...for the German Romance philologists of the early twentieth century with their formidable training in languages, history, literature, law, theology, and general culture, mere erudition was not enough. Obviously you could not do the basic reading if you had not mastered Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Provencal, Italian, French and Spanish in addition to German and English. Nor could you if you did not know the traditions, main canonical authors, politics, institutions, and cultures of the time, as well as, of course, all of their interconnected arts. A philologist's training had to take many years...
- Edward Said, introduction to Mimesis by Erich Auerbach
Philologists are cool.
Oh by the way, I've killed the star-rating system on my reading list, because: a) who am I to judge; and b) I'm not selling anything; and c) I don't like "rating" things in my head as I'm reading them. Too distracting.
I only know the word "mimesis" because Sheldon Cooper used-and explained-it.
ReplyDeletewhew
It's a terrific book - way over my head, but I like it a lot so far.
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