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Rison posted:Shakespeare question tl;dr: Norton = cheap, Oxford = good notes, some textual changes, Arden = pretty good notes, less textual changes I'm taking a Shakespeare course at the moment and just finished a close reading of one scene (1 Henry IV, 4.2 in case anyone's interested) a few days ago, for which I used a few different editions - the Norton collected works (our set text), a modern Oxford, and an Arden from 1961. I didn't use the Cambridge, so I can't give you any advice on that, sorry. I've still got the photocopies lying around, and seeing a sample of the layout and level of detail for the same scene is probably a good way for you to figure out which one you like best, so here goes: Norton:  Full size This comes from the huge, single-volume tome we were set this semester. Pros: all the plays and sonnets in one place, marginal glosses, great historical introduction, juicy bits like Shakespeare's will, contemporary reviews and three versions of Lear, relatively cheap (paperback $90AUD) Cons: all the plays and sonnets in one place: 3500 fragile onionskin pages, really loving heavy, footnotes are limited in comparison with single-play volumes, minor textual changes aren't noted & major ones only mentioned in the introductions. As Facial Fracture pointed out, they use the Oxford text with a small number of emendations. It feels pretty faithful to me (but I really don't know enough yet to be passing judgment on emendations), but the footnotes are definitely minimal compared to the other scholarly editions. It sounds to me like you'd prefer to have more detail than the Norton provides, so I wouldn't recommend any of the Norton editions unless you really want to get lots of plays for minimal $ (there's a reason my book has 'International Student Edition' plastered all over the cover). Oxford:  Full size Pros: Great footnotes. As you can see, I'd highlighted everything useful I found in these two scholarly editions that wasn't in the Norton, and I think the Oxford footnotes came out slightly on top in terms of usefulness. Textual notes under the text itself. Cons: No marginal glosses, slightly less faithful to the original text than the Arden. The Oxford's notes are the best I've come across, and the textual changes are very minor (the only one that sticks out in my mind after studying this scene for hours on end is their choice of 'away at night' over 'away all night' in the Quarto, Arden, and Oxford). It's worth keeping in mind that these changes are usually made to remove what editors see as corruptions to the text, and are pretty conservative even then. (Although spelling modernisation is another matter and all the scholarly editions I've seen have modernised spellings - the only way I know of avoiding that is to get a facsimile of the Quartos or the Folio). Arden:  Full size This is a 1961 edition, but I checked a modern Arden I had lying around and the format is still pretty much the same except for minor typographical changes and the textual notes now being below the footnotes. Pros: Great footnotes. Maybe a little bit less relevant (although that could be the age of my edition showing) than the Oxford, but still enormously useful. Arden editions generally have great, detailed introductions as well (my Othello has ~150pp), and a pretty decent number of illustrations and maps. Not sure how the Oxford introductions compare. Cons: No marginal glosses My impression of the Arden was that the footnotes were slightly less useful than the Oxford's. They seem to refer to the same sources pretty often, though. I'd probably recommend the Oxford for your purposes (although I haven't seen the Cambridge editions). For a first read, any of these editions are going to be pretty good, but generally the more background info you can get/stand looking up, the more you'll enjoy the play. Good luck! kelmaon fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Apr 12, 2010 |
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Apr 12, 2010 16:02
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abagofcheetos posted:Any tips on buying used books online that don't charge and arm and a leg for shipping? I managed to find a single book seller on Amazon marketplace that had like 10 books I've been wanting to buy, but their policy is $4 shipping per item, period. I'll be damned if I pay $4 to ship a book I'm buying for $.10. Depending on the strength of your currency, http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/ is either good or unbelievably good. Free shipping.
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Jun 24, 2010 01:18
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inktvis posted:The Nobel announcement is set for next Thursday - time to start brushing up on your dissident authors. I am 100% certain that it will be Ko Un this year*, so I'll just go ahead and call it now. That seems like a pretty safe guess. Here are the Ladbrokes odds. It seems like a pretty thin field, although as an Australian I'm pleased to see Les Murray ranking so highly. And I love the fact that Bob Dylan is in there every year at 150 or 200:1.
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Oct 2, 2010 17:05
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I would recommend Soul Mountain pretty highly. It's a novel by the first Chinese winner of the Nobel for literature (Gao Xingjian), here's something I wrote about it in another thread: Soul Mountain is the semi-autobiographical story of a writer's journey around China after a (false) diagnosis of lung cancer. It's basically a series of linked vignettes set in various places around the country (around 80 if I remember correctly, ranging in length from 2 to 20 pages). The most interesting and difficult thing about it is that the protagonist splits during the course of the story into four pronouns - 'I', 'you', 'he', and 'she'. The conversations and interactions between them are a bit mind-bending, since it's never entirely clear whether they're figments of the protagonist's imagination or independent characters, but I suspect this was a difficulty in the translation (apart from this and a few untranslatable folk songs, the translation is excellent). It's a difficulty read but well worth it. I've just bought the first volume of The Story of the Stone, which is apparently a classic Chinese novel, although I suspect it may involve some concubines & court politics. Also worth checking out is the Chinese Literature thread on the World Literature Forums, where people who are very widely read in that field give some recommendations: http://www.worldliteratureforum.com/forum/tags/chinese%20literature.html
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Oct 4, 2010 00:43
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For future reference: This is the thread you are looking for.
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Oct 6, 2010 06:41
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Yes, it's a magazine published by al-Qaeda, aimed at Westerners. It was only launched recently and has received some press coverage in a few places including this interesting article published by the Australian.
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Nov 4, 2010 07:28
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 09:46 |
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I'm inclined to agree with inktvis - I think it does matter, and more modern translations tend to be more respectful towards the original text. Apart from anything else, having to deal with an antiquated version of your own language only really puts up another barrier between you and the original. You want to come as close to reading it in the original as possible, and the more modern the translation the more likely it is to be clear to you in the way it would've been for the original readers (I think this is part of the reason Pevear and Volokhonsky get so much praise). Obviously, there are exceptions for historically notable translations like some verse Odysseys or the King James Bible, but for the most part stick with recent translations and you should be fine.
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Nov 14, 2010 23:46
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