Setting Green straight on Dr. Illuminatus
Francis Muir
Good deed for the day. I have persuaded the people who talk to the catalog
people at Green that Ramon Lull and Ramon Llull are one and the same, and
that the catalog entries should be concatenated. There was never any problem
with Lully and Lullus but there seems to have ben the usual fierce struggle
between the Hispanic Lull and Catalan Llull forces; a struggle that has
lasted for at least 7 centuries.
The book I am looking at is DOCTOR ILLUMINATUS: A Ramon Llull Reader, by
Anthony &, occasionally, Eve Bonner, PUP, NJ. Bonner states, rather
condescendingly, that DI is a set of snippets from another book, SELECTED
WORKS OF RAMON LLULL also by Bonner and itself a set of snippets. My first
thought was to go for the Moral Metaphors, one for every day of the year.
Almost irresistible was the title: Llull's LLIBRE D'AMIC E AMAT, but on
sober reflection I have decided to go with the EL lLIBRE DE LES BESTIES,
THE BOOK OG THE BEASTS, it just seemed to be more Fido's style.
Meg Worley
>Good deed for the day. I have persuaded the people who talk to the catalog
>people at Green that Ramon Lull and Ramon Llull are one and the same, and
>that the catalog entries should be concatenated. There was never any problem
>with Lully and Lullus but there seems to have ben the usual fierce struggle
>between the Hispanic Lull and Catalan Llull forces; a struggle that has
>lasted for at least 7 centuries.
That is indeed a good deed, for any day. I am surprised at
the Pow'rs That Be over at Green Mansions, but I am glad they
have been set straight.
>The book I am looking at is DOCTOR ILLUMINATUS: A Ramon Llull Reader, by
>Anthony &, occasionally, Eve Bonner, PUP, NJ. Bonner states, rather
>condescendingly, that DI is a set of snippets from another book, SELECTED
>WORKS OF RAMON LLULL also by Bonner and itself a set of snippets. My first
>thought was to go for the Moral Metaphors, one for every day of the year.
>Almost irresistible was the title: Llull's LLIBRE D'AMIC E AMAT, but on
>sober reflection I have decided to go with the EL lLIBRE DE LES BESTIES,
>THE BOOK OG THE BEASTS, it just seemed to be more Fido's style.
I stand corrected and embarrassed that *DI* is by the Bonners
rather than the other big Lullist, Mark Johnston. I should know
better. I don't think it is so condescending of Bonner, however,
to note that *DI* is but an excerpt of an excerpt; the *Selected
Works* is 1600+ pages and two volumes, and even then only
represents a tiny fraction of Lull's 285 or so works. Also,
there is the small matter of $11.95 (*DI*) versus $220.00 (*SW*).
To anyone interested in Lull, I recommend the introductory essays
on his life and thought. *El libre de les besties* is an
amusing tale, particularly for those who remember their *Animal
Farm*. The best tastes of Lull, though, are the *Ars Brevis*,
to catch a glimpse of his Great Art, which is meant to prove
the existence of God, and *Blaquerna* -- arguably the first
Western novel -- to sample his unusual style of writing.
Rage away,
meg
--
mwo...@mathcs.emory.edu comparatively literate
Arthur Hlavaty
guess it would be three-l and four-l)
--
Arthur D. Hlavaty hla...@panix.com
Church of the SuperGenius In Wile E. We Trust
\\\ E-zine available on request. ///
Ted Samsel
: Unlike (l)lamas, (L)Lulls are not divided into one-l and two-l (or I
Now for an antiphonal chorus of the Coventry Carol:
"llullee, llullay(ll)"
--
Ted Samsel....tejas@infi.net
"In a dying culture, snobs are a vital natural race horse"
"El pobre Canonero, se va a matar"
Francis Muir
Unlike (l)lamas, (L)Lulls are not divided into one-l and two-l (or I
guess it would be three-l and four-l)
Er, yes, I suppose so. But that brings to mind an interesting question: why
the double-l in Catalan? Its not just a real name thing either; lls abound.
In Catalan, rec.arts.books would be rec.arts.llibres, for God's sake. And
is it pronounced like y? So is Llull pronounced YULL or some impossible
sound that is represented by YUY? If Catalan was the lingua franca of the
Western Med then one is not surprised that it got dropt in favor of what?
Nor that Llull winded up publishing in most of the other available languages
- bar English, of course. Across the Bay from where I sit is Chevron City
which is also sometimes known by the name of San Ramon. Was this named by
some Majorcan zealot for Llull who is canonized on that island even if Rome
has not heard of it. Does Llull enter into the Aubrey/Maturin novels anywhere?
He should; one is surprised that POB has not written his biography. So many
questions about this one Franciscan from another.
