Slovo o polku Igoreve

[Edward louis keenan]

Not Yale, but Harvard.

And there are now many more reasons -- inescapable reasons -- in both the
text and the documentary record for concluding that JD was the author.
Although I am unable to deal with all comments at the moment because I am
completing a rather long monograph on the subject, I shall post some
"theses" in a few days as a general armature for discussion.  You may wish,
as Celeste Holm says in "All About Eve," to "fasten your seatbelts."

The motivation question is indeed complex; I shall offer a complex but, I
think, plausible explanation.



At 08:11 PM 5/5/98 -0500, you wrote:
>>The text, regardless of its source, is universally considered a brilliant
>>work. If someone can identify an author of the late 18th century who was
>>capable of writing at this level, then I would accept the forgery theory.
>
>So far I don't think anyone has mentioned the theory (promoted by Edward
>Keenan of Yale in a memorable debate here at the U of C) that the author is
>the great Czech theologian and philologist Josef Dobrovsky.
>
>It's been a while, but as I understand it the argument relies on three
>basic points: (1) that Dobrovsky had the opportunity to see the manuscript
>of Zadonshchina before it was made public in the 1790's; (2) that JD,
>without question one of the great linguistic minds of his time, had the
>requisite philological knowledge to write the Igor Tale, or to provide
>linguistic advice to the manuscript's author; and (3) that no mention of
>the IT occurs _anywhere_ before around 1790.  I'm a bit unclear as to what
>Dobrovsky's motive for forging an Old Russian document would be; but the
>argument is intriguing.
>
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Jason Pontius
>Slavic Languages and Literatures
>University of Chicago
>japontiu at midway.uchicago.edu
>
>The Slavic Dungeon:  http://humanities.uchicago.edu/orgs/slavgrad
>
>