Charles Godfrey Leland (1824–1903)
Författare till Aradia
Om författaren
Charles Godfrey Leland was born in Philadelphia on August 15, 1824, the eldest child of commission merchant Charles Leland and his wife Charlotte. Leland loved reading and language. When he moved to Europe to study law, he became intrigued with German culture, gypsy lore, the language of Romany, visa mer and Shelta, an ancient dialect spoken by Irish and Welsh gypsies. After his law studies were completed, Leland became a journalist, working for such periodicals as P.T. Barnum's Illustrated News, Vanity Fair, and Graham's Magazine. The mid-to-late 1850s were very eventful for Leland; he published his first book, Meister Karl's Sketch-Book in 1855 and married Eliza Bella Fisher in 1856. What probably clinched his fame was "Hans Breitmann's Party" a German dialect poem that he wrote under the pen name Hans Breitmann and that captured the Pennsylvania Dutch dialect and humor. While he was best known for his essays, poetry, and humor, Leland also firmly believed that the industrial arts were the keys to a good education, and he wrote many textbooks on the subject. Leland spent most of the latter part of his life in Europe, writing a wealth of books. He died in Florence, Italy, on March 20, 1903. (Bowker Author Biography) visa färre
Foto taget av: Courtesy of the NYPL Digital Gallery (image use requires permission from the New York Public Library)
Verk av Charles Godfrey Leland
Etruscan Roman remains and the old religion gods, gobelins, divination and amulets (2002) 3 exemplar
Pidgin-English Sing-Song, or Songs and Stories in the China-English Dialect. With a Vocabulary (1971) 2 exemplar
The Poetry and Mystery of Dreams 2 exemplar
English-Gipsy songs 2 exemplar
Studies in the Book of Daniel: A Discussion of the Historical Questions (Classic Reprint) 2 exemplar
The Hundred Riddles of the Fairy Bellaria 2 exemplar
Legends of Florence : second series 1 exemplar
Gaudeamus! Humorous Poems 1 exemplar
Works of Charles Godfrey Leland 1 exemplar
The minor arts 1 exemplar
The English Gipsies 1 exemplar
Associerade verk
The Children's Treasury: Best Loved Stories and Poems from Around the World (1987) — Bidragsgivare — 148 exemplar
Taggad
Allmänna fakta
- Födelsedag
- 1824-04-15
- Avled
- 1903-03-20
- Kön
- male
- Nationalitet
- USA
- Födelseort
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
- Dödsort
- Florence, Italy
- Bostadsorter
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
Florence, Italy
Paris, France - Utbildning
- Princeton University
The Sorbonne, Paris, France - Yrken
- poet
journalist
humorist
Folklorist - Relationer
- Pennell, Elizabeth Robins (niece)
Medlemmar
Recensioner
Listor
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Associerade författare
Statistik
- Verk
- 44
- Även av
- 8
- Medlemmar
- 1,174
- Popularitet
- #21,920
- Betyg
- 3.6
- Recensioner
- 10
- ISBN
- 168
- Språk
- 3
About Charles himself, the editor, I spoke of in my review of his ‘Gypsy’ book; I won’t repeat myself. He was certainly a ‘useful’ person, generous in an intellectual way—or, almost, you know. He was an odd fellow, although aren’t we all. He certainly loved words, probably far more than he felt anything for that which they refer back to, you know.
…. People are talking on the phone, attacking the third person, gossiping, but if you were to ask them who the hell their Aradia is, who they’re attacking, it would be like, Stop taking an interest in my gossiping. I am allowed to gossip; THEY are not allowed to do things—so screw you.
…. (Two people want to make friends but don’t know how) (one notices a third person, and throws a rock at them) Gypsy! Jew! Witch!
…. And, granted, I don’t think you should pick the rock up and throw it back, you know; at least, I wouldn’t. But some people act like that’s the ~most/only important~ thing, right. We can have injustice; we need mercy in a crazy world. But I absolutely draw the line at revenge! We have to have limits if we don’t want to be like the monkeys from Muslim Africa, right! “We’re just gonna throw some rocks at you, now, but you go on ahead and accept those projectiles in a Christian spirit, bless your heart, turn your cheek.” WOW. It must be hot in here, because I think my respect for you just evaporated!
“I love you: but not really.”
What a co-in-ki-dink…. 🧐
…. Yeah, I mean: I do think, actually, that people should be ethical, and prudent, but I just don’t think that people should be conformist for conformity’s sake, and terrified of the forces of social control. Though I am probably very cautious, especially for a witch. I just don’t want that turned into some glib dictum, you know. They actually talked about that at the end of a racism book once. “Don’t say, ‘all we need to do is just….’ “ All we need to do is just make a glib statement. A glib prayer. “O god of glibness, I have mouthed a ten-second prayer; in return, I expect you to bring me back from the dead. Amen.”
