Comments | victorian_novel: I Have a Question

pankratiev in victorian_novel

I Have a Question

Dec 01, 2005 00:18

Greetings everyone!
I am from Russia.
My question is on R L Stevenson's title "Virginibus Puerisque".
How do they usually translate (or explain) it to English?
Thanks,
Igor

Comments 15

elettaria November 30 2005, 16:08:54 UTC

Well, it's either the dative or the ablative plural, so it would be something like "To the girls and boys" [lit. "virgins", but it's with "boys" so "girls" is probably what they're after - "maidens" would be another possibility, though rather old-fashioned), or possibly "From the virgins/girls/maidens and the boys".

Goodness, that's an interesting essay. I'm still gaping in astonishment at the opening line, "With the single exception of Falstaff, all Shakespeare's characters are what we call marrying men." Either all those critics analysing the queer stuff in Jekyll and Hyde are barking up the wrong tree entirely, or this man is so far back in the closet he can see Narnia.

pankratiev November 30 2005, 17:16:55 UTC

I have been nicely surprised of such a funded and prompt reply.
Many thanks!
You are from Ednburgh.
Could I consult with you on J M Barrie whom I really fond of.
Is there the text of "The boy David" as a novel, prose, not drama, in his heritage?
If so, how can I get the text? Is it possible on-line?

elettaria November 30 2005, 18:14:45 UTC

I see Barrie and I went to the same university, and that the git who lectured me on medieval literature (and stole one of his lectures entirely from the introduction of someone else's book) has written on him. Apart from reading the novel of Peter Pan as a child and knowing that he was a fairly successful playwright in his day, I don't know anything about Barrie. I'm run a quick search on The Boy David and it's only coming up as a play. Do you know for sure that there was a novel version of it ( ... )

pankratiev November 30 2005, 19:44:28 UTC

On Barrie. I don't quite sure, but it seems to me that one of his biographer, may be Birkin, have mentioned the last his thing "David" as the one of two variants. The same scheme was done by Barrie with "Peter Pan" in 1906. I am going to translate "David" and have the text as a play of 1938.

On Stevenson essay. Nothing serious. The title is referred in "My Lady Nicotine" by Barrie which I am translating into Russian now. I much bettr know Russian than English, sorry. Don't worry about standard translation because in Russian there is no such a thing certainly. It is translated firstly.

My native tongue is Russian but I know Clive Staples Lewis. His "Narnia Chronicles" and works on religious themes were translated into Russian (8 volumes!).

Thread 15