Fido
Meg Worley
>Er, yes, I suppose so. But that brings to mind an interesting question: why
>the double-l in Catalan? Its not just a real name thing either; lls abound.
>In Catalan, rec.arts.books would be rec.arts.llibres, for God's sake. And
>is it pronounced like y? So is Llull pronounced YULL or some impossible
>sound that is represented by YUY? If Catalan was the lingua franca of the
>Western Med then one is not surprised that it got dropt in favor of what?
>Nor that Llull winded up publishing in most of the other available languages
>- bar English, of course. Across the Bay from where I sit is Chevron City
>which is also sometimes known by the name of San Ramon. Was this named by
>some Majorcan zealot for Llull who is canonized on that island even if Rome
>has not heard of it. Does Llull enter into the Aubrey/Maturin novels anywhere?
>He should; one is surprised that POB has not written his biography. So many
>questions about this one Franciscan from another.
Moving seems to have made me more than usually self-centered.
This thread, for example, I take as a hard kick from the
Zeitgeist, or maybe just the rab-geist, to get my books unpacked.
Either that or sheer persecution by friends.
Anyway, I would be able to write more clearly on this if
my boks were unpacked, but here's a quick gloss from memory
(which I've already proven is wholly holey).
To answer Francis' questions in rough order:
The "ll" orthography in Catalan is just an artifact of Latin.
The romance languages grew out of the contact of Vulgar Latin
(not "semper ubi sububi" but the Latin of the populus rather
than the senatus, and particularly the centurius) with local
languages. These substrata exerted an effect on VL until it
was no longer L at all, but a new national language. Certain
letter combinations were affected different ways. For example,
CT ("nocte") assimilated in various ways ("noche," "nuit," and
"nit" in Spanish, French, and Catalan, respectively). In
Castilian, Portugese, and Catalan, the combinations LIO (
"melior"), C'L ("apicula"), and the intervocalic L ("maxila")
generally gave rise to palatization, resulting in "millor"
(Catalan), "abella"/"abelha" (Cat./Port.), and "mejilla"
(Span.) in each case. The orthography -- the use of the two
Ls -- is a pointer to the etymology but is completely distinct
from the pronunciation.
All that does not explain "llibre", of course -- the L is
not intervocalic -- but Catalan also shows a great deal of
overcorrection. The same mechanism that moves people to
say "He gave it to you and I" works to cause palatization
in Catalan words where the usual stimuli were missing.
"Llull" in modern Catalan is pronounced, as best as I can
transcribe it in ascii, "yooiy," but in old Catalan (Lull
lived from about 1215 to 1307 or something like that) it
was both pronounced and spelt differently.
Catalan was the lingua franca of the Western Mediterranean
through the 12th & 13th centuries (when James II took
Majorca, he added it to extensive holdings in southern
France, not to mention most of the eastern coast of the
Iberian peninsula), but the kingdom split apart with James II's
death (I may have my James's wrong -- there were a bunch, and
three different James IIs were occupying various thrones
simultaneously for a while at the end of the 13th c.). I
believe that Catalan gave way to Italian for marine commerce,
and to Provencal (briefly) for lais & such.
Lull wrote in so many "available languages" mainly because
he didn't spend much time in Majorca. Most of his life was
spent roaming the Mediterranean, even over to Syria perhaps,
trying to convince people to "know and love God" (his words,
not mine) through his Great Art.
Finally, I of course have no idea whether POB nods at Lull
(having not been able to get through the one POB I tried to
read), but perhaps he wasn't particularly drawn to Lull
because Lull was not the most faithful of Franciscans. All
his life, he flirted with the Dominicans as well, and he
incurred several charges of theological promiscuity thereby.
There, now, Cap'n, aren't you sorry you asked? All of the
ramblings above are subject to revision or reversion upon
the revelation of my books on the subject, but I foreswear
elaboration, at least.
Fiona Webster
in "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote":
I have said that Menard's *visible* lifework is easily
enumerated. Having carefully examined his private archives,
I have been able to verify that it consists of the following:
. . .
d) A monograph on the _Characteristica_Universalis_ of
Leibnitz (Nimes, 1904).
. . .
f) A monograph on the _Ars_Magna_Generalis_ of Ramon Lull
(Nimes, 1906).
Any thoughts on why Borges would attribute these interests to "a
symbolist from Nimes, essentially devoted to Poe," whose stylistic
connections are to Baudelaire, Mallarme, Valery, and Edmund Teste?
Is Menard just a mirror for Borges, or do Menard's readings of
Leibniz and Lull reflect in same way on his project of re-writing
_Don_Quixote_, word for word?
--ever curious,
Fiona W.