Ouen and Dorcas and ??

DAVID STOCKHOFF · 07 Dec 2010, 18:41 · from 2010-December.txt.gz

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From: dstockhoff at verizon.net (DAVID STOCKHOFF)
Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2010 10:41:37 -0800 (PST)
Subject: (urth) Ouen and Dorcas and ??
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTinq2GjZXduBTjnJf4R8f=WgJTfWXbsYvyxZDOcw at mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <212726.85554.qm at web84106.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

I'm confused---why then do I have the names for all the epigraphs? Perhaps I did some research; that rings a bell....
At any rate, the best argument against G.W. being the source of the epigraphs is that the original 4 volumes actually seem to come from Severian, who addresses pertinent remarks to the reader at the end of each volume. So he is far from ignorant of literary conventions. And so he should be, with the Library so close at hand, and Ultan to call up any book for him.
On the other hand, such conventions are the editor's domain, and one could as well argue that G.W. fiddled with the endings.
And where is the poetry from the 25th century? There is good reason for G.W. to quote from 20th c and earlier poetry, but no reason for Severian whatsoever.

--- On Tue, 12/7/10, Andrew Mason <andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com> wrote:

From: Andrew Mason <andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com>
Subject: (urth) Ouen and Dorcas and ??
To: urth at lists.urth.net
Date: Tuesday, December 7, 2010, 9:41 AM

Jeff Wilson wrote:

> On 12/6/2010 7:33 PM, David Stockhoff wrote:
>>
>> Also, the epigraphs give it away---Severian has never heard of Kipling.
>
> But he has heard Kipling's work, however many times removed. The Boy
> Called Frog is Mowgli from _The Jungle Book_; the verse could have held
> its form better over the ages sufficient for the translator to recognize
> it and give the original. The bible verse for Joseph's dream has
> certainly survived.

There's no doubt that literature from 'our' time has survived, in a
disordered and fragmentary form, into Severian's.? Indeed one of the
passages used as an epigraph - the Fitzgerald - is actually quoted in
the text, I think by Barbatus or Famulimus. What is improbable is that
the names of authors have survived. (Curiously, names of authors are
not used with the epigraphs in the first two volumes, but are in the
later ones.)
>
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