Stanislaus B.
The Shire
Jun 20 2007, 5:27pm
Views: 2773
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Umberto Eco said that he had written the beginning of the "Name of the Rose" in order to frighten away the immature readers. It is, in fact, much more difficult than Hurin - a discussion about the topos of the ideal horse in medieval Latin literature, and then a symbology of numbers. There is also a lot of Latin. Despite that, the book sold well - similarly like Tolkien's Hurin. Perhaps we should give the common reader a bit more credit? "Lord" is not so difficult a word, I would think. We could try to translate it into modernese, perhaps as a "chairman", but I am not sure that the exact shade of the meaning would be the same. "Well-beloved" - I think any moderately competent speaker of English should understand this, similarly "wedded". A simple Google check suggest those words are not as rare as it would seem. Carcanet, habergeon etc, from the Lord of the Rings seem somehow more obscure.
(This post was edited by Stanislaus B. on Jun 20 2007, 5:30pm)
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