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blackswaneuroparedux · 1 year

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Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

- Oscar Wilde, De Profundis

It’s true that when people strongly desire something, such as a new item of clothing or a luxury good, they might feel like they ‘need’ it - but they don’t need it in the same way that they need water or food. Their survival isn’t at stake.

Desire (as opposed to need) is an intellectual appetite for things that you perceive to be good, but that you have no physical, instinctual basis for wanting - and that’s true whether those things are actually good or not.

Your intellectual appetites might include knowing the answer to a mathematics problem; the satisfaction of receiving a text from someone you have a crush on; or getting a coveted job offer. These things won’t necessarily cause physical pleasure. They might spill over into physical enjoyment, but they are not dependent on it. Rather, the pleasure is primarily intellectual.

The 13th Century philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas wrote that these intellectual appetites are part of what has traditionally been called the ‘will’. When a person wills something, they strive toward it. If they come to possess the object of their desire, their will finds rest in it - and they are able to experience joy, so long as they are able to rest in the object of their desire.

But, for most people, such joy is fleeting. There is always something else to strive for - and this keeps most of us in a constant, sometimes painful, state of never-satisfied striving. And that striving for something that we do not yet possess is called desire. Desire doesn’t bring us joy because it is, by definition, always for something we feel we lack. Understanding the mechanism by which desires take shape, though, can help us avoid living our lives in an endless merry-go-round of desire.

When it comes to understanding the mystery of desire, one contemporary thinker stands above all others: the French social theorist René Girard, a historian-turned-polymath who came to the United States shortly after the Second World War and taught at numerous US universities, including Johns Hopkins and Stanford. By the time he died in 2015, he had been named to the Académie Française and was considered one of the greatest minds of the 20th century.

Girard realised one peculiar feature of desire: ‘We would like our desires to come from our deepest selves, our personal depths,’ he said, ‘but if it did, it would not be desire. Desire is always for something we feel we lack.’ Girard noted that desire is not, as we often imagine it, something that we ourselves fully control. It is not something that we can generate or manufacture on our own. It is largely the product of a social process.

‘Man is the creature who does not know what to desire,’ wrote Girard, ‘and he turns to others in order to make up his mind.’ He called this mimetic, or imitative, desire. Mimesis comes from the Greek word for ‘imitation’, which is the root of the English word ‘mimic’. Mimetic desires are the desires that we mimic from the people and culture around us. If I perceive some career or lifestyle or vacation as good, it’s because someone else has modelled it in such a way that it appears good to me. In other words, we copy other people because it’s low risk and we expect a safer return.

Girard had spent the last 14 years of his career as the Andrew B Hammond Professor of French Language, Literature, and Civilization, at Stanford, where he was the philosophical mentor of Peter Thiel, co-founder of the payments company PayPal and the intelligence company Palantir Technologies - a billionaire who was the first major investor in Facebook. Thiel has credited Girard with helping him see the power of Facebook before most others - and also for helping him escape an unfulfilling career in corporate law and finance. Once he was able to break free from the mimetic herd, he could start thinking more for himself and undertaking projects that were not merely the product of other people’s desires.

I began to realise that understanding mimetic desire was crucial if I wanted to break free from the cycle that I was stuck in. If, like me, you’d like to get a deeper understanding of your own wants and desires, and to take more control over them, then you need to read more from René Girard and especially his book ‘Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World’ (1978).

#wilde #oscar wilde #quote #mimicry #mimetic theory #rené girard #needs #desires #copying #society #sociology #human nature #human condition

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just-french-me-up · 2 years

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Oooh can you PLEASE talk about French complaints about anglicisms? I also love linguistics

Oh BOI, CAN I?????

There's this weird tendency (aka policy) in France against anglicisms and adopting words from the English language because the ruling class has this grand idea about French exceptionalism, how it must remain pristine and unchanged just like it Used to Be.

And ok, that seems reasonable on the surface, fighting American soft power and soft imperialism and all that.

Except they go about it in the STUPIDEST WAY.

You know what didn't exist as it is now, say 600 years ago? THE FRENCH LANGUAGE! The pronunciation was different, the grammar was different, the spelling was different. And you know what won't exist in 600 years? THE FRENCH LANGUAGE as it is now! (and humanity, probably, but that's another topic for another day) Cause that's how languages WORK.

Politicians and conservatives are all up in arms because of a few English words, failing to remember English takes a sizable chunk of it's vocab from French itself since the Norman conquest. They sometimes fustigate people for using an English word.... OF FRENCH ORIGIN!!!!!

Also word borrowing is one of the natural processes languages undergo. Alcohol? Arabic! Denim? French! Trying to stop it is like building a dam with Swiss cheese.

There is also this whole institution in France called the Académie Française, whose job is to define what's proper correct French and what isn't, and most of the members (for life) AREN'T EVEN FUCKING LINGUISTS?????? They're supposed to be the highest authority regarding the French language and it's just a fancy club of old people with fancy black and green jackets????

Anyway, some guys are also in charge to proposing (imposing) French words to replace anglicisms. The lastest ones are :

a streamer -> un joueur en direct

a deepfake -> une infox vidéo

a podcast -> une baladodiffusion

And those are the OFFICIAL words lawmakers have to use in official documents, whereas NO ONE on the French population would ever use them. Like.... EVER, because the use of those anglicisms is already rooted in everyday life, since they weren't any French equivalent when they were invented.

Anyway, I hate it, leave languages evolve naturally thank you for coming to my TED talk

NB : this rant does not apply to corporate anglicism, corporate anglicism can go die in a ditch, they are the opposite side of the elitism spectrum, stop calling it a "one-to-one" (wan-tou-wan) it's just a fucking review conversation with one of your colleagues OH MY GOD

#answered #linguistics #english #french #french culture #french stuff #if you speak french please check out linguisticae's video on the academie française on youtube it's chef kiss #boomers be like oh no we must preserve the beauty of our language #bro i work with the youth and they all speak french and you wouldnt be able to understand a single thing they say #wesh maggle bien ou bien OKLM t'as vu and such #and that's AMAZING #i just.... love.... LANGUAGES

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adarkrainbow · 1 year

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Catherine Bernard’s Riquet with the tuft

(Note: all illustrations actually come from Perrault’s Riquet with the tuft, not Bernard’s)

As I said in my post about Charles Perrault’s Riquet with the tuft, the tale of the Academician was actually an answer to a previous fairytale written by Catherine Bernard - and reading her version of “Riquet with the tuft” helps a lot understand Perrault’s. Now, while Catherine Bernard is part of the “first fairytale tellers” of France, and was very influential in the birth of the fairy tale genre (after all, she influenced Perrault’s tales), she isn’t often talked about... It is because, unlike other writers of the “first generations”, she didn’t create a lot of fairytales - merely two. “Le prince rosier” (the rose-bush tree) and her Riquet with the tuft, both inserted in a novel called “Inès de Cordoue”. This, as you will learn by following this blog, was actually quite usual when the fairytale genre appeared: fairytales weren’t considered enough to exist “by their own” and so were often inserted as “stories-within-stories” in realistic narratives.

