Watership 'n' Weeden
Sep. 8th, 2022 04:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
steepholmLast weekend I was in Glasgow, co-hosting the 50th Anniversary Conference on Watership Down with Dimitra Fimi. I was too busy to take photographs, so you'll have to take it from me that the event did indeed take place, and not only that but was a success. Richard Adams's daughter gave one of the keynotes (she looks exactly like him!), but we had many other contributions too, from diverse disciplines: the inventor of the "Bunnies and Burrows" tabletop game, for example; a couple a French scholars talking about the French translation; linguists and Tolkienists on the Lapine language; classicists on the echoes of the Aeneid; the twin sons of the one of the key animators on the 1978 film, the novelist SF Said on Adams as a personal writing inspiration, and so on. (I talked about theory of mind in animal stories.) This the kind of mix I really appreciate.
Any other big WD fans here? I've been really surprised at how little academic work's been done on it, considering how many ways it seems to invite it.
In other news, I took delivery of a couple more reprints of books by Weeden Butler the elder. I thought I might as well order them cheap, since I'm unlikely to be able to get first editions. One is called Indian Vocabulary, and is essentially an early version of Hobson-Jobson, but published about a century earlier, in 1788.
One interesting thing is that Weeden deliberately attempted to write the words phonetically, so as to aid his English readers' pronunciation of Indian words, with the consequence that 'shah,' for instance, becomes 'shaw.' One of the earliest entries is for Abdallah Shaw - which gives a decidedly odd effect.
We also get little insights that fall outside strict word definition, as with 'Abrooa'n', 'A sort of fine muslin, manufactured solely for the king's seraglio; a piece of which, costing four hundred rupees, or £50 sterling, is said to have weighed only five Sicca rupees, and, if spread upon wet grass, to have been scarcely visible.' Steady, Weeden.
Rather cannily, Weeden promoted this book as being of topical interest, because it was published while the trial of Warren Hastings was ongoing - and he even throws in, by way of a makeweight, a detailed description of the process and rules of impeachment. Bonus!
The other book is merely a sermon, more interesting for the occasion of its delivery than for its content, given as it was before the newly formed 'Armed Association of the Parish of St Luke, Chelsea... on Sunday, 8th July, 1798.' The 'Armed Association' was basically a kind of anti-Napoleonic Home Guard, although Weeden is as concerned about sedition at home as threats directly from abroad.
I wonder what would happen if they tried to make the inhabitants of Cheyne Row into an armed militia today?
Any other big WD fans here? I've been really surprised at how little academic work's been done on it, considering how many ways it seems to invite it.
In other news, I took delivery of a couple more reprints of books by Weeden Butler the elder. I thought I might as well order them cheap, since I'm unlikely to be able to get first editions. One is called Indian Vocabulary, and is essentially an early version of Hobson-Jobson, but published about a century earlier, in 1788.
One interesting thing is that Weeden deliberately attempted to write the words phonetically, so as to aid his English readers' pronunciation of Indian words, with the consequence that 'shah,' for instance, becomes 'shaw.' One of the earliest entries is for Abdallah Shaw - which gives a decidedly odd effect.
We also get little insights that fall outside strict word definition, as with 'Abrooa'n', 'A sort of fine muslin, manufactured solely for the king's seraglio; a piece of which, costing four hundred rupees, or £50 sterling, is said to have weighed only five Sicca rupees, and, if spread upon wet grass, to have been scarcely visible.' Steady, Weeden.
Rather cannily, Weeden promoted this book as being of topical interest, because it was published while the trial of Warren Hastings was ongoing - and he even throws in, by way of a makeweight, a detailed description of the process and rules of impeachment. Bonus!
The other book is merely a sermon, more interesting for the occasion of its delivery than for its content, given as it was before the newly formed 'Armed Association of the Parish of St Luke, Chelsea... on Sunday, 8th July, 1798.' The 'Armed Association' was basically a kind of anti-Napoleonic Home Guard, although Weeden is as concerned about sedition at home as threats directly from abroad.
I wonder what would happen if they tried to make the inhabitants of Cheyne Row into an armed militia today?
(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-08 03:39 pm (UTC)Nice place, Glasgow!
(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-08 07:44 pm (UTC)It is! I always feel I need to get to know it better, as I've only been perhaps 5 times in my life.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-08 06:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-08 07:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-08 11:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-09-09 06:43 am (UTC)