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16 April 2021

1056 hrs. Translation:

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Gallic War by Julius Caesar 

Loeb Classical Library 1917

 

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Caesar/Gallic_War/1A*.html

 

1 Gaul is a whole divided into three parts, one of which is inhabited by the Belgae, another by the Aquitani, and a third by a people called in their own tongue Celtae, in the Latin Galli. All these are different one from another in language, institutions, and laws. The Galli (Gauls) are separated from the Aquitani by the river Garonne, from the Belgae by the Marne and the Seine. Of all these peoples the Belgae are the most courageous, because they are farthest removed from the culture and civilization of the Province, and least often visited by merchants introducing the commodities that make for effeminacy; and also, because they are nearest to the Germans dwelling beyond the Rhine, with whom they are continually at war. For this cause the Helvetii also excel the rest of the Gauls in valour, because they are struggling in almost daily fights with the Germans, either endeavouring to keep them out of Gallic territory or waging an aggressive warfare in German territory. The separate part of the country which, as has been said, is occupied by the Gauls, starts from the river Rhone, and is bounded by the river Garonne, the Ocean, and the territory of the Belgae; moreover, on the side of the Sequani and the Helvetii, it touches on the river Rhine; and its general trend is northward. The Belgae, beginning from the edge of the Gallic territory, reach to the lower part of the river Rhine, bearing towards the north and east. Aquitania, starting from the Garonne, reaches to the Pyrenees and to that part of the Ocean which is by Spain: its bearing is between west and north.

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Classic Style: Prose as a Window Into the World

Transcript

The last writing style we’re going to look at is what has been called “classic style”.

It’s quite different from the other styles we’ve looked at, and it’s gotten some buzz recently with the publication of Steven Pinker’s book The Sense of Style, subtitled “the thinking person’s guide to writing in the 21st century”.

In the book he strongly advocates for classic style as an ideal to which academic writers should aspire. . ..

Classic Style

The model scene for classic style is one person speaking to another, a conversation between equals.

The writer uses prose as a window to describe a world, and to draw attention to the objects and actions going on within this world.

The assertions, the claims that the writer wants to make, are depicted in this world, and the writer tries to get the audience, the reader, to see what is depicted by positioning the reader so that he or she can see what the writer sees.

The writer wants to reveal some truth about the world, and their goal is to get the reader to see this truth, through a conversational dialogue about the world that the writer has created, but that is imaginatively accessible to both of them.

This is the discursive setup for classic style. . ..

Classic style aims at the presentation of an objective, disinterested truth about the world — a truth that can be confirmed by anyone with a suitable background and position to see it.

Second, this is also very different from reflexive style, where the author wants to draw the reader’s attention to the act of writing itself, and to the challenges the writer faces.

The classic writer wants the reader to see through the text — hence the metaphor of a window — into the world depicted by the text, because that’s the subject of the writing, not the writing itself. You don’t want the reader to notice smudges or cracks in the window, or even that the world is being framed by a window — you just want them to pay attention to the scene depicted through the window.

Third, classic style is different from practical style.

Classic and practical style have a common interest in clarity and directness in writing, but they value this for different reasons.

In practical style, clarity is a virtue because its primary goal is to be easily understood by the reader, so that it can help the reader with whatever practical problem they’re facing.

Classic style isn’t concerned with solving a practical problem for the reader.

In classic style we value clarity and simplicity because TRUTH is clear and simple — this is a presupposition of the conceptual stance that grounds classic style. Hence the title of Thomas and Turner’s book on classic style, Clear and Simple as the Truth.

A fourth point I want to note about classic style is that the goal of writing in this style is a kind of performance.

When the writer is able to create this world and successfully lead the reader through the scene, that’s a kind of artfully constructed performance. . ..

The goal of writing in classic style is a kind of performance that presents all truths are expressible and knowable in the way described, that the truths being presented are objective features of the world, and the writer is confident in making these assertions without hedging or qualifying.

But the writer knows that this is a performance, it’s a pretense.

The real writer — you and I, sitting at our laptops struggling to find the right words, we don’t have to believe any of this. But when we choose to write in the classic style, we’re choosing to embrace these fictions, like an actor on stage playing a role, or a musician performing during a concert.

You can be as skeptical and uncertain and philosophically sophisticated as you want in real life, but when writing in the classic mode you hide that skepticism and uncertainty and philosophical sophistication for the sake of presenting a truth in as clear and compelling a way as possible.

Any writing style requires adopting a persona of some kind — this is the persona of the classic writer.

Summary

Here’s a summary of the main points.

• Classic style views prose as a window to the world. 
• The model scene is one where the writer and the reader are in conversation.
• The writer’s goal is to depict a world that presents a truth, and to position the reader in such a way that the reader can see what the writer sees, and thereby confirm the truth that the writer is presenting. 
• Truth is understood to be clear, simple and verifiable. 
• Classic style is a performative style, where it’s understood by the writer that the truth may not be clear or simple, but when writing in the classic mode the writer aims to present truth as clear and simple and verifiable — this the persona that the writer adopts, a presupposition of the conceptual stance that grounds classic style. 

In the next video we’ll look at some examples of classic writing and how classic style can help improve your academic writing.

https://criticalthinkeracademy.com/courses/22120/lectures/315866

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1152 hours. On Being Human: A Commentary appears to be a good working title. 

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Gaul is a whole divided into three parts, one of which is inhabited by the Belgae, another by the Aquitani, and a third by a people called in their own tongue Celtae, in the Latin Galli. All these are different one from another in language, institutions, and laws.

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Being Human is a whole divided into three parts, one of which is physical, another is spiritual, and a third is the clear consciousness to know the exact difference.

Being Human is divided into three parts: the physical, another is spiritual, and a third is a clear consciousness in understanding the difference.

There you have it, the first sentence of your book, now titled, BEING HUMAN: A COMMENTARY. - Amorella

1212 hrs. Yes, I have a beginning.

Being Human is divided into three parts: the physical, another is spiritual, and a third is a clear consciousness in understanding the difference. This understanding radiates from the combination of the physical brain/body enclosing the measurable physical/emotional heart and rational mind as separate from the attributes of spiritually unmeasurable heartansoulanmind. The concept through this autobiography is to provide a self-study guide to help balance herorhis late-in-life imperfect nature to better personally speculate on how to meet an Afterlife, if indeed, one, or even many, may exist. 

Your Grammarly performance is 100 percent on the above and suggests this work is geared for the college not the high school level reader. 

1254 hrs. The problem I am foreseeing is that the spiritual heartansoulanmind is not verifiable scientifically as such although such subjective evidence is available through observation of self and others. 

Send this to Fritz and post in current blog. - Amorella