Old school books...

[fajrdrako]

From last week's Booking Through Thursday:

1. Do you have any old school books? Did you keep yours from college? Old textbooks from garage sales? Old workbooks from classes gone by?


I do have some old text books; my favourite is from a high school correspondence course I took with the Ontario Ministry of Education back when I was an undergraduate, Latin for Canadian Schools. It's still my favourite Latin text. I have a poetry book from Grade 13 that I love, that contains things like Don Marquis' Archy and Mehitabel and T.S. Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, and notes that my friend Paula made in red ink when I let her borrow my book.

I kept a few books from university, mostly beloved primary sources like Boccaccio's Decameron and Dante's Devine Comedy. There's a 2-volume set of an overview of Italian Literature that I always meant to keep, but I don't seem to have it any more. Also Il Gattopardo by di Lampedusa. Odds and ends of Renaissance literature and philosophy.

From my post-graduate work, not so much; most of the primary sources weren't things you could purchase, and we used few secondary sources - I owned Runciman's A History of The Crusades, of course, and still have it. I did acquire A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea by William of Tyre about a decade after I graduated. I love it.


2. How about your old notes, exams, papers? Do you save them? Or have they long since gone to the great Locker-in-the-sky?


I kept my master's thesis... I think. That's about it!

Comments

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

what was your master's thesis about?

And more wondering, what were the demands for your thesis (I mean, size, estimated time working on it, amount of texts cited etc.). Do you remember anything of that sort?

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

One of my favourites, long-retained, is Waddell's The Wandering Scholars: a truly magical volume.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

My thesis. It was called "Genoese Involvement in the First Crusade: A Study of Caffaro de Caschifellone's De Liberatione Civitatis Orientem". Caffaro (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffaro_di_Rustico_da_Caschifellone) was a soldier-nobleman from Genoa who participated in the First Crusade, which was of considerable importance to the various Italian city-states. He later wrote his memoirs telling what he observed of the Crusade - and carried on with later historical events of his time that he either took part in or observed.

I wrote it in about six months... with a delay because I was having health problems; I got an extension, but it was supposed to be done in 6 months and that was about the amount of time I spent writing it. I don't remember how many pages or words it was, and it's currently in my downstairs locker where it's hard to check.

It was hard work but very satisfying.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes! That's a wonderful one - do I still have my copy? I think I do, but I can't think where.

[wanderinunicorn.livejournal.com]

I made my MA in jura in Warsaw, I'm actually lawyer. That's all gone with the wind. I can't even translate my master's thesis as complicate as it was.
Then I went to Vienna and made a Translator School (but it was at the University of Vienna). I had to made translations as my promotion (German-Polish and Russian-German). These translations I still have. I could choose the theme; German-Polish translation was, among other, about Chinese terracota soldiers and the Russian-German had a title "Old Kiew". It was my love-declaration to archeology.

[silverwhistle.livejournal.com]

A lot of my stuff, including the bound PhD, are at my parents'. I gave away a lot of my Mediæval History books to charity shops a few years ago - including, alas! my autographed Runcimans - little realising I would go back to it. But I have been able to get more up-to-date ones!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

My stuff was at my parents' for several years, but my mother died, my father moved - it was a shock to lose all that storage space! I've never had much room to keep my things, which is one of the reasons I remain stubbornly non-materialistic and try not to keep things just for the sake of keeping them. It complicates life.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

What a wonderful combination of archeology, history and language - three of my great loves! Those Chinese terracotta soldiers are fascinating.

I wondered if I would still be able to read Caffaro's writing; probably, with time and some applied work, and a couple of dictionaries. His Latin wasn't very good - he was a soldier, not a scholar! - and he used Italian words among the Latin fairly often. Which was actually rather fun - inelegant in terms of scholarship, no doubt, but it gave the prose a nice sense of almost-colloquial style.

[wanderinunicorn.livejournal.com]

I wondered if I would still be able to read Caffaro's writing

I amire people, who can read Latin (and I'm envious); I can't that. I had to learn Latin while studying ius in Warsaw; and then in Vienna I first wanted to study the Archeology- so I had to make an examen in Latin, because it was a condition for this. Now I have forgotten my Latin, exept maybe a couple of words, like for example: "Nemo plus iuris in alium transfere potest quam ipse habet" or "Lex retro non agit". What a shame.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

WhenI was working on my Master's and reading a lot of Latin (and medeival French and Italian) my Latin was really rather good, though I had to look up a lot of words. In the intervening years I haven't practised it enough, so now I'm studying it all over again, online - and yes, it's somewhat easier than it was the first time, it's coming back to me, but not as fast or as clearly as I'd like. Latin for Canadian Schools and Wheelock's Latin are standing me in good stead.

I was also translating The Voyages of St. Brendan with an online group last year - that was terrific fun, but I sort of fell off the boat through lack of time and energy.

Lex retro non agit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lex_retro_non_agit) - Fannish translation: "Lex Luthor didn't do anything before."

"Nemo plus iuris in alium transfere potest quam ipse habet" - um, non-fannish translation, let's see if I can do this - "No one can legally give away something which he does not himself own" - is that more or less it?

[wanderinunicorn.livejournal.com]

"Nemo plus iuris in alium transfere potest quam ipse habet" - um, non-fannish translation, let's see if I can do this - "No one can legally give away something which he does not himself own" - is that more or less it?

Excelent translation! You're really good!

Sorry, for the silence, but my tooth, or rather the place, where it was, was about to kill me with pain. The dentist haven't made a good job. But now it's better, and I'm optimistic again.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Excelent translation! You're really good!

Thank you! For the past couple of weeks I've been really diligent about reading or studying some Latin every day, and though sometimes I think I'm making no progress at all, other times I think it's getting much easier as my vocabulary expands and sentences start to spontaneously make sense - even if I don't recall all the grammatical rules.

I hope your tooth continues to get better, and to be painless agian soon. Tooth pain is horrible! (And you don't need me to tell you that.)