Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Thus begins the 1897 translation by Samuel Butler of Homer’s Odyssey. It’s just one of more than 60 translations of the book into English since the first in
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Scripturient: Seven Faces of Marcus Aurelius
I am going to assume that you, dear reader, already know who Marcus Aurelius Antonius was. I have respect for both the intelligence and education of my readers, enough to feel I can avoid making pedantic explanations and reiterating his biography that is more fluently available on dozens or hundreds
Continue readingScripturient: Not the Chaucer You’re Looking For
I received a couple of new Chaucer books recently and, despite my love of reading Chaucer, frankly, I was disappointed by both. My expectations for both greatly exceeded what little joy I received from them. I was deeply disappointed by both. And I’m here to tell you why. Let me
Continue readingScripturient: Musings on the First Tercet of Dante’s Inferno
Back in December, before Godaddy broke my blog through technical incompetence, I had written a piece about the first stanza in Inferno, the first book of Dante’s trilogy, The Divine Comedy. Since that post seems irretrievably lost, I decided to write another in the same vein. So please bear with
Continue readingScripturient: Midway Through This Life’s Journey V.2
For some inexplicably serendipitous reason, I pulled Mary Jo Bang’s translation of Dante’s Inferno (Graywolf, 2012) from my bookshelves this week and began re-reading it. I didn’t like her version at first read, and am still not convinced her modernization is up to the task of conveying the poem’s beauty
Continue readingScripturient: The New Odyssey
Much has been made of the fact that Emily Wilson’s recent translation of Homer’s The Odyssey (Norton, 2018) is the first translation of that great work by a woman. But for me what matters is how well she renders the text into modern English and makes what can be a
Continue readingScripturient: English as She is Spoke
One of the more delightful books in my personal library is a reprint of the 1883 American edition of English as She Is Spoke, described by Wikipedia as, …intended as a Portuguese–English conversational guide or phrase book; however, as the “English” translations provided are usually inaccurate or incoherent, it is
Continue readingScripturient: Reading Catullus
With the extra time to read on my hands these days, I’ve been dipping again into the poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus, Roman poet around the time of Julius Caesar. I’ve written in the past about reading Horace, a somewhat later Roman poet whom I greatly admire. I like to
Continue readingScripturient: Don Quixote times three
At roughly the same time Shakespeare was writing and performing King Lear, Measure for Measure, Othello and Macbeth (1604-1605), Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was publishing the first part (52 chapters) of his satiric novel, Don Quixote, or more properly titled (in English), The Ingenious Gentleman Sir Quixote of La Mancha.
Continue readingScripturient: Gilgamesh four thousand years later
Gilgamesh continues to enthrall us, even after more than 100 years of translations and interpretations. The story continues to be told and retold and even re-imagined. There’s even a children’s version of the tale. You can read a version here, in PDF format or an online version here.Translations and transliterations
Continue readingScripturient: Found in translation
Language translation fascinates me. It’s a mix of language skill, art, interpretation, science and, apparently, divination. Maybe even magic. Going from one language into another is far from a simple step of swapping words in dictionary manner – Flaubert’s le mot juste. Any fool can do that. Hell, even Google
Continue readingMolly'sBlog: TERESA MAÑE MIRAVENT
Teresa Mañe Miravent – Mother of Federica Montseny
The following is a translation from Spanish. The Spanish original is available at the Biografias anarquistas section of the website of the CNT Puerto Real. Any errors of translation are entirely my responsibility.
Born on November 29 1865 in Cubelles (Garraf, Catalonia) – until recently believed to be in Vilanova i la Geltrú- the educator, activist and anarchist propagandist Teresa Mañe Miravent, better known under her pseudonym Soledad Gustavo. Her wealthy family ran the Garden Hotel in Vilanova i la Geltrú, known as the “Three Girls Hotel” as the three daughters of the family were busy attending to customers. Her father was a staunch supporter of federal republicanism and was proud of the relationship he maintained with Pi i Maragall. Teresa began studying teaching in 1883 in Barcelona and in 1886, with the help of the freethinker Bartomeu Gabarro of the Federalist Democratic Centre, opened the first secular school in Vilanova. She was a member of the Confederation of Lay Teachers of Catalonia. During this period she collaborated in El Vendaval with the federalist republican tendency. Through contacts with freethinkers she met José Pujals Lunas, Teresa Claramunt, Tarrida del Mármol, Pere Esteve and other leading anarchist militants. She participated in propaganda tours and public events and collaborated on the libertarian publications they edited (La Tramontana, El Productor, La Tormenta, etc.). In 1889 she won a prize at the Second Socialist Contest in Barcelona for her work ‘Free Love’ and became a spokeswoman for anarchist ideas along with Ricardo Mella, Anselmo Lorenzo and others. Through a poetry reading at a secular funeral she met Juan Montseny whom she later married in a civil ceremony on March 19, 1891, shortly after such marriages were legalized.
