Season 1 Outline- Session 1

[Nicholas Palazzo]

That tiny adjustment, for whatever reason, feels too far to me. I'm not entirely certain why. 🙂

 

[MithLuin]

And *that* is what is so frustrating about trying to pull this off well! As soon as you start messing with word order, why not more changes? Why not a different order? How much is too much? What sounds 'vaguely archaic' vs 'stilted' vs 'fake'?

 

[ouzaru]

Reading older works and actually getting a feel for how archaic English use to sound would be a good idea.

 

[Marielle]

Also keeping in mine what part of the statement/speech/idea we're stressing when we play with word order and grammar. I love how, for example, in Horace ... (double checking my numbers... I'm right!) Ode 1.5 (first stanza) the girl. by referencing pronoun and by name, is literally surrounded by the other words in the line, similar to what is being described. In Latin:

Quis multa gracilis te puer in rosa
perfusus liquidis urget odoribus
grato, Pyrrha, sub antro?

Or, in a very rough translation (going from 3 lines to 2 in order to *attempt* to keep the effects of "te" and "Pyrrha"):

Which slender young man presses you on many roses,
drenched in fragrant perfumes, Pyrrha, under a praiseworthy* (?) cave?


Latin does have a general pattern of word order but, since it is a case-language, you can play around with that for emphasis -- especially in poetry. English is less malleable, but we can do it somewhat.


So, on the line discussed above:

"He does not belong to you only, Lady Gilraen, but to all your people."

vs.

"Not only to you does he belong, Lady, but to all your people."

The main difference I hear is on stress. "He does not" vs. "Not only". Are we asserting a personhood, an identity/purpose/destiny, or singular ownership?



All this is to say that I agree with Nick that the second one goes "too far".



* someone better at languages than me can please try to make "antro grato" less awkward in English?*

 

[Nicholas Palazzo]

Reading older works and actually getting a feel for how archaic English use to sound would be a good idea.

Yes. Venerable Bede and Geoffrey of Monmouth have been interesting sources of archaisms. It also helps that I've written characters who talk like this for years.

 

[ouzaru]

Yes. Venerable Bede and Geoffrey of Monmouth have been interesting sources of archaisms. It also helps that I've written characters who talk like this for years.

That takes me back to college. 😛

 

[Nicholas Palazzo]

That takes me back to college. 😛

I wish... 🙂