That said, things can only happen at the proper time. Maxwell’s Silver Hammer naturally makes people restless to strike back, but I really believe that prudence is more productive than acting (out) at the improper time.
…. In one sense Charles isn’t the sort best suited to this work: you want a spell for shopping; I’ll give you a spell to find books at a good price. You want to buy other things? You want to buy something that’s not a book? 😟
But he does seem to subscribe to the idea of intent or whatever—I don’t like putting it into words—that that lady calls ‘the Secret’, or whatever; kinda witchcraft without the props, the seed of agency, you know.
The first time I read this book I thought the Italian was kinda fussy and showy; but after having read most of “Eat Pray Love”, I don’t mind it.
I’m not terribly interested in the demographics of witchcraft in the 1890s, and the question of ‘authenticity’, (of mythology? Whether it was imagined by one, or by a few, or by many?), and epistemology and all that crap. (First, I must prove that I exist!). It certainly wasn’t a very widespread movement, and it wasn’t safe to be an Aradia person, and the people involved were probably marked with no small bitterness about their persecution. It was probably a very small group of people/manuscripts, and obviously what is given doesn’t constitute a fully described or formed or whatever, religion, even a simple one, although it is true that religions do not have to produce philosophers and theologians and Aquinas fuckers to be valid, of course. It seems unlikely that some straight man guy from Philadelphia who seems extraordinarily strait-laced just, poof!, skeptico-correctio, toto meaningless-ico, poof!, just imagines it, you know. The existence of the text suggests that it came from somewhere; it’s mythology, and therefore demands a mythological mind to construct it. Nineteenth-century ‘straight man’ folklorists and intellectuals weren’t the sort to do that. They thought they were conducting a funeral for mythology, not a birthing, you know. There must have been someone in Italy who believed in an Aradia.
As for whether they’d make a good friend, well, I wouldn’t bet too much on it; but clearly they were going through a bad couple of centuries, (it does seem kinda plausible, it’s all reacted against the Christian environment; it’s not the sort of weird historical reenactment paganism which didn’t exist in the Middle Ages, or before very recent times), and it doesn’t do to judge, you know. Perhaps some aspect of the truth is preserved in oppositional witchcraft. Too ‘pure’ statements that ‘we are not like them’ are faintly Christian; faintly KKK, to be honest. (‘You must be a Christian. You can’t be a Jew; they’re a dirty race.’ Or a Gypsy, etc, etc. etc….)
But it’s an understandable mistake. They’re both understandable mistakes. Neither one is the accuser waking up and saying, Who shall I burn at the stake today?, you know. Although I suppose when it comes down to it they are compelled by their delusion, their illness.
…. Re: “black magic” and “white magic” I think that this division (that the Aradians of course care nothing for) can be greatly exaggerated, and is sometimes inappropriate. However, with regard to love magic, I think it is correct to say, as people often do, that it is white magic to focus upon yourself, to make yourself attractive, so that as many people as possible as are open to love are drawn to you, so that it becomes easy and not hard to choose a lover; and that it is black magic to focus upon the other, a specific person whose will you want to break, so that they must “love” you, whether they will or no. It is also quite needy, codependent, ultimately weak—whatever word you prefer—to focus on the other, in that way, so that you cannot abide life without their “love”, or whatever. (Or their help to crack the Top 40.) The love of the Self that is in you is the one great love that leads you to the love of the Self that is in the other; without this, there is no real love; “you can’t make someone love you, but you can increase the odds.” “Lord of War” (2005).
…. Charles is wrong that the Aradian sect is this beautiful pure antique museum preservation of ancient times; if not quite a Christian sect, of course, the Aradian sect is a sect in a Christian time, and the hostile influence and reaction against Christianity is usually felt—except when, in the words of that 1968 song, “The Tavern”, “the dreams are still the same”—beneath all the curses and the counter-curses of history there does lie that part of the soul which has nothing to do with history, of course.
…. Charles couldn’t have written it himself if he had a whole day of Brahma in which to work; he barely knew what he collected after it was done. To lament, perhaps, after a suitable amount of time spent on linguistic studies, the oppression of society, might be permissible: but to ~rebel~, why! One would almost have to ~feel~….!
It just isn’t done!
…. Some are slaves, who are made to do ‘good’;
Others are robbers, terrors, who do evil if they like
But Diana can do both evil and good… (mer)