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Post by Deleted on Mar 15, 2017 14:43:39 GMT -5
How do you know these particular authors are well-bred, Sydney?
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Post by ahinton on Mar 15, 2017 18:13:07 GMT -5
How do you know these particular authors are well-bred, Sydney? I'm not certain that Sydney has actually asserted that the authors themselves were "well-bred" (whatever that might mean, if anything), but I do agree that the term itself requires credible explanation, definition and contextualisation. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 15, 2017 19:59:06 GMT -5
How do you know these particular authors are well-bred, Sydney? Just as our membership will already be aware that it takes one to know one, so like everything in life one has to be it to know it does one not kleines c. |
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Post by ahinton on Mar 16, 2017 1:17:09 GMT -5
How do you know these particular authors are well-bred, Sydney? Just as our membership will already be aware that it takes one to know one, so like everything in life one has to be it to know it does one not kleines c. "Does one" really? Can it reasonably be assumed that all of this forum's "membership will already be aware that it takes one to know one"? Has each such member first been consulted about this? People are not farm animals or racehorses, anyway, so the term "well bred" applied to humans seems hardly enlightening or informative. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2017 6:12:32 GMT -5
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Post by ahinton on Mar 16, 2017 6:52:47 GMT -5
Interesting that all but one of the examples cited here dates from at least 150 years ago. The implication (albeit no more than that) that people might not be expected to possess fine qualities unless "well-bred" is likewise a less than palatable notion. Moreover, the mind boggles at what a well-bred "whisper", "tongue", "distance" or "stare" might be; how might any such things be "bred" at all? |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2017 12:19:31 GMT -5
If I may address your question and/or answer directly, Sydney: How do you know these particular authors are well-bred, Sydney? Just as our membership will already be aware that it takes one to know one, so like everything in life one has to be it to know it does one not kleines c. Well, I am not (particularly) well-bred, Sydney, and many of our greatest writers are not particularly well-bred. One particular conspiracy theory states that Shakespeare could not possibly have written his greatest plays because he was not well-bred enough. Supporters of alternative candidates argue that theirs is the more plausible author, and that William Shakespeare lacked the education, aristocratic sensibility, or familiarity with the royal court that they say is apparent in the works. Those Shakespeare scholars who have responded to such claims hold that biographical interpretations of literature are unreliable in attributing authorship, and that the convergence of documentary evidence used to support Shakespeare's authorship (title pages, testimony by other contemporary poets and historians, and official records) is the same used for all other authorial attributions of his era. No such direct evidence exists for any other candidate, and Shakespeare's authorship was not questioned during his lifetime or for centuries after his death. Wikipedia - Shakespeare authorship questionTo be honest, I think that it is all snobbery. How could a grammar school boy from Stratford have written such masterpieces, not being particularly well-bred? Well, I think that the answer is that he did not need to be well-bred to produce works of such genius. Nor did Beethoven, for that matter, Sydney? |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2017 19:43:17 GMT -5
To be honest, I think that it is all snobbery. How could a grammar school boy from Stratford have written such masterpieces, not being particularly well-bred? Well, I think that the answer is that he did not need to be well-bred to produce works of such genius. Nor did Beethoven, for that matter . . . I agree. And I would add that the common conception of Shakespere is somewhat overblown. No person of breeding could have written so unimaginatively about horrors and violence as he did - which is why his work should always be Bowdlerised. The member's parallel with van Beethoven is instructive. We think do we not of the Turkish march plonked into the Ninth Symphony. I suppose that was put there because the thought is of all races, but why Turkish in particular? Perhaps simply because the Turks were the foreign race foremost in the vulgar Viennese mind of that time. |
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Post by ahinton on Mar 17, 2017 1:47:50 GMT -5
To be honest, I think that it is all snobbery. How could a grammar school boy from Stratford have written such masterpieces, not being particularly well-bred? Well, I think that the answer is that he did not need to be well-bred to produce works of such genius. Nor did Beethoven, for that matter . . . I agree. And I would add that the common conception of Shakespere is somewhat overblown. No person of breeding could have written so unimaginatively about horrors and violence as he did - which is why his work should always be Bowdlerised. The member's parallel with van Beethoven is instructive. We think do we not of the Turkish march plonked into the Ninth Symphony. I suppose that was put there because the thought is of all races, but why Turkish in particular? Perhaps simply because the Turks were the foreign race foremost in the vulgar Viennese mind of that time. I was about to agree with you but then read your deprecatory remarks about Shakespe are and the accusation of gratuitous vulgarity towards a passage in the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony (albeit by no means his best work, well-meaning as it is and splendid as certain passages in it undoubtedly are). The problem here is not only as kleines c well expresses it but also in the fact that no assumption should be made from this "breeding" nonsense that no one can ever escape from his/her own in order to achieve things that might not be expected of them in terms thereof. I'd be curious to know, for example, how what I have done relates to mine, whatever it might be! |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2017 14:46:00 GMT -5
I think that we therefore need some novels of the less well-bred, Sydney, if only for balance! Wikipedia - Don Quixote |
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Post by ahinton on Mar 18, 2017 1:14:33 GMT -5
I think that we therefore need some novels of the less well-bred, Sydney, if only for balance! Wikipedia - Don QuixoteBut who should judge the "breeders"? Kleines c is correct; snobbery pertains in this kind of thing. "Breeding"'s for farmers, horse-race owners, dog show contestants, medical experimenters et al. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2017 23:13:14 GMT -5
There is certainly no shortage of novels for or by the ill-bred. But perhaps our contributor ahinton might amuse us by citing one or two of his favourites . . . and drawing our attention to their highest - or should we say lowest - points?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 18, 2017 23:45:35 GMT -5
I think that we therefore need some novels of the less well-bred, Sydney, if only for balance! Wikipedia - Don QuixoteA translation by Tobias Smollett the Caledonian is worthy of note. It came out around 1755 and here it is. One wonders does one not whence arose his superior Spanish equipment: Smollett's |
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Post by ahinton on Mar 19, 2017 3:33:33 GMT -5
There is certainly no shortage of novels for or by the ill-bred. But perhaps our contributor ahinton might amuse us by citing one or two of his favourites . . . and drawing our attention to their highest - or should we say lowest - points? Since I have scant belief in what it is that you're talking about, this would not be possible; sorry to disappoint. |
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