[COMPLETE] Essays Collection #01 - rap

[Rapunzelina]

Hi, Rapunzelina,

Happy New Year.


Paula

Happy New Year, Paula!

[msfry]

Hi, Rapunzelina,

Happy New Year.

author: Pope Eugene IV (1383-1447)
title: Sicut Dudum (1435)
source: https://www.papalencyclicals.net/eugene04/eugene04sicut.htm
link: https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/essays1_sicutdudum_eugene_plm_128kb.mp3
length: 00:06:31

Paula

Hello Paula. I have listened to your Sicut Dudum and found it interesting. Alas it does not strike me as an essay, but a writ, or command, from the Pope -- do this, or else! I suggest you submit it to the non fiction collection where it will fit in better. I did PL it as I listened, and here is my note which you may want to apply to the piece:
:34-:39 No need to repeat the title, though it appears twice in the text: Pope Eugene IV Against the Enslaving of Black Natives from the Canary Islands

Feel free to submit another essay, and Happy New Year to you.

[pmessina]

Dear Michele,

I understand that you decide what to use. However, I feel obligated to respond to your message.

English teachers set parameters for essays. Writers don’t. I write essays. Not one of my essays is like another. Because you don’t like the content of an essay or how it is written does not mean it is not an essay. Essay serve many purposes. One is to teach. Papal encyclicals are teaching tools. Popes have an unusual writing style. Their language is more couched than we are used to.

Essays are nonfiction, but they are perhaps the most creative nonfiction form. An essay can be hilarious, morose, satirical, romantic, instructive, demanding, and more. It can be dialogue, a list, lyrics, a poem, etc. One of the purposes of an essay is a call to action.

Perhaps my reading of “Sicut Dudum” muddled Pope Eugene IV’s intent. He is condemning slavery, which is quite clear in the original title, “Against the Enslaving of Black Natives from the Canary Islands.” Eugene was a priest concerned about the salvation of every individual, Christian or non-Christian. Slavery is a crime against humanity and a sin. Thus, he explains the ramifications to both the enslaved and the enslaver. The gravity of this sin is made clear by the fifteen days in which an enslaver had to free his slaves or be excommunicated.

Slavery still exists. World Population Review estimates there were 46 million individuals who were enslaved in 2018 (https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-that-still-have-slavery). This site https://www.axios.com/2023/05/25/modern-slavery-countries-rank-list-forced-labor estimates 50 million are enslaved.

Paula

[msfry]

Paula,
Good morning. Now that there what you wrote is an essay! And a blood-stirring, convincing argument at that. I especially appreciate the links. If it means that much to you to have the Pope's "writ" included in this collection, I'm honored to have it. And maybe I'll have to become more broad-minded as to what an essay is.

[pmessina]

Thank you, Michele,

author: Pope Eugene IV (1383-1447)
title: Sicut Dudum (1435)
source: https://www.papalencyclicals.net/eugene04/eugene04sicut.htm
link: https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/essays1_sicutdudum_eugene_plm_128kb.mp3
length: 00:06:22

Something in a slightly different vein:

author: Joyce Kilmer (1886 - 1918)
book: The Circus, and Other Essays and Fugitive Pieces
title: The Day after Christmas
source: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/39103/pg39103-images.html#Page_125
link: https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/essays1_dayafterchristmas_kilmer_plm_128kb.mp3
length: 00:15:20

Paula

[msfry]

A two-fer, and both PL OK!

I really like the The Day After Christmas. Lots of things I hadn't considered before . . . how the subway is so bland and colorless compared to train rides where you see neighborhoods go by out the window. Christmas paper garlands printed on one side only and the residents displaying the pretty-side-out in their windows specifically to please their neighbors. I remember in Harriet Beecher Stowe auto-biography, she related how Christmas trees and decorations were verbotin by Calvinists in early America, declaring them holdovers of pagan yule rituals. They lost on that one!

[pmessina]

Dear Michele,

I live in Massachusetts where the public celebration of Christmas was banned in the seventeenth century. We seem to have slipped back into our old ways. While there were decorations on homes and on Boston Common, many business did not put up decorations. The Boston Public Library, one of the largest in the country, had nothing, no decorations, no Christmas collections on display, no mention of the holiday whatsoever. A librarian told me someone complained. How sad.

It was interesting to read about Kilmer. Now largely forgotten except for "Trees," he was prolific and popular in his day.

Paula

[msfry]

It was interesting to read about Kilmer. Now largely forgotten except for "Trees," he was prolific and popular in his day.

I've been perusing a few other titles in this volume and would jump aboard and record one except I had Covid over the holidays and am still sneezing and coughing my head off, especially when I try to talk. I've had a more raspy voice since my last bout of Covid over a year ago! Hopefully you'll carry on.

[flavo5000]

Here's a short essay for ya!

Scientification, Searchlight of Science by Jack Williamson
https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/essays1_scientifiction_williamson_bt_128kb.mp3
4:14
source: https://archive.org/details/Amazing_Stories_Quarterly_v01n04_1928_Fall/page/n3/mode/1up

[msfry]

Scientifiction is PL OK. Neat article. Thanks.

[msfry]

Here is an essay discussing/summarizing the principles in F. A. Hayek's book, The Road To Serfdom (still under copyright), entitled

Freedom and Enterprise, by F. A. Harper, published 1945 and not copyrighted, text here:
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924013882687&seq=5

https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/essays1_freedomandenterprise_harper_mtf_128kb.mp3 54:07

As DPL on this project, I will need someone to PL this file for me. It is quite interesting as it discusses EXACTLY what we in America are observing/experiencing today in our own political landscape.

[bobpliley]

https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/darwinianhypothesis_huxley_128kb.mp3

time 42:42

Here is another Charles Darwin essay. This one by TH Huxley. Is this the correct way to submit. Fourth submission, ergo=newbie

[msfry]

https://librivox.org/uploads/rapunzelina/darwinianhypothesis_huxley_128kb.mp3

time 42:42

Here is another Charles Darwin essay. This one by TH Huxley. Is this the correct way to submit. Fourth submission, ergo=newbie

Thanks, Bob. I look forward to listening but first, I will need a link to the text you read from.

[bobpliley]

Can you please tell me how to find the "link"

Thanks

[bobpliley]

Re. Link to the Darwinian hypothesis,


I put together what I thought may be a link: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2927/pg2927

I’m making this up as I go along.