Mind you, when I say Catherine Bernard wasn’t “talked much about”, I mean in terms of fairytales nowadays - outside of this, she was actually one of the famous French women of the second half of the 17th century. Also called “mademoiselle Bernard”, she was a poetess, a novelist and a playwright, and one of the first women part of the Académie Française. Much more importantly: she was the first women who got a theater play written by her (a tragédie) to be played by the Comédie Française! (If you don’t know about France at this time, this was huge, l’Académie Française was the official cultural institution of France, and the Comédie Française the most famous and respectable official theater of France).

All that being said, let’s see what’s her take on the “Riquet” story...

Once upon a time, there was a rich lord of Granada [note: Given the novel the story is inserted in takes place in Spain, of course the fairytale has a Spanish flavor to it] who had only one sorrow: his only daughter, despite being very beautiful, was very stupid. Her actions ruined her grace, and despite her splendid body, she lacked a “soul”. She was named Mama, and she was too stupid to know that she was actually stupid (well, “lacking spirit” as mademoiselle Bernard puts it), but she felt that she was disdained and isolated from others, though she couldn’t tell why. One day, as she was walking alone near her house, a man so hideous he could be a monster appeared out of the ground. She was ready to flee when he talked to her, saying he had bad news to tell her, but also pleasant things to promise. He begins with the cruel part: he reveals to her that the reason don’t like is because she is lacking “in thoughts”, and because she never thinks she is far inferior to him, even though he is a monster in body. (There is a funny line where he adds “But given you empty your eyes are right now, I realized I over-estimated you when I thought my words would offend you.”) The monstrous man offers Mama to give her spirit - but to do so, she needs to love him, Riquet with the Tuft, and in one year she will have to marry him. He lets Mama think about it as long as she likes, and while waiting she just has to repeat a little magical poem to gain the thoughts and cleverness she misses (it is a little poem about love).

The girl immediately does so, and becomes fast in thought and shining in spirit. Back at the court, she amazes everyone with her newfound spirituality, she is now surrounded by friends and lovers at her balls and promenades, soon people become jealous of her and everybody talks about her. And regularly she repeats the magical love-poem of Riquet, to keep her bright spirit... But unfortunately, while these words do create a feeling of love in her heart, it is for somebody else: for the most good-lovers of her suitors. There’s just one problem: this suitor is not rich or wealthy in any way, he is “without fortune”. The girl’s parents, realizing the mistake they made by wishing for her to have spirit, try to compensate it by teaching her all sorts of warnings about love - but it is useless to fight love in the heart of a young and pretty girl, and so Mama became madly in love with the handsome but poor suitor, Arada.

Now, Mama had revealed to no one the true cause of her “spiritual metamorphosis” - she was so vain she refused to admit she didn’t grow a complex thought on her own. But as the year came to a close she started to despair and realize that she shouldn’t have used Riquet’s gift so much - she needed to escape her fateful wedding to the monstrous man, while also keeping the gift he had offered her... One day, as she thought about her plan alone, she heard a great noise and songs from under the ground - songs singing the poem of love Riquet taught her. Mama, terrified, sees the ground open up before her, and Riquet with the tuft appears surrounded by men as deformed him. She could only cry before such a sight. Riquet understood what was going on, and was sad to realize she disliked him even more than before, but he told her: you can still back up. I gave you one year to think over, you can refuse my wedding proposition, as long as you return to me the gift of spirit I gave you. However, if she marries him, she will become the Queen of the Gnomes (for Riquet himself reveals to be the King of the Gnomes), and he will offer her all the treasures buried under the earth (which are his property). He concludes: “If someone is unhappy with both gold and spirit, it is that they deserve to be.”

Riquet takes Mama in his underground kingdom and his somptuous, luxury apartments, where ugly female Gnomes serve her every whim and desires. He leaves her two days to see what he has to offer to help her make her choice, and she has all sorts of gnome-entertainments - balls and theater plays - but all she can see is the grotesque appearance of everyone. Now, to flee this hideous husband, she was ready to return to stupidity... But she had a lover now, and this changed everything. She didn’t want to lose Arada, so she wanted to keep her spirit, but by doing so she condemned herself to life forever underground cut from him...

After two days, she realized she fear too much to return to Arada in a thoughtless state, and decided to marry Riquet nonetheless, to keep her spirit. Through this wedding, Mama’s spirit became even bigger and stronger than before, but this made her regret even more the decision she took of marrying a monster that disgusted her constantly. Riquet realized the hatred of his wife, and he grew hurt - he started to curse his own curiosity that led him outside of his underground realm, he cursed all these seductive womens and his dreams of marriages, and in his bitter state he left Mama more and more alone. Without the King of the Gnomes around, Mama decided to bring Arada into her underground realm: after all, she entered, couldn’t he? She was also worried of how brutally and unexpectedly the Gnome had ravished her - fearing what people might say and claim back at the surface. Mama had a Gnome servant bring a letter to Arada, who was despaired by the disappearance of his lover, and as soon as he learned where she was, he joined her - gaining access with her help to her underground chambers. Exchanging sweet words, Arada decided to abandon the human world to live with Mama under the earth.

Arada thus started to live with Mama hidden in Riquet’s palace - but Riquet noticed that his wife was suddenly much more joyful and happy than usual. Worse: he noticed she made an effort to dress up nicely, put on jewels and look pretty, even when she was supposed to be completely alone. He was too clever to believe she somehow had grown to like him - and he guessed a human lover must have sneaked to her. He wanted to punish her, for using the intelligence he had gifted her against him - but he couldn’t remove all of it, because she had obeyed his law and held his promise... So he decided to split the spell: she would only be intelligent at night, as she slept with him, and return to begin stupid by day, when he left her alone.

Unfortunately for Riquet, while during the day Mama was lethargic with stupidity, by night the rush of ideas kept waking her up, and she stole a magical herb that, placed under Riquet’s nose, would make him sleep deeply as long as she liked. Like thus, she could leave her drugged husband to spend the night at her lover’s hiding place, without worrying about a thing. This went on from quite some times - she spent all her nights with her lovers, and by the morning removed the herbs, and spent her lonely, stupid days sleeping.

