Posts Tagged ‘Bloomsday’
“Any typos in this email are on purpose actually”*…
Jennifer Sandlin on a gremlin we’ve all met…
The next time you make a mistake in your writing, or pick up something you’ve published and instantly spot a typo (argh!), don’t fret, it wasn’t your fault! Instead of taking on the shame of not proof-reading your work thoroughly enough, you can just point to Titivillus instead!
Who is Titivillus, you might ask? Well, he’s a demon who has long been blamed for, according to Princeton University’s Medieval Studies department, “slips and sins in song, speech, and writing.” In fact, Medieval Studies scholar Jan Ziolkowski, from Harvard University, traces his origins back to at least 1200, when he began showing up in paintings and sermons in medieval Europe and beyond. And he’s definitely got staying power, as he’s still beloved today in some circles. Princeton University provides this helpful overview of his origins and reach:
Thanks to today’s dominance of English, Titivillus is regarded as especially particular to medieval England, but he became commonplace far beyond the Continent and survived past the Middle Ages to appear in Rabelais, the earliest Slovak literature, Anatole France, Herman Melville, and W. H. Auden, before finally having a novel devoted to him in 1953. He remains unforgotten, a curio beloved among calligraphers and role-play gamers…
“Got typos? Blame Titivillus, the “medieval demon of typos” from @boingboing.net.
* Ryan Broderick– the tag line in his nifty newsletter, Garbage Day
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As we correct, we might ponder a very specific path, recalling that today– and every June 16– is Bloomsday, a commemoration and celebration of the life of Irish writer James Joyce (whose typos may or may not have been typos), during which the events of his novel Ulysses (the modern classic set on this date in 1904) are relived: Leopold Bloom goes about Dublin, Joyce’s immortalization of his first outing with Nora Barnacle, the woman who would eventually become his wife.
The first Bloomsday was observed on the 50th anniversary of the events in the novel, in 1954, when John Ryan (artist, critic, publican and founder of Envoy magazine) and the novelist Brian O’Nolan organized what was to be a daylong pilgrimage along the Ulysses route. They were joined by Patrick Kavanagh, Anthony Cronin, Tom Joyce (a dentist who, as Joyce’s cousin, represented the family interest), and AJ Leventhal (a lecturer in French at Trinity College, Dublin).
“We’re all pilgrims on the same journey but some pilgrims have better road maps”*…
Tis the season for road trips. These days, we tend to navigate via Google Maps; but for centuries, travelers relied on road atlases. From the Bodleian Library‘s Map Room, a wonderful example from the 18th century…
As a general rule we do not fold our atlases in half. It would be bad for them, and probably quite difficult. This is a rare example of an atlas that was designed to be folded in half.
It’s an early road atlas to be carried while traveling. When the soft, rather tattered brown leather covers are opened, it reveals that a previous owner has made some notes of place names and distances in the inside of the cover.
The book itself could be folded or rolled, making it smaller and more portable. It is Thomas Kitchin’s Post-chaise companion, and dates from 1767. It has clearly grown accustomed to being folded in half, as can be seen from the weights required to hold it open for photography:
The very earliest road atlases date from the seventeenth century. Previously travellers relied on road books, lists of names that would enable them to ask the way from one town to the next. Arguably the first road atlas was produced by Matthew Simmons in the 1630s, with triangular distance tables (like those sometimes found in modern road atlases) and very tiny maps. The big innovation was John Ogilby’s Britannia in 1675, which used strip maps to show the major roads throughout Great Britain in unprecedented detail; this design continued to be copied for over a century, as can be seen here. Britannia was however a large volume, too bulky to transport easily.
Perhaps surprisingly, it was around fifty years after the publication of Britannia before smaller, more portable versions were produced, and then rival versions by three different publishers appeared around the same time in the 1720s; one of these, by Emanuel Bowen, was reissued in multiple editions into the 1760s. Thomas Kitchin, who produced this work, had been apprenticed to Bowen, and had married Bowen’s daughter before setting up as an independent mapmaker, embarking on a long, prolific and successful career, and being appointed Hydrographer to George III.
