Most Necessary for (Wo)Men to Know.

[la_marquise_de_]

So, back in the ninth century, having established himself as king of Wessex, Alfred the Great initiated a programme of education of his male aristocracy and oversaw the translation into Old English of a number of books he considered to be 'most necessary for men to know'. These were mainly religious, but also included Bede's A History of the

Comments

[sollersuk]

Was the word "were" (male) or "man (mann? I forget) (human being)?

[la_marquise_de_]

It was 'monnum', plural of man.
"ða ðe niedbeðearfosta sien eallum monnum to wiotonne"

[sollersuk]

Definitely "human beings" in general rather than male humans. "People" would be a better translation than "men".

[la_marquise_de_]

It's the standard translation and context suggests that Alfred meant male persons, sadly.

[la_marquise_de_]

Oh, good picks!

[a_d_medievalist]

Wasn't thinking of non-fiction earlier, but Syme's Roman Revolution, Bennett's History Matters, The Second Sex...

Things Fall Apart...

[coth]

Michael Herr - Dispatches
& Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse Five
& Marge Piercy - Gone To Soldiers.

Joanna Russ - How to Suppress Women's Writing
& George Eliot - Middlemarch
& Doris Lessing - The Golden Notebooks.

A Choice of Kipling's Prose selected by Craig Raine.

That'll do for now.

[hawkwing_lb]

Probably Herodotos, Histories. Ibn Battuta - an abridgement of his Travels. A bunch of Audre Lorde and bell hooks. Virgil's Aeneid and Ursula Le Guin's Lavinia.

[hawkwing_lb]

Oh, and James C. Scott's Seeing Like A State.