But things couldn’t last forever... The magical leaves that placed Riquet to sleep also made him snore. A Gnome servant, who was half awakened half asleep, misunderstood one of the snores as an order and rushed into the bedroom of his master: seeing the herb, he thought they were bothering him, and removed them. Riquet found himself all alone. Looking for his wife, he discovered her making vows of eternal love to Arada. Riquet didn’t say anything, but took a wand and touched with it Arada, who became identical in body to Riquet. Days passing by, Mama lost the ability to distinguish between the two, and merely found herself with two husbands: she didn’t know to which she could confess her sorrows, and from which she should fear the wrath.

Mademoiselle Bernard to conclude: “But maybe she didn’t lose that much. With time, all lovers become husbands.” THE END

As you can see, this story has a quite distinct tone. We have here a more irreverencious, humoristic, darker tale where no one is really a good guy - it is a classic “unfortunate extra-marital love story” so typical of the time. The female protagonist, Mama, is clearly designed to not be a good heroine - she is told to be vain, cunning, deceiving, and to use her intelligence for bad things... But at the same time, it is said that she only follows her heart, and that she stays true to her love despite what everybody else says. In a similar way, Arada could be seen as an antagonist, given his position in the tale, but the truth is that he is just a good-hearted man in love, and who stays true and loyal for his soul-mate, even abandoning the human world for her.

It is a strange and bizarre tale without clear morals here, a muddle grey story where nothing is black-and-white, and whose only purpose is to explore the clash between “love” and “marriage”. We have here the traditional topos of a loveless wedding to a hideous and hated husband - but who, in a twist, is not a bad, cruel or lecherous one, as Riquet is shown to be understanding of his wife’s feeling, to be wise, to leave her a full choice to marry him or not... He only punishes her when she does break their marital bonds, and even then his punishments are not truly cruel. In fact, this breaking of the cliche and stereotypes of the romance novels reaches a culminating point with the last sentence of the tale: “All lovers become husbands”, which literaly happens as Mama finds Arada turned into a twin of Riquet. Catherine Bernard seems here to try to prove the absurdity of the very topoi romance of her time relied on, this sort of clear-cut divide between the charming, heroic, extra-marital lovers and the wicked husbands, by pointing out how one can become the other and reverse: the real thrill of Mama (and of all typical romance protagonist) is the thrill of an extra-marital relationship with a young and beautiful person. But if we imagine that their love for the dashing youths lead them to marry them... Then it means love is gone, as they are now one of those hated husbands the romance-heroine has to flee from in another man’s arms. A very superficial way of thinking that Bernard takes a great joy playing with here - especially by highlighting how everything bad that happened to Mama happened because of her vanity, her refusal to reveal where she got her intelligence from, her refusal to appear stupid in front of the man she loved (or thought she loved). The fact that, in the end, when one’s appearance is changed, she cannot distinguish between the two, actually proves that her feelings were entirely superficial, and that deep down, Riquet and Arada are the same in spirit...

Of course, reading this full, original version also allows one to understand the strange gaps and holes in Perrault’s story. The whole passage of Riquet having an underground kitchen popping out of nowhere makes not much sense in his tale (since Riquet is there a human prince) - but it is a nod to Bernard’ version where Riquet is a gnome ruling over an underground nation. Similarly, the mention of the dashing rival opposing Riquet in Perrault’s is a leftover of Arada, a nod to the original tale that is quickly gotten rid of as the Academician rather chooses to make his story one about the power of love, with a happy ending, rather than a pathetic comedy like Bernard’s. In fact, Perrault’s ending is purposefully designed to be the reverse of Bernard, with the ugly dwarf becoming the handsome prince, instead of the reverse - and the ambiguity at the end of Bernard’s tale (Mama unable to recognize Arada from Riquet) is displaced to the princess of Perrault unable to know if Riquet was truly transformed, or if simply her look of him changed.

To this, I’ll add some notes taken not from my mind, but from an article written by Monique Vincent, comparing the two versions of the tale:

Perrault’s story is one fundamentally optimistic. In his tale, the character of the fairy is here to soothe and balance the disasters of natural birth: to the ugly Riquet she gives spirit, and to the stupid girl she gives the power to make people beautiful. These two different characters are soul-mates made for each other, gifted with complementary gifts, that end up making the happiness of one another. But Bernard’s tale is pessimistic. There is no fairy, only Riquet can give a gift (a gift which causes his own unhappiness, and is used/abused against him), and the “marvelous” of the tale is only present in Riquet who, while just an extravagant but charming prince in Perrault’s, is here a grotesque and frightening being ruling over an underground realm of ugliness. Perrault’s protagonist are charming - the stupidity of the princess being tied to everyday things such as clumsiness, and Riquet having his cute little tuft of hair at his birth ; Bernard’s characters are self-destructive, such as Mama who keeps accumulating miseries and miseries driven by the wrong choices.

The whole struggle of Mama is one of fatality: to keep her newfound love and reputation, she is forced to tie herself forever to somebody she does not love, but to be able to live fully and happily her live and emotions, she needs to become a betrayer and an oath-breaker. She understands and knows that there is no right way for her, and that she is doomed either way, but still drags herself and her lover into dangerous situations out of pure vanity. And Bernard’s character of Riquet is one we can only feel pity for, the same way he felt pity for Mama - as his fate is to be humiliated by a cheating wife, and to end up in self-hatred due to Mama’s constant disgust (it is noted that due to her dislike of him, he ends up cursing his own appearance). Perrault’s narrative is fast, light-hearted, talkative and “shining” with wonders ; Bernard’s narrative is a deeply human story of anxiety and emotions, taking us into the depths of the heart and the earth. This is a clear opposition of what liked to call “le merveilleux blanc” and “le merveilleux noir”, the white marvelous and the black marvelous. In fact, Perrault’s story is much closer to the traditional fairytale, where Bernard’s story is still ingrained in the logic of the novel.

A common point in those two tales is that both explore aspects of the modern world the authors live in, but each author has its different angle. Perrault’s tale is about life in society: it is about learning to be entertaining at parties, it is how to get the art of “shining” by your conversation, it is the story of a young princess becoming the jewel of a court, and it ends with the social event that is a wedding feast. Mademoiselle Bernard rather turns herself towards the familial life: Mama is the young girl that cannot be with the one she is in love with due to her parents’ disapproval, while only being able to grow as a person through the love of someone else ; it is the story of a husband who tries to make his wife happy through riches and entertainments, but fails as she flees to find something else he cannot offer. This is the story of a girl who follows her love despite the social and familial norms, which only leads her to becoming an unhappy criminal. This is the full horror of the “black marvelous”.

