[COMPLETE]Compendious History of English Literature and the English Language, Vol. I, by George L. Craik - kit

[Kitty]

I'm wondering how the preface should be identified. Should it be "Section zero of 'A Compendious History ...'", "Preface to 'A Compendious History ...'", or something else? I wouldn't have considered "Section zero", but that's how the preface is numbered in the Magic Window.

yes we often use a Section 0 for Introductions. In the first post you see how to read the whole intro:

For the first section:

"Section 0 of A Compendious History of English Literature and of the English Language, Volume I. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit: librivox DOT org"
If you wish, say: "Recording by [your name]"
"A Compendious History of English Literature and of the English Language, Volume I, by George Lillie Craik. Preface"

For the next sections:

"Section 1 of A Compendious History of English Literature and of the English Language, Volume I, by George Lillie Craik. This LibriVox recording is in the Public Domain."
If you wish, say: "Recording by [your name]"
"Chapter 1, Part 1" and as I mentioned before, here you could alternatively also say the title instead: "Chapter 1: Introductory, Part 1: Literature and Language. The Languages of Modern Europe. Early Latin Literature in Britain."

You just have to be consistent throughout.

BTW I received the link to an example of long title names, here you can have a look what it looks like. They might be shorter than some of yours though: https://librivox.org/narrative-of-my-captivity-by-fanny-kelly/

And in archive, those titles are cut off after a certain number of letters.

Sonia

[neddieseagoon]

Section 0 (11:42): https://librivox.org/uploads/kitty/compendioushistoryv1_00_craik_128kb.mp3

Let me know what you think.

[Kitty]

Section 0 (11:42): https://librivox.org/uploads/kitty/compendioushistoryv1_00_craik_128kb.mp3
Let me know what you think.

I think it is beautifully narrated. Easy to understand and follow along. You speak calmly and leave enough space for listeners to ponder and assimilate the subject. This is a great start into the project.

I only have one PL note to correct:

> at 11:30: (p. xi) you omitted the “PS. Upon more careful consideration...etc” – could you please add this as well ? We have this rule that we need to record everything the author wrote and not “edit” things out or modernize it as we please.

Another small notes concerns some pauses between sentences, which to me as a listener seemed a bit overly long. For example at 4:30, 6:40, 7:34, 9:42 and 11:14, if the break gets over 2 seconds long it does seem too long. Maybe worth considering for your future sections, although you don't necessarily have to correct them here. I personally always try not to exceed 1.5 seconds and that would be between totally different paragraphs.

But as I said: a great start and I am looking forward to hearing the next chapter. Synthetic to analytic...all this brought back memories from my university courses where we had to learn that differentiation. Old English always was my favourite back then.

Oh and your French is really good This will come in handy, as I'm sure there will be lots of French still in the chapters to come.

BTW, since you can enter the MW, you could update the sections with the link and length yourself for the next recordings. Just copy/paste the link in the appropriate slot and put in the length in the notes section and change the status to "Ready for PL". Then I can immediately download from the MW. I'll input the link this time for you

Sonia

[neddieseagoon]

Hwæt! Sadly there's no Old English in Craik. He starts out with early Middle English. I was just reading over the text for Section 10, and there's a whole bunch of it there.

I think I may have a higher threshold for silence than you do. I just finished listening to a commercial book on CD with occasional silences of 4 seconds or more, and it didn't bother me particularly (though I did notice it from time to time). In any event, I went back and listened to the gaps you mentioned. It seems to me that the ones at 4:30, 9:42 and 11:14 are fully justified by the changes of focus that occur there; if I made them much shorter I think it would sound like I'm rushing. The others may be a little longer than they need to be, although I don't think they would bother me as a listener. (The one at 6:40 isn't even 2 seconds long, by the way; it's only 1.7.)

About that P.S., I guess I had that in the same mental category as a footnote. In my previous project ("Stories of Symphonic Music"), I chose to omit all but one of the footnotes, and I even went so far as to omit part of the one footnote that I did record, on the grounds that the omitted matter would be of no interest or benefit whatsoever to the listener. The MC agreed (or, at least, she let me get away with it). Craik's P.S. seems to me to be a similar case. It's merely incidental and forms no part of the main thrust of the work, and it doesn't even refer to anything in the volume I'm recording. If you really want me to go back and record it, I can do that, but I'm not convinced it's the best course.

I'm assuming it will be all right to omit some or all of the footnotes in the Craik. If that's not true, please let me know right away.

[Kitty]

Hwæt! Sadly there's no Old English in Craik. He starts out with early Middle English. I was just reading over the text for Section 10, and there's a whole bunch of it there.

well at least he mentions some works like Beowulf and King Aelfric in the first few chapters.

I think I may have a higher threshold for silence than you do. I just finished listening to a commercial book on CD with occasional silences of 4 seconds or more, and it didn't bother me particularly (though I did notice it from time to time).

