close reading

[Irina Shevelenko]

The phrase "Filologiia--eto nauka medlennogo chteniia" belongs to
Nietzsche. I don't remember from which of his works it comes, but I am
certain about his authorship.

Irina Shevelenko,
Stanford Univ.
ichevel at leland.stanford.edu



>When I took a course on SLOVO O POLKU IGOREVE from Roman Jakobson in the
>early 60's, he told us on the first day that "Filologiia - eto nauka
>medlennogo chteniia." I think he presented it as a quotation, but don't
>remember who he attributed it to. Maybe some of my classmates out there on
>the list will remember. In any case, he proceeded to illustrate the
>concept: as I recall, we spent about two weeks on the title. Of course,
>between sessions of "explication du texte" he lectured, brilliantly and
>fascinatingly, on numerous aspects of the work as a whole, but in the
>course of the semester the "close reading" part of the class reached only
>through three or four "paragraphs" of the text (with, of course, leaps
>ahead to parallel passages later in the work). That was also the course in
>which he claimed that in Nabokov's translation the "plach Iaroslavny"
>sounded like "plach Lolity Iaroslavny".
>
>Earl Sampson
>Boulder, CO
>esampson at cu.campus.mci.net