But both tale share a noticeable “twist” and “leaning” towards the real world, somehow announcing the disappearance of the world of the supernatural and the wonders, replaced by reality. In Perrault’s, it is the refutation of the fairy’s spell through psychological explanations ; in Bernard’s, it is the depressing conclusion of what looks like a banal, sad case of love affair and cheated husbands - that “all lovers become husbands”, a heavy truth that crushes the marvels of the world of the gnomes, reducing it to a mere caricature of our own world. Bernard’s tale is a tragedy, Perrault’s a comedy.

[I would personaly nuance that there is more humor than what Monique Vincent claims in Bernard’s story - there are several jokes cracked up here and there, the whole situation is indeed a grotesque caricature of romance stories, and the final conclusion, while pretty sad or heavy, can also be read as a sort of dark joke.]

#riquet with the tuft #french fairytales #literary fairytales #catherine bernard #charles perrault #perrault fairytales #comparative fairytales

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pebblysand · 2 years

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This is a bit of an odd and random question, but what language do you think in?

not an odd question at all, i'm asked all the time! i suppose this is in reference to @thefanficwriterscraft's latest podcast episode, which you can listen to below! (shameless plug, i know, ahha)

generally, it depends 1) where i am, and 2) what i'm thinking about.

on 1) when i'm in ireland, i mostly think in english, cause my brain is sort of wired that way. i forget french due to lack of practice; i've had distant family members tell me i sound "english" when i speak french now, not in the way that i have an accent, but more in the way that my pacing has changed, and i look for my words more. when i'm back in france though, it comes back after a week or two. then i think in french more, which subsists also for a week or two after i get back from holiday.

on 2) if i'm thinking about fic or work, i'm thinking in english 99% of the time because those are things i do exclusively in english, and those are things i only have the vocabulary for in english, if that makes sense. i spent 10 minutes while talking to my mum the other day trying to find an equivalent for the word "call" (as in a work "call") in french. but the reverse is also applicable: if i think about my family or about france in general, i mostly think in french.

i do have one french friend in dublin, and my boss is also french. together we speak a sort of frenglish language, as in: "on cross la street?" (should we cross the street?) or: "je te pingue in the pm" (i'll message you in the afternoon). it's a very different exercise from speaking to my french family who don't speak english at all and thus need me to think of the right french word for everything. frenglish is the lowest amount of effort for me, cause i can just use whatever word comes to mind.

generally, right now, i find:

frenglish the easiest and what i typically think in

pure english mostly effortless but sometimes i'll forget a word or mispronounce something

pure french the hardest

but i've not been home to france in almost six months. it'll probably come back once i do.

i'm actually curious: any other bilinguals following? what language do you think in?

#asked and answered #q

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lesmotsquinousmanqueny · 7 months

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Good Omens using She for God alongside other gender clustery like having Michael played by a woman, really gave me a taste for gendering stuff differently just for Funsies.

You know there is a general rule that "the masculine gender is neutral" in French. Which means masculin overtakes the feminin. It translates into titles and occupations as well.

If a woman acquires a position with a title, the old convention, which is still partially used, is to keep the masculine version of the title. That would create something like "Mister President Merkel."

Nowadays, we can say authoress instead of author, or female President instead of just President, but some elitist pricks still cling to that convention (looking at you Académie Française).

What I'm getting at is that I really want to call Macron La Présidente instead of Le Président (his title).

If you aren't French, you won't melt down seeing this, but believe me, a lot of French people would.

But really, why should "Feminine is Neutral" be any different than "Masculine is Neutral"?

Doing this could really make some French people realize the inherent misogyny perpetuated by the "Masculine is Neutral" rule.

#french gender rules are actually spreading the idea of hierarchy between masculine and feminine #the feminine gender is actually seen as lesser #seems obvious but we are taught that it isn't the case #that preserving the grammar is way more important than ideological considerations #thank you go for that late realisation

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gabithebisaster · 2 years

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The intro post!!

Hey there! Haven’t used tmblr yet, but just decided it was time for me to get started. I’ll introduce myself so you get to know me better and know what to expect

My name is Gabrielle, but usually people will call me by my nickname: Gabi. I was born in 1998 (putting it like this so I won’t ever have to update this data lol) I’m from France, and I’m a neurodivergent genderqueer baguette who goes by they/them! (My french pronouns are il or elle or iel if you’re curious)

I currently study to get a master’s degree in translation and writing, and I always feel nervous saying I have a bachelor’s degree in english (linguistics + English and American literature and history), now everyone is going to judge me when I make silly mistakes, oh my... But I’ve seen memes about english speakers being super kind to non natives who lack confidence, so it’s going to be ok, right? Anyway, tl;dr I’m a huge linguistic nerd and I love making fun of the (c)Académie Française every chance I get.

I love watching cartoon and anime (though I don’t watch as many anime as I used to) I love reading (though I struggle finding time to read all the books in my “to read” shelf, oops), I love video games, and I am obsessed with Miku Hatsune, our lord and savior. Oh, and in case I ever get political, I am a progressive leftist, more specifically what we call “islamo-gauchiasse” in France (reblog if you think that’s beautiful).

I have many hobbies, and that’s what I’ll talk about in this blog! I think they can be sorted in just a few categories:

Fashion

I enjoy sewing and make stuff such as plushies, accessories, clothes, and costumes. I also really love drag and alternative fashion styles. I don’t know all of the alt styles, but love learning about them. I wear goth and EGL, and also my own casual style. It would be hard to sum it up in just a few words, but if I get the motivations to post ootd’s I think you’ll get the idea!

I also want to start a little shop to sell some of the stuff I make, and with my mental health it’s quite the journey to get there! I hope I can launch it this month, but it may be harder than I thought...

Music

Well, alt music goes hand in hand with alt fashion, doesn’t it? I love to listen to metal, rock, hyperpop, eurobeat, video game ost’s, weeb stuff, some queer tracks...

I like to dabble on making some music on FL studio. So far I’ve only arranged existing tracks, but I’d love to try composing myself someday! But then music making in general can sometimes give me some sort of choice paralysis, so arranging removes at least melody from the too wide option list, if that makes sense, haha

Writing

I’ve always wanted to try writing and dabble for funsies, but before I got on medication anxiety, depression and some of my traumas paralyzed me creatively, so I haven’t done much so far. At the moment I am writing the “roleplaying” part of a homebrew tabletop roleplaying game with my s/o. I also got the chance to write a few articles for a French EGL fanzine and plan on writing more “article”-like stuff in the future. I’d also love to write some fiction. Also, remember how I’m a linguistic nerd? Well, another hobby I’ve dabbled in and can’t wait to pick up again is conlang building! If you don’t know what conlangs are, they are artificial languages that fictional people would speak! A while back I started making one, hope I can find the time to finish it and make more!

