My ambivalent relationship with google continues apace. The beta of google print is now available. If you make the extra step to limit your search by date, many works of interest to classicists - or Neo-Latinists - become available in full.
Etc, etc, καὶ τὰ λοιπά. Navigation through many pages is a pain. The search interface of course has no concept of Latin inflections, so some tinkering may be required to get the author you want.
For these public domain books (I did Jeff’s search but for Latin grammars), is there a way to get the full text instead of the page-by-page layout from Google? I’m getting keywords highlighted on the pages, so I know the actual text is there, there just doesn’t seem to be a good way to save it to my computer.
hi, i actually don’t want to put these on my pc because i’m sure they’ll be on google for ages. but i just tested, if you find a book which you can actually see the whole page of, e.g.
And I can’t find a way to print it, not even a page. It seemed amazing at first, but now I am sort of disappointed. All this sort of limits what can be done with this tool.
They need to work on the OCR a bit if they’re going to continue to work with older books.
I was trying to see what they might have in Old Occitan (or Provencal, if you wish), so I tried a search for “gaug” (joy), which uses a spelling convention I didn’t expect to be common. I did get some OOc, but I also got a bunch of German stuff that was confusing. I looked closer, and their OCR was interpreting “gang” in the Fraktur face as “gaug”.
Chad’s technique seems to work well for getting the single image (with Firefox, I just have to view source and go to the second* instance of “background-image” to get the url of the image), but given the image quality, I suspect a screen capture would be easier, and just as useful. With Chad’s technique, though, I could probably write a script to get a whole book. I might try it if I find something I want to print out.
*The first instance of “background-image” gives the url of the thumbnail image of the title page.
Though I am a committed supporter of democratic systems, I am nonetheless willing to concede some of de Tocqueville’s complaints, and I’m even willing to see one or two virtues in aristocratic systems. However, I have noticed in many of the classics text printed in England in previous centuries one of the least attractive aspects of aristocracy. Many of these books feature a repulsively fawning and sycophantic dedication thanking some petty aristocrat for the opportunity to tutor his offspring, who might, for all who know, have been lackwits.
It’s a bit of a shock to run into, at least for me.
Ha! I agree with you and thank the gods no one any longer has to do this! If the petty aristocrat had no money to keep bread on the table of the unctious, no doubt the latter would not have been so grovelling.
“Many of these books feature a repulsively fawning and sycophantic dedication …” ~Annis
That’s just the medieval equivalent of our “this program has been made available to you thanks to the generous contributions by the Carnegie Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, …” And thank God they didn’t have commercial ads those days, or every other page your reading would have been interrupted to bring you a very special message from The Feud Depot.
But of course. It may look sycophantic to us, but they are probably thanking their sponsors, upon whom they depended entirely, for the opportunity to produce this, the most tangible product of that patronage. Arts and (non-industrial) sciences in Europe and elsewhere have relied on patronage for at least a thousand years. It was rare to get a tenured job in the arts, and “appointment to the Court” was just patronage in another name. i think it’s only in the last few decades that Duh State has seriously sponsored the arts.
But they do. Even now, if you receive state sponsorship for science or arts you have to attach to your work acknowledgement for it. Apart from the language is there really any difference?
The difference in language seems pretty significant. If the sentiment doesn’t differ in kind, surely it does in degree.
From this morning’s podcast, a news summary:
Support for NPR podcasts come from Stonking-Great Company.
From Latin Prosody Made Easy:
Sir, although that un-assuming and un-ostentatious Modesty, which
forms a conspicuous feature in your private character, may condemn me
for thus divulging those deeds which your right hand secretly
performed without the knowledge of your left; I cannot consent to
forego the present opportunity of publicly testifying my gratitude for
the numerous favors you were pleased to heap on me during the three
years that I visited your son as a private tutor, either constantly in
preparing him for Harrow school, or occasionally afterward during his
vacations – favors, not limited to the cheerful payment of a generous
remuneration for my visits, but extended to further instances of
kindness in various forms, particularly to repeated acts of
unsolicited Munificence – to additional Bounties, incalculably
enhanced in value by a self-denying Delicacy in the mode of conferring
them, which exalted you much higher in my estimation, than even the
Bounties themselves, large and liberal as they were.
Accept, Sir, the only return in my power – the respectful, though
un-authorized, dedication of this volume, and, with that mild,
indulgent Benignity, which I have more than once experienced from you,
excuse the freedom of this address,…
OK, i take your point. It does look a tad grovelling. Your quote is almost too florid for me to decipher. Whilst i’m not educated enough to be convinced it’s not entirely cultural i can’t make further defence.
