[lit-ideas] The Philosophical Nanny
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 4 Nov 2007 21:06:35 EST
MMM. Courses in Baby-Sitting for Philosophical Children.
Call Geary M-E-T-A-P-H-Y-S-I-K. Crash courses in Greek and
Latin for would be 'philosophical nannies' alla Quintilianus.
fossa = nonnyno
Florio
cf. 'nanny'
D. Ritchie writes:
>If JLS happens to be reading this...no Loebs at the >rummage sale either.
We are a Loeb-less wasteland >hereabouts.
Thanks for the thought, and keep looking. I loved your Eliotian metaphor, a
'loebless wasteland'. I suppose you must have seen "Tom and Viv" (starring
brilliant Natasha Richardson as Mrs. Eliot -- the first one) and realizing
it's
_her_ who gave _him_ the idea of a 'wasteland', and a loveless one, too.
But yes, Loeb is just around the corner. R. Paul saved me from buying the
Hippocrates. I think I will buy the Galen instead. Four humours for the prize
of one, etc.
I also have in my priority list:
Athenaeus, The deipnosophists -- Book 8
Pausanias -- couple of volumes. I only have one.
Strabo -- couple of volumes, especially his description of Crete.
Martial, Epigrams -- I have to check if I _ordered_ this.
Etc.
Must say I found the Venerable Bede a bit on the boring side.
Apparently, the Confessions by Augustine should be fun. I have read them
before, but not in the Loeb. I was reading this selection from this horrible
Norton Book of Classical Literature. Augustine is talking of how he learned
Greek:
"Even now I have not yet discovered the reasons why I hate Greek literature
so much. I guess it has to do with my learning Greek at school. You see, the
difficulty lies here: the difficulty of learning a foreign language at all. It
sprinkles gall over all the charm of the stories you are reading. I did not
know any of the Greek words, and violent pressure on me to learn them was
imposed by means of fearful and cruel punishments. At one time in my infancy I
also knew no Latin, and yet, by listening I learnt it with no fear or pain at
all, from my nurses caressing me, from people laughing over jokes, and from
those who played games and were enjoying them."
I suppose it could have been _This_ passage that Witters could have focused
-- as it refers to 'playing games' -- when he (Witters) set to demolish what
he called the "Augustinian" picture of language learning.
And it's _obvious_ Witters never had an English nanny ("In every job that
must be done... -- what a woman, Pamela Travers).
Quintilian too makes quite a thing (which I share) about nannies. In his
"Institutio Oratoria" (Loeb) he writes:
"Above all, see that the child's nurse speaks correctly. The ideal,
according to Chrysippus, would be that she would be a philosopher." (Loeb, p.
21)
"Ante omnia ne sit vitiousus sermo nutricibus, quas si fieri posset
philosophae Chrysippus optavit." So there's another opening for a MMM graduate.
Cheers,
JL
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