Comments on: Wie es eigentlich gewesen

By: Henry

Henry — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 00:56:30 +0000

Ah – glad to see that my memory wasn’t completely misfiring.

By: ab

ab — Fri, 09 Sep 2005 23:56:15 +0000

I’ll take it all back about the “ist”… Henry is actually right!

“Wie es eigentlich gewesen ist” is indeed the grammatically correct version. However, probably for stylistic reasons, Ranke didn’t use the “ist”.

Here’s the original, quite complex, sentence in (old) German:

“Man hat der Historie das Amt, die Vergangenheit zu richten, die Mitwelt zum Nutzen zukünftiger Jahre zu belehren, beigemessen: so hoher Aemter unterwindet sich gegenwärtiger Versuch nicht: er will blos zeigen, wie es eigentlich gewesen.”

By: Henry

Henry — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 17:07:25 +0000

Yeah, but unless my memory is completely mistaken, Ranke doesn’t have the ‘ist’ himself. Alistair is entirely right (even my not very good German is enough to confirm this) that the grammar would seem to require it, but my recollection is that it is missing from the complete sentence too. So either (a) Ranke has been misquoted systematically in extenso, or (b) for some stylistic reason he didn’t include it.

By: alistair hammond

alistair hammond — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 16:57:22 +0000

pedants corner:

the german phrase would have to be “wie es eigentlich gewesen ist”

without the “ist,” the phrase has no verb.

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 15:22:13 +0000

Re:Equiano being read as autobiography, not fiction, at the time he published. Yes, but don’t forget at the same time that the expectations we have about the line between the two weren’t necessarily the same expectations that late 18th Century reading publics had. In any event, there’s no doubt that Equiano’s account of the Middle Passage was a powerful shot in the arm for the abolitionist movement, as was his depiction of “Merrie Olde Africa” from which he was torn.

By: Eszter

Eszter — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 14:25:20 +0000

Regarding the quote, a search on amazon.de shows that several books quote Ranke this same way although others show the quote with an “ist”. For a German speaker, not seeing the “ist” (or “war”) is very confusing, because it seems like the verb is missing. (I know “gewesen” is a verb, but it’s in a form that requires another part.) Alternatively, this is some super high level of German that I don’t get. But if just reading the sentence, it does beg for the rest so that’s probably the point of confusion among commenters here.

By: John Isbell

John Isbell — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 03:45:50 +0000

Apparently Clarkson’s famous 1788 illustration of sleeping arrangements on a slave ship (which I think did more for abolitionism than Equiano’s narrative, and was certainly more widely circulated) is also inexact.

By: CR

CR — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 03:26:57 +0000

Ah ha. That explains it. Got confused because I switched from Penguin to Norton last time. Big mistake. And now you can see why…

It’s autobiography. The original readers did not receive it as fiction.

Right. That’s the point. According to yr guy, it’s fictional autobiography. And what I’m point out as, dunno, ironic is the fact that it’s exactly the bits that he fictionalized that touched his readers – Africa and middle passage. If Equiano had left those things out, we definitely wouldn’t be reading him today. And maybe it would have taken a few more years for the slave-trade to end, who knows… Fiction, the fictional element of the IN, made something happen…

By: gzombie

gzombie — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 03:02:25 +0000

CR writes, Who says that fiction makes nothing happen, eh?

It’s autobiography. The original readers did not receive it as fiction.

The Penguin edition mentions Carretta and his theory in the notes somewhere.

“Somewhere,” huh? Not surprising given that Carretta edited the Penguin edition and wrote the introduction and all of the notes.

You say you teach this text?

;-)

By: CR

CR — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 02:30:43 +0000

OK - sorry – didn’t read the article… I just remembered having students asking me about this last time I taught Equiano. The Penguin edition mentions Carretta and his theory in the notes somewhere…

By: Timothy Burke

Timothy Burke — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 02:19:07 +0000

It’s being seen as newsworthy because Carretta’s book is coming out, which seems a reasonable enough occasion to me.

By: CR

CR — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 02:12:52 +0000

This Carretta stuff is kind of old news… I don’t understand why it’s been played as “news” by the Chronicle…

Something to think about: It’s not my period, but as far as I understand it, Equiano’s rendition of the “middle passage” brought this savagery to light for the larger part of literate England… It was the early chapters, on his life in Africa and passage to the Americas, that were most influential.. Lit a fire under the English abolition movement. If I’m not mistaken, the book came out in 1789 (what a year!), first anti-slave trade legislation proposed (but defeated) 1791, finally ratified 1807…

Who says that fiction makes nothing happen, eh?

By: david

david — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 02:03:56 +0000

No reason to romanticize the dust. It makes you sneeze, and the writing is a pain in the ass to read.

Anyway, sorry to have misread you—the Yali/Diamond bit has been about anthropology, and I’m easily distracted.

By: John Isbell

John Isbell — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 01:18:28 +0000

Oh, the phrase is “wie es eigentlich gewesen.” No “ist.”

By: John Isbell

John Isbell — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 01:06:45 +0000

David, #10: not anthropologists, literary critics. For instance, of Equiano’s text. Which I guess is itself a primary source, though not an archival one. They are so dusty.
However, I do suspect that Yali would find the couple’s objections to Diamond bewildering, while his talk of crops and animals would make good sense.