4 seconds !!! I probably would have listened to that book in fast-forward

well I only mentioned it (since it's my job), but it's your solo, so of you like to make longer gaps, that's your choice.

About that P.S., I guess I had that in the same mental category as a footnote. In my previous project ("Stories of Symphonic Music"), I chose to omit all but one of the footnotes, and I even went so far as to omit part of the one footnote that I did record, on the grounds that the omitted matter would be of no interest or benefit whatsoever to the listener.

yes we deal that way with footnotes, they're at the discretion of the reader or BC. And if they are only a reference to a page or book, then usually they are left out.

Here I felt however it was part of the intro, he clearly speaks about his own book, although volume two, and that's what the intro is all about. In fact he gave his end line with the date only after the PS, so he clearly wanted it included. It is not a footnote. So yes, it would be better to add it.

I'm assuming it will be all right to omit some or all of the footnotes in the Craik. If that's not true, please let me know right away.

I was just checking a few of the early footnotes and yes, most of them are book references. Probably can left out safely unless you want to be totally complete. If a footnote is maybe longer and strikes you as interesting, then it might be worth including. I saw one very long footnote somewhere in the beginning, over a page long, maybe there's interesting stuff in it.

Sonia

[Kitty]

I just saw that two sections are ready for PL. Please always make a note in the thread so I get notified by email alert.

Also I see you mentioned you tightened up some silences.... Are those only the ones that I mentioned in my PL notes ?

I need to Spot PL those sections too, because there may be accidental cuttings of parts of sentences that I miss.

Otherwise I need to PL from scratch, which will take me some additional time. Will try to get it in today.

I wait for confirmation first.

Sonia

[Kitty]

awaiting confirmation on the time stamps of Section 0, I already listened to Section 1. Really interesting stuff in there already.

I like the way you decided to state the two sub-chapters of the introduction. It's neat and concise and informative from the start. You can keep saying it like that, although it may sound long when there are more than 2 sub-chapters in one section.

Just a short note, concerning the silence at the beginning of the recording: 0.5-1 seconds maximum of silence is enough, optional for this section though

I have only one PL note to change, that maybe you were not aware of:

> at 0:09: maybe you did not see the note in the first post (beneath the MW): from the second section onward you can use the shortened LV disclaimer, which runs here:

"Section 1 of A Compendious History of English Literature and of the English Language, Volume I, by George Lillie Craik.
This LibriVox recording is in the Public Domain."
Chapter 1: Introductory / Part 1: Literature and language...(etc)"

The rest was word-perfect, wonderful. Only the intro needs changing. Much easier to use the shortened version from now on saves some time in the long run.

Sonia

[neddieseagoon]

I just saw that two sections are ready for PL. Please always make a note in the thread so I get notified by email alert.

Sorry about that. You didn't mention doing this when you suggested I update the MW myself for new recordings, so I sort of assumed that as DPL you'd get a notification when I set the status to 'PL ready".

Also I see you mentioned you tightened up some silences.... Are those only the ones that I mentioned in my PL notes ?

I need to Spot PL those sections too, because there may be accidental cuttings of parts of sentences that I miss.

Otherwise I need to PL from scratch, which will take me some additional time. Will try to get it in today.

Yes, I shortened the silences you reported at 6:40 and 7:34. (I can guarantee that there were no words deleted, but listen if you must.) The change at the end begins at 11:25. In addition to the P.S. itself, I re-recorded Craik's initials because their accentuation needed to change with the addition of the P.S..

> at 0:09: maybe you did not see the note in the first post (beneath the MW): from the second section onward you can use the shortened LV disclaimer, which runs here:

"Section 1 of A Compendious History of English Literature and of the English Language, Volume I, by George Lillie Craik.
This LibriVox recording is in the Public Domain."
Chapter 1: Introductory / Part 1: Literature and language...(etc)"

The rest was word-perfect, wonderful. Only the intro needs changing. Much easier to use the shortened version from now on saves some time in the long run.

I'm willing to re-record the intro if you want me to, but I did read the note you mention, and it says using the shortened disclaimer is optional, which I took to mean that I could use it or not depending on my preference.

[Kitty]

Yes, I shortened the silences you reported at 6:40 and 7:34. (I can guarantee that there were no words deleted, but listen if you must.) The change at the end begins at 11:25. In addition to the P.S. itself, I re-recorded Craik's initials because their accentuation needed to change with the addition of the P.S..

ok thanks for the confirmation, that will save me some time. I only Spot check then

I'm willing to re-record the intro if you want me to, but I did read the note you mention, and it says using the shortened disclaimer is optional, which I took to mean that I could use it or not depending on my preference.

yes, you are right, it is optional, but I think nobody ever does the long disclaimer through a solo if a short disclaimer is accepted as well. But, ok, if you want to do the long one each time, that's up to you. But it might be tedious to the listeners to hear this every time Already the short one is long enough if you hear it for 50 sections.