In this blog, I basically want to write whatever idea I have and think could be interesting for other people to hear. Those blog posts would be mostly about my hobbies, could be tutorials are informational posts about whatever topic I chose, could be anything really! Maybe I’ll also post life updates and stuff about my creative projects, we shall see!

Anyway thanks for reading everything so far, I’m impressed tbh, have a virtual cookie!

Looking forwards to writing here again!

#blog intro

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alfredopizzaluver151 · 5 years

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It amazes me that there is a group of rich, old people that devote themselves to “preserving” the French language. Even though languages exist to change and adapt to the people using it.

#the best part is that they're struggling to get younger people to join them #and their rules aren't law so nobody has to follow them???#learning languages #learning french #they call themselves The Immortals in French #how blasé #I think they are called Académie française

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srvphm · 5 years

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I had missed reading in French so much

#i used to read every day most of the day #on a school day i would read an 800 pages novel #on a weekend day id read two #and now i read a few pages in english a day and i have to force myself #in engkish because i read online on my phone in the metro or the bus i dont read real books anymore #and i miss it so much #depression has robbed me of this but i am taking it back now #i have very severe adhd i love reading more than anything but it requires a large ammount of energy i did not have for a long time #but now i can again I will again #ah i love my mother tongue #its lyrical its beautiful #the author i am reading now is one of the best french writers to have lived #he is part of the Académie Française; you can only have a place there if your work has been so great it has made french evolve foward #it is as prestigious as you can get #and as pretentious too but hey french people are like that eh #the people are called the immortals because once you have a place there you never lose it not even when you die

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queen-of-meows · 4 years

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Académie Française : “La Covid”

Litterally any French person ever : “Le Covid”

#I just saw an add calling it la Covid and my brain freezed #who in this space-time continuum calls it la Covid ????#Is this an add from a parallel Earth ?#Does the Académie Française belongs to a parallel Earth #why am I so tired and where is my brain gone ?#I'm galaxy dumbass right now #tw covid mention

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blackswaneuroparedux · 2 years

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Every language is a code, and this code determines categories of thought. George Orwell had shown it well in 1984: that he who controls the power to define the words also controls the minds. This is the reason why it would be very wrong to underestimate the importance of "political correctness", which is neither a marginal phenomenon nor a fad that will soon disappear, but a fundamental element of what is happening, which one calls the "single thought."

- Alain de Benoist

While France has been distracted by COVID, a new menace is lurking. The specter haunting the republic is le Wokisme, the mutating ideology of race and identity that has found unexpectedly fertile ground here. French elites are unsettled. Those who assumed the French possessed herd immunity against such barbaric American ideas are having their complacency tested.

Superficially a modern country, with iPhones, Amazon and electric cars, France is still often introspective and late to understand what’s happening in the wider - especially Anglophone - world, which is how wokeness has somewhat taken it by surprise. Woke had been happening in America for many years before the French noticed.

It could be said that this pot pourri of grievance-oriented American obsessions is a just reward for France having exported existentialism, feminism and structuralism to American campuses in the Fifties and Sixties, where the revered thought of Deleuze, Lacan, Foucault and Derrida mutated into barely recognisable thought-variants ultimately including political correctness, which in turn mutated into the hyper infectious Woke strain, before returning to France, only to mutate again to the circumstances and the times.

Etymological note: Woke, a verb form being used as an adjective, is hard to translate. It might normally be somewhat inadequately rendered as réveiller (to wake up) or réveillé (woken up), or the verb éclairer might be useful, but these miss the African-American cadence. Fortunately for translators, and in a final insult to the official state language police of the Académie française, the American word has been adopted (appropriated?) here and is now being used in everyday speech and on magazine covers. Woke has become, in the blink of an eye, as French as un hot-dog or le weekend.

#de benoist #alain de benoist #quote #france #culture #george orwell #society #sjw #wokeness #culture wars #language

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historic-old-guard-lover · 4 years

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Historically Booker’s native language would be Occitan and not French . He would also probably deeply resent standard / Parisian French since the government did their damnest to erase regional languages and still do it today .

Agreed! There was another post about this, but since I got an ask (I love you, anon) I’ll elaborate. Buckle up for a primer on the evolution of the French language with a brief aside for troubadours, traveling musician-poets you wish were still a career option. No, being a rock star is not quite the same.

In the early medieval period (as early as ~900CE), the country we now call France had a language divide between the northern and southern regions. In the north, they spoke langues d'oïl which is what eventually became modern standard French. In the south, they spoke Occitan or lenga d'òc and a modern form of this language is known as Provençal. Looking at the regional sub-dialects, the more northern Occitan begins to sound like a langue d’oil and the more southern dialects begin to sound like Spanish.

As I touched upon in a previous post, this is because they all share similar roots as a romance language. Even though modern standard French is a langue d’oil, occitan managed to sneak a few things into the language. If you’ve learned French as a second language, you’ll know that when you respond yes (oui) to a negative question (you don’t like cheese? / tu n’aimes pas le fromage?) that you use a different yes (si). This is a skeleton of Occitan!

The why of the invention of “standard French” is, as most “standard” things are, a detour into nationalism. In 1635, Cardinal Richelieu (under Louis XIII) founded the Académie Française (French Academy) which was tasked with standardizing the French language so that it could be exported to the rest of Europe and used to gain further prestige of the role of French philosophers during the Enlightenment. During the French Revolution, it was disregarded, but Napoleon Bonaparte restored it as part of the Institut de France (Institute of France) in 1803. To this day, the Académie is tasked with publishing the French dictionary and inventing new words for things such as “e-mails” so that the French needn’t stoop to using English loan-words.

Another part of this was the Toubon Law (August 1994) which required French (the standard French from the Académie) to be used in all official documents and advertising. It required all advertising to use French and even set a certain percentage of music on the radio that must be French. This law was literally the government going “let’s make the French french again.” If a school doesn’t instruct in French (modern, standard French of course), then they can’t receive government funds. The only exception is Breton-language schools (Breton is as north as it gets and is a langue d’oil so it still helps crush Occitan).

Since the previous paragraph probably made you mad as heck, let me give you some irony to laugh at: some French people refer to this as the loi Allgood (“law” Allgood). To explain this joke, it helps to know that Toubon is the last name of the Minister of Culture at the time the law was passed. If you break down his last name, it sounds like “tout bon” in French which translates to “all good.” People took this law saying make everything French, goddammit and replied, sure thing Minister All-Good. I love it.

