I just wanted to inform you all of the launch of Tusculaneum, a new website where I have collected the works of Arcadius Avellanus into one place. I have been very much into reading Avellanus lately, so if nothing else I created a one-stop shop for myself. I do hope, however, that others will enjoy the resource as well.
For those of you who don’t know, here’s a quick rundown of what Avellanus was all about:
Avellanus was an energetic proponent and propugnator of Latin at the turn of the 20th century. Hungarian by birth, he later moved to America and established himself as an advocate of Latin as a universal language. He much despised the grammatical hair-splitting taught in Latin classrooms at the time (he largely blamed the German philologists for this), and instead promoted a viva voce approach, believing that the surest way to learn a language is by speaking it.
Avellanus created a series of textbooks meant to displace the tedious grammar-based methods of the time. He also produced translations of modern stories into Latin that he believed should be read for enjoyment and solidification of grammar rules and vocabulary before students met with the Golden Age authors. As if that weren’t enough, he was also the editor of an all-Latin newspaper called Praeco Latinus.
Links to all of these works and more can be found at Tusculaneum (http://tusculaneum.wordpress.com). I plan on updating and expanding frequently. Visit often!
Thanks for this valuable resource. I am a great admirer of Avellanus and his approach to Latin. It’s good having these resources all in one place. Hopefully others will come upon them and be inspired and enlightened.
Well done! The later edition of Palaestra was completely unknown to me. Why do you think that the edition dates from 1912? The Archive.org page says 1911. This edition also features an interesting note at the end of the book (page 570) which shows just how down on his luck Avellanus was in 1927. As for the 1896-edition I got an error message (“This item is not available online (Limited - search only) due to copyright restrictions.”), perhaps because I was accessing it from outside USA.
I suggest that you add the Gutenberg.org-editions created by me.
it’s me again. Perhaps you should check the Hathi Trust-links. The Prooemium-link does not work for me. Again the same copyright error. However, there is another link allowing access to the booklet. Also it might be advisable to use the “Permanent link”-links, in case Hathi Trust reshuffles its library internally.
Upon checking further I can confirm that the copyright-restricted versions depend on the providing university. Compare, for example, the catalog records for the Prooemium:
By the way, I have read most of the Prooemium, and it comes as no surprise that Mr. Avellanus faced some problems. Diplomacy certainly was not his middle name.
Thanks to you both for visiting the page. Also, thank you, Carolus, for your various tips and tricks. That’s interesting about how the providing university dictates whether or not the content is limited- or full-view. I’m a bit new to this all, so I’ll definitely take your advice about adding permanent links.
As for the date of the Palaestra, I chose 1912 because that is what is hand-written in the scan (top left corner, page 8/580). I noticed also that archive.org says it’s from 1911. I wasn’t sure which to trust!
I’ll get to the updates as soon as possible. Thanks again!
I finally got around to making some of those changes (including the permanent links and Vicipaedia’s breakdown of Praeco Latinus issues) to the Tusculaneum page.
I also added your transcriptions to the two works you mentioned. Good idea!