{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5503", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 5503, "subject": "(no subject)", "messages": 3, "voices": 3, "first": "2009-10-30T18:43:25+00:00", "last": "2009-10-30T19:19:24+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "<51689E4643829846ACEE6B537CC1BB5202A83D93@cleralawexc02.ralaw.com>", "from": { "name": "Herbert, Joseph", "address": "jherbert at ralaw.com" }, "date": "2009-10-30T18:43:25+00:00", "subject": "(urth) (no subject)", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Ormsby - translator of Don Quixote\n\nJohn Ormsby (1829-1895) was a nineteenth-century British translator\n . He is most famous for his 1885 English translation\nof Miguel de Cervantes ' Don Quixote de la\nMancha , perhaps the most scholarly and\naccurate English translation of the novel up to that time. It is so\nprecise that Samuel Putnam , who published his own\nEnglish translation of the novel in 1949, faults Ormsby for duplicating\nCervantes' pronouns so closely that the meaning of the sentences\nsometimes becomes confusing. (Precision is what Wolfe would prize most.)\nOrmsby's translation has seen more editions than any other\nnineteenth-century English version of the novel, having been included in\nthe Heritage Book Club series of great novels, and in the famous Great\nBooks of the Western World \nset. The contemporaneous translations by Alexander J. Duffield\n (1881)\nand Henry Edward Watts\n (1888)\nhave been virtually forgotten. Ormsby's translation was the first\nEnglish version of Cervantes's book to appear complete on the Internet.\nOrmsby not only translates the novel; he provides a long and informative\nintroduction with a brief analysis of all the major English versions of\n\"Don Quixote\" up to then (except for the Duffield version), as well as\nexplaining the choices that he himself made in translating the novel. He\nalso features a short biography of Cervantes in his introduction, as\nwell as providing his own controversial analysis of the work. Ormsby\nrefutes the widely accepted view that \"Don Quixote\" is a sad novel with\nallegorical meanings and a pessimistic philosophy, and states that\nbecause Cervantes himself declared it to be a satire against books of\nchivalry, it is primarily only that, although it does contain much\nobservation on human character. Ormsby also refutes, in addition, the\ncommonly held view that Don Quixote is an innately noble person, stating\nthat his nobility of character is an attitude that he assumes simply to\nimitate his knightly heroes. An 1886 edition of the Quarterly Review\n , published only a year after Ormsby's\ntranslation was first issued, took him to task for his limited\ninterpretation of the novel and of Don Quixote's character, while\npraising the accuracy of the translation. [1] <> \n\n(I think that's what Wolfe intends. That we read his story and wish to\nimitate his hero. Like he read the stories of knights as a boy and\nwished to imitate the hero (like I did a long time ago too). That is\nalso, I believe, why he chose a boy changed into a man (who is still a\nboy inside) as a hero. All the better that we readers recall our desire\nto imitate the hero while at the same time reflecting on our current\nlives and measuring how closely we reached the mark we set ourselves as\nboys . . . \nI think it was a beautiful thing indeed what he did in writing the book\nthis way. It rang me like a bell I can tell you.\n\nIs \"arthur ormsby\" another name for King arthur?. Pendragon - but what\nwas the common name, family name? . . . \n\n\nAny federal tax advice contained herein or in any attachment \nhereto is not intended to be used, and cannot be used, to (1)\navoid penalties imposed under the Internal Revenue Code or \n(2) support the promotion or marketing of any transaction or \nmatter. This legend has been affixed to comply with U.S. \nTreasury Regulations governing tax practice." } ] }, { "message_id": "<1f7617370910301200o147ba2eby39d793ab3f017b5b@mail.gmail.com>", "from": { "name": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes", "address": "danldo at gmail.com" }, "date": "2009-10-30T19:00:35+00:00", "subject": "(urth) (no subject)", "in_reply_to": "<51689E4643829846ACEE6B537CC1BB5202A83D93@cleralawexc02.ralaw.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 11:43 AM, Herbert, Joseph wrote:\n\n Is \"arthur ormsby\" another name for King arthur?. Pendragon - but what\nwas the common name, family name? . . ." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Well, I pointed out way-back-when that \"pen\" and \"by\" can both mean \"near,\"\nwhile \"orm\" is an old spelling of \"worm,\" or \"dragon.\"" }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Dan'l Danehy-Oakes" } ] }, { "message_id": "<10749.67.142.130.39.1256930364.squirrel@brunians.org>", "from": { "name": "brunians at brunians.org", "address": "brunians at brunians.org" }, "date": "2009-10-30T19:19:24+00:00", "subject": "(urth) (no subject)", "in_reply_to": "<1f7617370910301200o147ba2eby39d793ab3f017b5b@mail.gmail.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Right, Dan'l.\n\nI didn't think that there was any doubt about any of this.\n\n\n." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 11:43 AM, Herbert, Joseph\nwrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": " Is \"arthur ormsby\" another name for King arthur?. Pendragon - but what\nwas the common name, family name? . . ." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Well, I pointed out way-back-when that \"pen\" and \"by\" can both mean\n\"near,\"\nwhile \"orm\" is an old spelling of \"worm,\" or \"dragon.\"\n\n\n--\nDan'l Danehy-Oakes\n_______________________________________________" } ] } ] }