{"id":6346,"date":"2011-04-06T19:31:10","date_gmt":"2011-04-06T18:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/?p=6346"},"modified":"2011-04-06T19:31:10","modified_gmt":"2011-04-06T18:31:10","slug":"did-the-plays-of-menander-survive-to-the-renaissance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/2011\/04\/06\/did-the-plays-of-menander-survive-to-the-renaissance\/","title":{"rendered":"Did the plays of Menander survive to the renaissance"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was very tired last night, and in need of something gentle to read.\u00a0 So I took Andrew Lang’s Books and Bookmen<\/em> to bed with me.\u00a0 The name of Andrew Lang is one that I knew when I was a lad, for Tolkien refers to him often in his essay on fantasy, as the author of the Blue Fairy Book and other collections of literary.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The essay was published in Tree and Leaf<\/em>, which, like\u00a0many another\u00a0Tolkien fan I bought and found somewhat uncomfortable.\u00a0 The ‘leaf’ story, Leaf by Niggle<\/em>, was charming, although I was oblivious to the deeper meaning that only time could bring.\u00a0 But as for ‘tree’, the essay, it was a puzzle. I had never heard of literary criticism, when I read it; nor, indeed, of Andrew Lang, who is perhaps a forgotten author these days.<\/p>\n

The copy of Books and Bookmen <\/em>itself was a century old, on good paper, and a delight to read and handle.\u00a0 Stamps at various places indicated that it had once belonged to Norwich public library, which had foolishly disposed of it.\u00a0 So I read of the Elzevir editions, of the bibliophilia of France, of the famous Derome blue binding which fades so badly, and of other things of no real importance to a poor man like myself, but curiously soothing.<\/p>\n

In the middle of the book was an essay on literary forgeries, itself of considerable interest and relevance today, when the so-called Jordan Lead Codices are being touted.\u00a0 But one passage caught my eye:<\/p>\n

\n

After the Turks took Constantinople, when the learned Greeks were scattered all over Southern Europe, when many genuine classical manuscripts were recovered by the zeal of scholars, when the plays of Menander were seen once, and then lost for ever, it was natural that literary forgery should thrive.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Is it so?\u00a0 Were the plays of Menander then extant?<\/p>\n

I don’t know what Lang’s source is for this remark, and I can’t find any leads.\u00a0 If any reader does know, perhaps he would share his knowledge with us?<\/p>\n

In the mean time, tonight, I shall continue to read Books and Bookmen<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was very tired last night, and in need of something gentle to read.\u00a0 So I took Andrew Lang’s Books and Bookmen to bed with me.\u00a0 The name of Andrew Lang is one that I knew when I was a lad, for Tolkien refers to him often in his essay on fantasy, as the author […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[728,1115,1689],"class_list":["post-6346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-my-diary-announcements","tag-from-my-diary","tag-menander","tag-transmission-of-texts"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}