Now, for the troubadours! I learned standard modern French in high school, but at university I came across Occitan because of those romantic poets. I’ll put this aside below the break so you can continue on with your day if for some reason you’re not interested in medieval French rock star-poets...

Let me begin by quoting the Wikipedia definition:

A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). Since the word troubadour is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz.

Right away you may notice a few things: 1) they wrote and sang in Occitan; 2) it was an equal-opportunity field (though it was rare for a woman to be one). The first Troubadours were mostly noblemen, but later ones could come from any social class. Yes, you read that correctly: egalitarian travelling poets! If that doesn’t sell you on these performers, I don’t know what will. The troubadours spread their tradition throughout Europe and the only thing that could stop them was the Black Plague.

As you’d expect, they mostly sang about love. A lot of their poems were about courtly love and chivalry, but they could also get bawdy. The especially good performers would be sought after by courts like famous painters. Troubadours are essentially the apex bards: romantic, witty, charming, talented, and able to make serious bank.

To finish this, I will leave you with one of the bawdiest troubadour poems I know of, Farai un vers, pos mi somelh (The Ladies with the Cat) by Guillem de Peiteus. It’s essentially the story of a dude who has sex with these women who pick up a knight on a pilgrimage (though it plays with reality and this guy’s fantasies). I’ll include it in the original Occitan, and then a translation by Robert Kehew (I believe), verse-by-verse. Forgive me for my commentary in between, but I just want you to understand how freaking clever this poem is!

Farei un vers, pos mi somelh Em vauc e m’estauc al solelh. Domnas i a de mal conselh, E sai dir cals: Cellas c’amor de cavalier Tornon a mals.

While sound asleep I’ll walk along In sunshine, making up my song. Some ladies get the rules all wrong; I’ll tell you who: The ones that turn a knight’s love down And scorn it, too.

The singer is establishing himself as a troubadour. The protagonist is dreaming, so we should be careful about what is real and imagined. He’s also invoking the trope of the philandering knight constantly falling in love and breaking his heart.

Domna fai gran pechat mortal Qe no ama cavalier leal; Mas si es monge o clergal, Non a raizo: Per dreg la deuri’hom cremar Ab un tezo.

Grave mortal sins such ladies make Who won’t make love for a knight’s sake; And they’re far worse, the ones who’ll take A monk or priest-- They ought to get burned at the stake At the very least.

The Middle Ages were not at all chaste; yes, monks and priests were having sex. This isn’t as sexist as it may come across on a first reading however. He’s not saying women shouldn’t have sex (he’s actually saying that it’s a sin not to being having sex), he’s just upset that women who are clearly willing to have sex are turning *him* down. He’s not going to get any awards for feminist of the year, but he’s not the worst. I’m sure this would rouse cheers from a tavern.

En Alvernhe, part Lemozi, M’en aniey totz sols a tapi: Trobei la moller d’en Guari E d’en Bernart; Saluderon mi simplamentz Per sant Launart.

Down in Auvergne, past Limousin, Out wandering on the sly I ran Into the wives of Sir Guarin And Sir Bernard; They spoke a poper welcome then By St. Leonard.

These are recognizable locations along a pilgrimage route. There’s a good chance that these names are replaceable (Bernard can be replaced with any last name that rhymes with a saint) and this song could be used to goad the audience. And no, he hasn’t had sex with these ladies yet. They’re just saying hello (for now).

La unam diz en son latin: “E Dieus vos salf, don pelerin; Mout mi semblatz de bel aizin, Mon escient; Mas trop vezem anar pel mon De folla gent.”

One said in her dialect, “Sir Pilgrim, may the Lord protect Men so sweet-manned, so correct, With such fine ways; This whole world’s full of lunatics And rogues, these days.”

I think most would agree that this is happening in the knight’s sex-dream because she’s just sweet talking him. The awesome part is that the “dialect” reflects the singer actually adopting a Northern French language (they’re mutually intelligible). Guillem didn’t have to go that hardcore, but he did.

Ar auzires qu’ai respondut; Anc no li diz bat ni but, Ni fer ni fust no ai mentaugut, Mas sol aitan: “Barbariol, babariol, Babarian.”

For my reply--I’ll swear to you I didn’t tell them Bah or Boo, I answered nothing false of true; I just said, then, “Babario, babariew, Babarian.”

This guy just mocks their accents as a reply. Wildin’.

So diz n’Agnes a n’Ermessen: “Trobat avem que anam queren. Sor, per amor Deu, l’alberguem, Qe ben es mutz, E ja per lui nostre conselh Non er saubutz.”

So Agnes said to Ermaline, “Let’s take him home, quick; don’t waste time. He’s just the thing we’d hoped to find: Mute as a stone. No matter what we’ve got in mind, It won’t get known.”

In this stanza we see two repeats and a new thing. First, the names are easy to replace (Agnes doesn’t even have to rhyme with anything) so that this can be done to call out a specific woman’s name. Second, the language skills are being flaunted again as this Occitan-speaker is just casually showcasing that he can sing about sex in other languages too, thankyouverymuch. Lastly, this is WOMEN voicing their desire, not men. The man is silent, they think he’s incapable of speech. This is two women in a poem/song getting to steer the story how they please. Stepping back, this is a guy’s sex-dream so you could argue he’s just got a kink for dominant women, but regardless that’s a pretty cool way to turn masculinity on its head.

La unam pres sotz son mantel Menet m’en sa cambra, al fornel. Sapchatz qu’a mi fo bon a bel, El focs fo bos, Et eu calfei me volentiers Als gros carbos.

Under her cloak, one let me hide; We slipped up to her room’s fireside. By now I thought one could abide To play this role-- Right willingly I warmed myself At their live coals.

Yes, this dude is saying he’s more than happy to let the women take charge. Don’t kink-shame him.

A manjar mi deron capos, E sapchatz agui mais de dos, E noi ac cog ni cogastros, Mas sol nos tres, El pans fo blancs el vins fo bos El pebr’ espes.

They served fat capons for our fare-- I didn’t stop at just one pair; We had no cook or cook’s boy there, But just us three. The bread was white, the pepper hot, The wine flowed free.

A capon is a castrated rooster, fattened for eating. He’s being fattened (and emasculated by letting them take control) before the women get down to their fun with him.

“Sor, aquest hom es enginhos, E laissa lo parlar per nos: Nos aportem nostre gat ros De mantenent, Qel fara parlar az estros, Si de renz ment.”

N’Agnes anet per l’enujos, E fo granz et ac loncz guinhos: E eu, can lo vi entre nos, Aig n’espavent, Q’a pauc non perdei la valor E l’ardiment.

