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Zombie reference books
Jan. 10th, 2010 09:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cnoocyNot reference books about zombies, reference books that are back from the dead. I now own a newly-printed copy of a type of reference book that's been out of print for more than a century.
The reference book in question is a Gradus ad Parnassum, which is a Latin poetic thesaurus. Say you're a university student in the 19th century writing a poem for your girlfriend. You're trying to write about her eyes, but you can't fit the word caeruleus into the meter. You pull out your Gradus and find the following entry:
This gives you two examples of classical poets using the word, and then a list of possible synonyms. "Aha!" you say. "Viridis fits perfectly!" So you use the word viridis in your poem, and your blue-eyed girlfriend dumps you for saying that her eyes are green. Which is to say that like any thesaurus, it should be combined with a dictionary, but it is a helpful writing tool.
Since writing poetry in Latin is no longer part of a standard education, there aren't any in print anymore. But the same antiquity means that they are very much in the public domain, making them very well suited for digitization projects like Google Books. And in fact, the one that I have is based on a book that was published in 1829, and borrowed from Harvard and digitized in 2007.
So there's the content. But it's more useful as a printed book. That's where print-on-demand technology comes in. Harvard Book Store, which is 3 miles from my house, has an Espresso Book Machine, which can print paperback books based on electronic files, specifically ones from Google Books. So that's what I did.
I should warn you, if you're planning on doing something similar, that it was slightly more complicated than that. I had to do some checking among the various books titled "Gradus ad Parnassum" at Google Books to find one that didn't have scanning artifacts that would make it unusable. The machine apparently has issues with books over about 700 pages, which meant that the book had to be split into two volumes, increasing the cost and time. (Twenty dollars and 24 hours is fine, but the website should make that clear.) And if I ever get another copy printed, I might ask that instead of splitting the book randomly between intelligo and intemperandas on pages 366 and 367, they split it before the beginning of I at the top of 331 or of L at the top of 385.
But these are minor quibbles in a process that went very well and culminated in the possession of a reference book that's new and cheap enough to be very usable, despite being very obscure. It's a nice future-past experience, and one I would happily recommend.
The reference book in question is a Gradus ad Parnassum, which is a Latin poetic thesaurus. Say you're a university student in the 19th century writing a poem for your girlfriend. You're trying to write about her eyes, but you can't fit the word caeruleus into the meter. You pull out your Gradus and find the following entry:
caērŭlĕŭs vel caērŭlŭs. Caērŭlĕŭs frātēr jŭvăt aūxĭlĭārĭbŭs ārmīs. Ov. Āttōllēntem trās ēt caērŭlă cōllă tŭmēntĕm. Virg. SYN. Cȳănĕŭs, glaūcŭs, caēsĭŭs, vĭrĭdĭs, mărīnŭs.
This gives you two examples of classical poets using the word, and then a list of possible synonyms. "Aha!" you say. "Viridis fits perfectly!" So you use the word viridis in your poem, and your blue-eyed girlfriend dumps you for saying that her eyes are green. Which is to say that like any thesaurus, it should be combined with a dictionary, but it is a helpful writing tool.
Since writing poetry in Latin is no longer part of a standard education, there aren't any in print anymore. But the same antiquity means that they are very much in the public domain, making them very well suited for digitization projects like Google Books. And in fact, the one that I have is based on a book that was published in 1829, and borrowed from Harvard and digitized in 2007.
So there's the content. But it's more useful as a printed book. That's where print-on-demand technology comes in. Harvard Book Store, which is 3 miles from my house, has an Espresso Book Machine, which can print paperback books based on electronic files, specifically ones from Google Books. So that's what I did.
I should warn you, if you're planning on doing something similar, that it was slightly more complicated than that. I had to do some checking among the various books titled "Gradus ad Parnassum" at Google Books to find one that didn't have scanning artifacts that would make it unusable. The machine apparently has issues with books over about 700 pages, which meant that the book had to be split into two volumes, increasing the cost and time. (Twenty dollars and 24 hours is fine, but the website should make that clear.) And if I ever get another copy printed, I might ask that instead of splitting the book randomly between intelligo and intemperandas on pages 366 and 367, they split it before the beginning of I at the top of 331 or of L at the top of 385.
But these are minor quibbles in a process that went very well and culminated in the possession of a reference book that's new and cheap enough to be very usable, despite being very obscure. It's a nice future-past experience, and one I would happily recommend.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-11 02:49 am (UTC)hee hee hee hee
that sounds really cool!
no subject
Date: 2010-01-11 02:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-11 02:56 am (UTC)Nothing is as satisfying as discovering that you have the perfect icon!
no subject
Date: 2010-01-11 10:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-11 03:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-11 03:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-11 03:45 am (UTC)Of course some 15th-century out-of-print books are beautifully illuminated.
no subject
Date: 2010-01-11 09:50 am (UTC)Now if only the easy availability heralds a renaissance of latin verse composition!
no subject
Date: 2010-01-11 12:28 pm (UTC)I'll be happy if the availability gets me to write some more verse!