Although many road atlases of this period survive, the binding is what makes this one unusual. Its appearance caused a certain amount of excitement in the Map Room as some of us had heard of road atlases being made to this design, but had never seen one before. Unsurprisingly the soft backed versions are less likely to have survived, being less robust and more heavily used than the hardbacks. The fact that this one has the notes relating to a previous owner’s journeys makes it additionally interesting…
A traveler’s companion: “On the road,” at @bodleianlibs.
* Nelson DeMille
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As we plan a route, we might ponder a very specific path, recalling that today– and every June 16– is Bloomsday, a commemoration and celebration of the life of Irish writer James Joyce, during which the events of his novel Ulysses (a modern classic set on this date in 1904) are relived: Leopold Bloom goes about Dublin, James Joyce’s immortalization of his first outing with Nora Barnacle, the woman who would eventually become his wife.
The first Bloomsday was observed on the 50th anniversary of the events in the novel, in 1954, when John Ryan (artist, critic, publican and founder of Envoy magazine) and the novelist Brian O’Nolan organized what was to be a daylong pilgrimage along the Ulysses route. They were joined by Patrick Kavanagh, Anthony Cronin, Tom Joyce (a dentist who, as Joyce’s cousin, represented the family interest), and AJ Leventhal (a lecturer in French at Trinity College, Dublin).
“A children’s story that can only be enjoyed by children is not a good children’s story in the slightest”*…
The “children’s book” effectively dates from the mid-18th century (before which children’s reading was generally confined to literature intended for their education and moral edification rather than for their amusement). Since then, there’s been an extraordinary– and illuminating– flowering…
We can learn much about how a historical period viewed the abilities of its children by studying its children’s literature. Occupying a space somewhere between the purely didactic and the nonsensical, most children’s books published in the past few hundred years have attempted to find a line between the two poles, seeking a balance between entertainment and instruction. However, that line seems to move closer to one pole or another depending on the prevailing cultural sentiments of the time. And the very fact that children’s books were hardly published at all before the early 18th century tells us a lot about when and how modern ideas of childhood as a separate category of existence began.
“By the end of the 18th century,” writes Newcastle University professor M.O. Grenby, “children’s literature was a flourishing, separate and secure part of the publishing industry in Britain.” The trend accelerated rapidly and has never ceased—children’s and young adult books now drive sales in publishing (with 80% of YA books bought by grown-ups for themselves)…
More– and a chance to do your own exploration– at “Enter an Archive of 6,000 Historical Children’s Books, All Digitized and Free to Read Online,” from @openculture. Go directly to the 6,000+ titles in the Baldwin Library of Historical Children’s Literature here.
And as a bonus, visit the 1,800+ titles in UCLA Children’s Book Collection at the Internet Archive.
* C. S. Lewis
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As we turn the page, we might turn back to “adult” literature and recall that today– and every June 16– is Bloomsday, a commemoration and celebration of the life of Irish writer James Joyce, during which the events of his novel Ulysses (a modern classic set on this date in 1904) are relived: Leopold Bloom goes about Dublin, James Joyce’s immortalization of his first outing with Nora Barnacle, the woman who would eventually become his wife.
The first Bloomsday was observed on the 50th anniversary of the events in the novel, in 1954, when John Ryan (artist, critic, publican and founder of Envoy magazine) and the novelist Brian O’Nolan organized what was to be a daylong pilgrimage along the Ulysses route. They were joined by Patrick Kavanagh, Anthony Cronin, Tom Joyce (a dentist who, as Joyce’s cousin, represented the family interest), and AJ Leventhal (a lecturer in French at Trinity College, Dublin).
