.
But making sure scribes had the best texts to copy in the first place took painstaking research and careful forethought. Awareness that this was even necessary for holy writ took centuries, as did methods for doing it right, since ideas about and techniques for both largely passed with pagan antiquity. The whole process, such as it was, stayed inside the monastery until Renaissance humanism put another revolution in motion.
Though the famous Aldine press in Venice had been publishing typeset Greek literary classics for some time before that, the first New Testament in Greek set in movable type was printed in 1514 at a university in Spain under the auspices of a cardinal there as part of a multi-language project for the entire Bible. Some 200 characters were created for this and similar projects to represent all 24 Greek letters and their many scribal variations, along with combinations of Greek letters called 'ligatures'.
While this multi-language (called a polyglot) version was waiting for the pope's OK, Erasmus edited his own version of the Greek NT and got it published by a Swiss printer named Froben before the Catholic polyglot came out. (That's why Erasmus gets the credit. Whether he was racing to do that remains unclear.)
After the success of Erasmus, presses in France, Switzerland and Italy got busy with their versions in several sizes. Soon afterward, most of the literate Western world could get hold of a Greek book in some form with a far more familiar (to them) Latin translation on the facing page.
That's what I found, in a nutshell. However, the details of this story are much more complex. I'll let those interested find more on their own.
___
BTW, the digamma's name was pronounced more like 'vau'. And there were several other Greek letters that had dropped out of the ancient written language besides that one.
And one more note: I got all the above from books I have, not from the Internet. You do need books. Written by knowledgeable people. There just is no substitute.