The couple settled in Reus where Montseny came from, and they opened a coeducational secular school and both became teachers. Teresa’s sister Carmen also lived with them in Reus, sharing all the difficulties of their anarchist activism until her death. Montseny wrote a pamphlet in defence of prisoner Paulino Pallas who had been arrested in connection with the September 24, 1893 bombing of the Cambios Nuevos in Barcelona. Montseny was arrested for this, and Mañe began a campaign for his release. Once released, however, he was rearrested in 1896 as part of the ‘Trial of Montjuic’. From his cell in Montjuic Montseny wrote letters to the press, with various pseudonyms, proclaiming the innocence of the accused. Mañe was responsible for taking these letters from prison and mailing them to the press. She also made the necessary arrangements to achieve the release of all detainees. It was from one of his signatures to these letters that Juan Montseny became Federico Urales. Montseny was released but was exiled to London, along with Teresa Claramunt and Tarrida del Mármol. Mañe joined him in 1897 and found work as an embroiderer. In order to reopen their case they returned clandestinely on November 28, 1897. Montseny lived in Madrid and Mañe in Vilanova. In a short while she, along with her parents, Lorenzo and Antonia, and her sister Carmen they also moved to Madrid. While they lived there her parents died, and her daughter Federica Montseny was born in 1905.
While in Madrid the couple edited La Revista Blanca (1898-1905) and later Tierra Y Libertad (1902-1905). Mañe performed the function of administrator even though this was not legally permitted to women at the time. In 1901 she spoke, along with Azorín and Urales in a series of conferences at the Madrid Ateneo on “The Future Society” in relation to anarchist ideas. In addition she actively participated in campaigns for the defendants in the Juarez Trials and the Mano Negro case. She participated in a tour of Andalucia in this defence camaign, staying at the home of Rosa Sanchez. The couple also actively assisted in the defence of Francisco Ferrer i Guardia wrongly accused of responsibility for the events of La Semana Trágica. When a legal conflict with Arturo Soria, the creator of the ‘Ciudad Lineal of Madrid whom they accused of fraud and deception, broke out they left for Catalonia in 1912. Their intention was to found an academy in Barcelona’s Horta district, but the boycott of local reactionaries led them to devote themselves to living on a farm in Cerdanyola. There Mañe did a lot of translations (Louise Michel, Cornelissen, Labriola, De la Hire, Mirabeau, Praycourt, Sorel, Marguey, Lichtenberg, Lavrov, Donnay, etc.) and copied texts for theatre companies.
In Catalonia they once more edited La Revista Blanca and Tierra Y Libertad. They also set up various other publishing projects: ‘La Novela Ideal’ which published two novels, eventually 600 in total with a circulation of 50,000 copies; ‘La Novela Libre’ with more extensive stories and a circulation of 30,000 copies, the monthly ‘El Munda al Dia’ and a new journal ‘El Luchador’ which lasted until the civil war. Mañe was responsible for managing these journals while Montseny and her daughter wrote articles, novels, memoirs, etc.. Little by little the leadership of Federica became evident, and Mañe faded into the background. During the Civil War colon cancer began to undermine her life. In 1939 the family crossed the border into exile in France where they parted from each other. Mañe, ill, broke her leg and was taken by ambulance to the hospital of St. Louis of Perpiñán (northern Catalonia) where she died alone of cancer on February 5, 1939.
Teresa Mañe published numerous articles in La Revista Blanca and in its supplements and extras. Her contributions may also be found in other anarchist periodicals of the late 19th and early 20th centuries: ‘El Corsario’, ‘Los Dominical del Libre Pensamiento’,’El Obrero’, ‘Redención’, ‘El Cosmipolita’, ‘Justicia y Libertad’, ‘El Trabajo’, ‘La Tramontana’, etc.. Of her works we can highlight ‘The Future Society’ (1889), ‘Las Preocupaciones de los Despreocupados’ (1891 with Urales), ‘Dos Cartas’ (1891), ‘A Las Proletarias’ (1896), ‘El Amore Libre’ (1904), ‘Los Diosas de la Vida’ (1904), and ‘El Sindicalismo y la Anarquía: Politica y Sociologica’ (1932) among others.
Continue readingMolly'sBlog: TERESA MAÑE MIRAVENT
Teresa Mañe Miravent – Mother of Federica Montseny The following is a translation from Spanish. The Spanish original is available at the Biografias anarquistas section of the website of the CNT Puerto Real. Any errors of translation are entirely my responsibility. Born on November 29 1865 in Cubelles (Garraf, Catalonia)
Continue readingMolly'sBlog: TERESA MAÑE MIRAVENT
Teresa Mañe Miravent – Mother of Federica Montseny The following is a translation from Spanish. The Spanish original is available at the Biografias anarquistas section of the website of the CNT Puerto Real. Any errors of translation are entirely my responsibility. Born on November 29 1865 in Cubelles (Garraf, Catalonia)
Continue readingMelissa Fong: Deafness, speech and the Performance of Gender
Deafness, speech and the Performance of Gender This weekend I had the privilege of participating in a conference on Disability and Ableism at Ryerson University. Let me just say first that it is an incredible feeling to be among people fluent in American Sign Language (ASL). To see them speak
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