But up to you, only stay consistent then throughout. I mark it PL ok then

Sonia

[neddieseagoon]

Hi Sonia,

I decided to take your advice and change to the short disclaimer. So I've re-recorded Section 1 and it's ready for a spot-PL. The only change is to the first 14 seconds.

Section 2 is also ready for PL.

A couple of notes are probably in order here.

First, I've decided that as a mid-19th century British subject, Craik would probably have pronounced Latin with the traditional English pronunciation that is now reserved for law Latin, instead of either the Italianate Latin used by the Catholic Church or the so-called Restored (classical) pronunciation that is taught nowadays. This is the kind of pronunciation that turns "sine die" into "SIGN-ee DYE" Instead of the Church or Classical "SEE-nay DEE-ay" (approximately). This sounds awful to me and feels very unnatural but I'm giving it a go.

Second, Craik is a little inconsistent in his publication references. Sometimes he spells the location out fully, and sometimes he abbreviates. So, for example, a book published in octavo by a London publisher may be described as "8vo. London: 1834" (see p. 28) or "8vo. Lond. 1801" (see p. 37). I decided it wouldn't make sense to pronounce the abbreviations as such, so I'll be expanding "Lond." to "London", etc. However, it appears that when Craik abbreviates he doesn't actually have the English place names in mind. "Lond." could equally well be short for the Latin locative Londinii as for "London", and in fact he appears to be using Latin names at least some of the time, because he lists a book published in Oxford as "Oxon.", which can only be short for the locative Oxoniae, "at Oxford". I have decided that it's best to ignore this and use the English place names, so, for example, at 6:17 of Section 2 you'll hear me say "Oxford" instead of either "Oxon" or "Oxoniae".

These are, of course, open to discussion should you find them troubling.

[Kitty]

I decided to take your advice and change to the short disclaimer.

good choice for such a long project as you can see, it saves you almost 20 seconds of recording in each section

Both Sections 1 & 2 are PL ok now, no need to change anything there anymore.

This is the kind of pronunciation that turns "sine die" into "SIGN-ee DYE" Instead of the Church or Classical "SEE-nay DEE-ay" (approximately). This sounds awful to me and feels very unnatural but I'm giving it a go.

I agree it sounds unnatural and is hard to understand for people who have notions of Latin nowadays (like me).

But Latin is extinct as native language now, so you are probably free to use whatever you feel is best. I would not necessarily do it the way you think Craik wanted it said. Who knows, he may have been a classic afficionado and would have said it the way we would nowadays.

So, for example, a book published in octavo by a London publisher may be described as "8vo. London: 1834" (see p. 28) or "8vo. Lond. 1801" (see p. 37). I decided it wouldn't make sense to pronounce the abbreviations as such, so I'll be expanding "Lond." to "London", etc.

yes definitely, I would extend all the abbreviations, so also "octavo, London". It will make the text more comprehensible. You would also naturally say "page" instead of only "p", even if he wrote "p. 10"

I have decided that it's best to ignore this and use the English place names, so, for example, at 6:17 of Section 2 you'll hear me say "Oxford" instead of either "Oxon" or "Oxoniae".

probably a wise decision and totally legitimate. Only if he writes it out in full, I guess it's best to stay faithful to what was written there, but for abbreviations, you're free to expand to the mondern names of towns for comprehension sake.

Will try to PL section 2 later on.

Sonia

[Kitty]

so I just listened to Section 2 and it's entirely PL ok on the first go. I see you decided against including the footnotes, that's ok, they are usually optional, especially if they are only a reference or some such. Sometimes they may be interesting for the understanding of the text. Your choice.

A the venerable Bede, I remember our Old English translation courses where we had to deal with Alfred's version.

A great start !

Sonia

[neddieseagoon]

Hi Sonia,

I decided it would be too painful to use the old pronunciation of Latin for the whole book, so I've re-uploaded Section 2 with the Classical pronunciation. (It felt much more natural to use the Classical pronunciation, and I'm hoping it will sound better to the listener too.) Changes were made in the following places:

4:40-5:02
6:06-7:03
12:16-12:21
14:24-14:38

I also made a tiny edit at 3:58 to remove an annoying click at the beginning of the word "Caw".

[Kitty]

I decided it would be too painful to use the old pronunciation of Latin for the whole book, so I've re-uploaded Section 2 with the Classical pronunciation. (It felt much more natural to use the Classical pronunciation, and I'm hoping it will sound better to the listener too.) Changes were made in the following places:

thanks for notifying me, I'll Spot check later

probably a wise choice for the Latin. Best to change it in the early days of this project

Sonia

[Kitty]

all right, everything Spot check PL ok. Nice patches

Sonia