“Wait, sister, this could be a fake; He might play dumb just for our sake. See if our big red cat’s awake And fetch him, quick. Right here’s one silence we should break If it’s a trick.”

So Agnes brought that wicked beast, Mustachioed, huge, and full of yeast; To see him sitting at our feast-- Seemed less than good; I very nearly lost my nerve And hardihood.

So yes, he’s joking about almost loosing his boner and there’s that language play again. The big part of the ending, however, is the imagery of the red cat. Cats are typically associated with women, and the color red tempts the mind into thinking of it as female passion or some kind of prowling sexuality (with undertones of evil). The subtext here is that they’re going to test him by letting this cat scratch him up to see if he’ll cry out. If he can keep his mouth shut and allow the womens’ passions, he can stay. If he can’t, he’s out. Ultimately, I’m going to say that this poem is subtly for women’s empowerment. Go scratch up your knights, ladies.

#the old guard #historic #reference #sebastien le livre #booker #french #nationalism #language standardization #occitan #troubadours #i wish i was as cool as troubadours #so underappreciated #asks #lovely anon

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mikkaeus · 2 years

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Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language by Amanda Montell

Highly recommend. Sociolinguistics is very fun, especially from a feminist/queer perspective. The writing style is casual and engaging. Some quotes below which I liked and think sum up the overall vibe of the book:

“Have you ever had someone tell you that you should stop using the word like because it makes you sound stupid? Or that you shouldn’t apologize so much? If you’re a woman under the age of thirty-five, odds are you have. Perhaps you’ve even passed one of these judgments yourself. I wouldn’t blame you if you did—we English speakers have been trained to turn our noses up at any type of speech that doesn’t sound like that of a male thirty-four-year-old TV host named Billy, or, as we’ll learn in a second, a sixty-four-year-old NPR reporter named Bob.”

—

“French feminists have tried to come up with alternatives—la docteur, la docteure, la doctoresse—but in France, there is a real-life grammar police, an official language council called the Académie française, which is reluctant to recognize such words or add them to the dictionary. (At the time I’m writing this only four of the current thirty-six members of the Académie are women. Yet somehow, six of the members are men named “Jean.”)”

#reading #book review #THEY HAVE MORE JEANS THAN WOMEN #books

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mikauzoran · 3 years

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Lukadrien: Your Hands Hold Home: Chapter Fourteen

@lukadrien-june

Read it on AO3: Your Hands Hold Home: Chapter Fourteen: Pirates

Xavier-Yves Roth was actually a pretty decent guy once you got past the fact that his father had trained him wrong on purpose to be a self-absorbed, self-centered jerk.

Thankfully, Luka had done all of the hard work for the rest of humanity and had been teaching XY for several years how to be a better person. The result was that Xavier-Yves was now pretty tolerable. He was still occasionally annoying and not the sharpest tool in the shed, but he tried to be a good person, and, most of the time, he succeeded.

As XY hung around the Liberty and Adrien was exposed to him more and more, Adrien was surprised to find that XY was funny. Adrien honestly enjoyed going back and forth with him, trading jokes.

In an alternate timeline, Adrien even thought that they could be friends. Unfortunately, in the current universe, Xavier-Yves definitely had a massive thing for Luka, and Adrien’s own embarrassing crush on his housemate was only growing by the day.

Adrien had learned from anime that this “love rivals” status made a friendship between himself and XY impossible at this stage. Perhaps they could team up to thwart a third party’s attempts to steal Luka’s interest or maybe gradually grow closer if Luka rejected both of them, but, at this phase, they could only pretend to play nice in front of the object of their rivalry and secretly trade jabs behind Luka’s back.

“Hey,” XY whined as Adrien stole the last strawberry off of the communal plate on the makeshift coffee table. “That was mine.”

“I didn’t see your name on it.” Adrien smirked, reclining back into the couch cushions triumphantly.

“You’re mean,” Xavier-Yves sulked, crossing his arms and sticking out his bottom lip. “Six-Strings, control your pet.”

“Children,” Luka sighed, half in jest, half seriously, from the kitchen where he was cutting up more fruit. “Behave.”

Adrien stuck out his tongue. “I’m a pirate now. I take what I want.”

XY rolled his eyes, muttering, “Yeah, yeah. Rub it in that you get to live with him. You’re still just a G flat.”

Adrien blinked uncomprehendingly. “What? What do you mean a G flat?”

Xavier-Yves snickered softly, “If he’s a C, you’re a G flat—a diminished fifth.”

Adrien jerked back away from his rival, recoiling at the sting of his words and what they implied.

It was more than the words themselves. It was the fact that Luka and XY were close enough that Luka had told him what Adrien had said about Luka being middle C. It was that XY knew Luka’s Perfect Fifth nickname for Adrien.

It felt like a violation of something Adrien had thought was sacred.

“Now who’s the mean one?” Adrien hissed defensively.

XY shrugged. “All’s fair in love and war, especially when you eat the last strawberry. I love strawberries.”

“What are you two mumbling about?” Luka called to them, started to get worried at the comparative quiet.

“Strawberries,” Adrien responded, putting on a brave face. “We’re out, and XY wants some more.”

“Give me just a sec,” Luka replied, going to the fridge to grab another handful.

He washed them and placed them on the plate with the rest of the snacks.

“Here.” He set the platter down on the coffee table before taking a seat between Adrien and Xavier-Yves. “Don’t squabble. You two make me never want to have children.”

Adrien and XY collectively winced.

“Sorry,” Adrien murmured.

“Yeah. Sorry. G Flat was just being a mega jerk. Totally un-dope,” XY sniffed indignantly.

Luka rolled his eyes. “And you can’t ever let anything go, can you?”

“He was harshing the vibes,” XY argued indignantly.

“Prune, you’re twenty-two. He’s eighteen. Try to be the adult sometime, yeah?” Luka wearily scolded.

Adrien bristled, grumbling, “I’m not a little kid.”

“I didn’t say you were.” Luka playfully mussed Adrien’s hair in an attempt to smooth his ruffled feathers.

The placating gesture worked until Luka turned and started rubbing XY’s neck.

“Be good you two,” Luka commanded, a hint of pleading in his voice.

Moodily, Adrien snuggled up to Luka, resting his head on Luka’s chest.

Xavier-Yves retaliated by wrapping an arm around Luka’s shoulders and cuddling up.

Giving up on trying to understand the strange feud his companions had going on, Luka suggested, “Let’s watch the movie now, okay?”

“Sure,” XY easily agreed, starting to wiggle in excitement.