“Your library teacher would say, ‘What happens to a generation that doesn’t read the Classics?’ Me, I’m not your library teacher. But I have some of the same questions and concerns, you know?”*…
A logistical note to those readers who subscribe by email: Google is discontinuing the Feedburner email service that (Roughly) Daily has used since its inception; so email will now be going via Mailchimp. That should be relatively seamless– no re-subscription required– but there may be a day or two of duplicate emails, as I’m not sure how quickly changes take effect at Feedburner. If so, my apologies. For those who don’t get (Roughly) Daily in their inboxes but would like to, the sign-up box is to the right… it’s quick, painless, and can, if you change your mind, be terminated with a click. And now, to today’s business…
My Atlantic colleague John McWhorter and I must have received the same high-frequency language-nerd alert, audible only to the types of people whose idea of fun is Esperanto grammar. We both recently learned that Princeton’s classics department had ceased requiring its students to study Latin and Greek, and we reacted in predictable horror. A classics department without Latin and Greek is like a math department without multiplication and division, or an art department without paint. More than a thousand years ago, the monk Ælfric prefaced his Latin Grammar by saying it was “the key that unlocks the understanding of books.” I had a vision of a new generation of Princeton classicists, sniffing and thwacking at padlocked volumes of Thucydides or Cicero with looks of total incomprehension, like Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson trying to get the files “in the computer” in Zoolander.
But then I remembered my own language training, and I’ve come around to Princeton’s point of view. My classical education started, oddly enough, just like Owen Wilson’s. We attended the same private school about a decade apart, and like all students, we were subjected to a mandatory year of Latin. (After that requirement was abolished, Wilson and his co-screenwriter Wes Anderson made the film Rushmore, in which the nixing of Latin from a prep-school curriculum is a plot point.) We had the same teacher, who told me that Wilson was one of the worst students he’d ever taught. I took another five years of Latin, plus four of Greek, while Wilson went off to find his fortune in Hollywood. I think even Ælfric would agree he got the better end of that deal…
Saving classics from oblivion? Graeme Wood (@gcaw) ponders the news: “Princeton Dumbs Down Classics.”
* poet and rapper Saul Williams
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As we decline to decline, lest we decline, we might recall that today– and every June 16– is Bloomsday, a commemoration and celebration of the life of Irish writer James Joyce, during which the events of his novel Ulysses (a modern classic set on this date in 1904) are relived: Leopold Bloom goes about Dublin, James Joyce’s immortalization of his first outing with Nora Barnacle, the woman who would eventually become his wife.
The first Bloomsday was observed on the 50th anniversary of the events in the novel, in 1954, when John Ryan (artist, critic, publican and founder of Envoy magazine) and the novelist Brian O’Nolan organized what was to be a daylong pilgrimage along the Ulysses route. They were joined by Patrick Kavanagh, Anthony Cronin, Tom Joyce (a dentist who, as Joyce’s cousin, represented the family interest), and AJ Leventhal (a lecturer in French at Trinity College, Dublin).
“Deep in the fundamental heart of mind and Universe there is a reason”*…
Why does the Universe exist? There are two questions here. First, why is there a Universe at all? It might have been true that nothing ever existed: no living beings, no stars, no atoms, not even space or time. When we think about this possibility, it can seem astonishing that anything exists. Second, why does this Universe exist? Things might have been, in countless ways, different. So why is the Universe as it is?…
Derek Parfit explores the most fundamental questions of all: “Why anything? Why this?” Part 2 here.
For a 3-D tour of the subject in question– the universe– see here (the source of the image above).
* Life, the Universe and Everything
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As we explore existence, we might recall that today– and every June 16– is Bloomsday, a commemoration and celebration of the life of Irish writer James Joyce, during which the events of his novel Ulysses (which is set on 16 June 1904) are relived: Leopold Bloom goes about Dublin, James Joyce’s immortalization of his first outing with Nora Barnacle, the woman who would eventually become his wife.
The first Bloomsday was observed on the 50th anniversary of the events in the novel, in 1954, when John Ryan (artist, critic, publican and founder of Envoy magazine) and the novelist Brian O’Nolan organized what was to be a daylong pilgrimage along the Ulysses route. They were joined by Patrick Kavanagh, Anthony Cronin, Tom Joyce (a dentist who, as Joyce’s cousin, represented the family interest), and AJ Leventhal (a lecturer in French at Trinity College, Dublin).
The crew for the first Bloomsday excursion
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