“Sure,” Adrien echoed unenthusiastically.

XY had been the one to recommend the film. He was into cars and wanted to show Luka what quality movies they made in the US (though, Adrien had no idea why).

Luka had acquiesced to watching one film from the series in order to humor his friend, and Adrien ended up crashing the watch party because like hell was he going to let Luka and Xavier-Yves get all lovey-dovey on the couch, watching the movie alone.

“This film is super ballin’. It’s my favourite out of all of them,” XY explained excitedly.

“Who taught you to speak French?” Adrien snorted, still feeling vindictive over the G Flat comment. “The Académie Française would have a heart attack if they could hear you.”

XY winced as if a bucket of cold water had just been thrown on his flame of enthusiasm.

“Pst,” Luka whispered, giving Adrien’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “He’s not a native speaker, Angel.”

Adrien’s jaw dropped, and he sat up so fast he almost gave himself whiplash.

“Oh my gosh. I am so sorry.” He immediately attempted damage control. “I had no idea. Your French is really amazing. I never would have known. I apologize. That was really rude of me. Please know I was just joking, and I’m very sorry.”

Luka gave XY’s arm an encouraging squeeze.

Xavier-Yves shrugged, not looking at Adrien as he rubbed at the back of his neck. “Eh. It’s okay. I mean, people have been giving me crap about it my whole life, so I’m kind of used to it. I’m not good at languages, and even though my mom was French, I only had to speak English in America, so I never learned French until after the divorce when me and my dad moved here when I was ten.”

“Still, just because you’re used to it, that doesn’t make it any less wrong,” Adrien insisted. “It doesn’t make it hurt any less, so I’m really sorry for picking at a sore spot like that.”

Slowly, XY turned his head to study Adrien’s expression.

Xavier-Yves found sincerity there, and his smile gradually returned.

“Okay. Apology accepted.” He stuck out his hand for a shake.

Adrien readily complied, counting himself lucky for not having driven an even larger wedge between them.

Luka smiled, pleased at the development between his two friends.

It was then that Adrien vowed to be nicer to Xavier-Yves. He really wasn’t a bad person. In fact, Adrien begrudgingly liked him most of the time.

The only thing keeping them from being friends was their mutual feelings for Luka, and Adrien was beginning to see that a rivalry between Luka’s friends was not winning either Adrien or XY any points.

Adrien wasn’t a little kid. He could step up and be the mature one in this for Luka’s sake.

“So…shall we watch the movie?” Adrien suggested. “I hear it’s ‘super dope’.”

“So dope,” XY began to gush, giving Adrien the lowdown on the different cars used in the film.

Luka’s smile widened as Adrien and XY finally began to get along.

#Lukadrien #LuXY #Miraculous Ladybug #Adrien Agreste #Luka Couffaine #Xavier-Yves Roth #XY #Lukadrien June 2021 #MLB #Fluff #Rivalry #Love Rivals #Pining #Mutual Pining #Slow Burn #Friends to Lovers #Writing Prompts #Mikau's Writings #Your Hands Hold Home

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justforbooks · 3 years

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Jacqueline Worms de Romilly was born on March 26, 1913. He was a Franco-Greek philologist, classical scholar and fiction writer. She was the first woman nominated to the Collège de France, and in 1988, the second woman to enter the Académie française.

She is primarily known for her work on the culture and language of ancient Greece, and in particular on Thucydides.

Born in Chartres, Eure-et-Loir, she studied at the Lycée Molière. As a schoolgirl, she became the first female to qualify for a prize in the Concours général, taking the first prize in Latin to French translation and second prize in Ancient Greek in 1930. She then prepared for the École Normale Supérieure at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. She entered the class of 1933 of the ENS Ulm. She passed the agrégation in Classics in 1936; however, because she was of Jewish ancestry, the Vichy government suspended her from her teaching duties during the Occupation of France. She became a doctor of letters at the University of Paris in 1947. Her doctoral thesis, a "masterful" treatment of Athenian imperialism in Thucydides, was published as Thucydide et l'impérialisme athénien, and subsequently translated into English as Thucydides and Athenian Imperialism.

After being a schoolteacher, she became a professor at Lille University and subsequently at the Sorbonne, between 1957 and 1973. She later was promoted to the chair of Greek and the development of moral and political thought at the Collège de France — the first woman nominated to this prestigious institution. In 1988, she was the second woman (after Marguerite Yourcenar) to enter the Académie française, being elected to Chair #7, which was previously occupied by André Roussin.

She published dozens of works on Greek philosophy, language and literature but her lifelong passion was Thucydides, the historian of the Peloponnesian War.

Outside academia she was best known to the French public for touring French schools and giving talks about the culture of ancient Greeks. She was a staunch defender of teaching of humanities in French schools, believing that an understanding of the classics was essential to understanding democracy, the liberty of the individual and the virtue of tolerance. In 1984 she published L’Enseignement en détresse, a book about declining standards in French schools. Her position in the Académie française enabled her to mount a defence of classical languages and literary culture, which she stated “may well be as endangered as the fauna of the oceans or the water of our rivers”.

She was horrified by the 1988 vote to simplify aspects of the French language in primary schools and in 1992 she founded an Association for the Defence of Literary Studies.

In 1995, she obtained Greek nationality and in 2000 was named as an Ambassador of Hellenism by the Greek government. A one-time president of the Association Guillaume Budé, she remained an honorary president until her death at a hospital in Boulogne-Billancourt at the age of 97.

After having only received baptism in 1940, she fully converted to Maronite Catholicism in 2008, aged 95.

De Romilly's two monographs on the ancient Greek historian Thucydides have been credited with "alter[ing] the landscape of Thucydidean scholarship" and "the beginning of a new era". In 2002, Danish classical scholar Anders Holm Rasmussen described her views on Thucydides' ideology of empire as still "one of the most important viewpoints" with which modern scholars can engage. Published first in 1956, her work Histoire et raison chez Thucydide is still in print in the original French today, and was translated into English as The Mind of Thucydides after her death. De Romilly believed that Thucydides's intelligent, reflective approach held lessons relevant to the Europe of today.

De Romilly also published outside the field of Greek historiography. In recent years, the value of her work Time in Greek Tragedy has been recognized by scholars working not only on Greek drama but also on Aristotle's metaphysics of time.

In 2016, Rosie Wyles and Edith Hall edited a volume called Women Classical Scholars: Unsealing the Fountain from the Renaissance to Jacqueline de Romilly, a history of pioneering women born between the Renaissance and 1913 who played significant roles in the history of classical scholarship.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

#JUST FOR BOOKS #Jacqueline de Romilly #Famous Birthdays

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