Lavengro by George Borrow (read me a book txt) 📕
Description
Lavengro, the Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest, published in 1851, is a heavily fictionalized account of George Borrow’s early years. Borrow, born in 1803, was a writer and self-taught polyglot, fluent in many European languages, and a lover of literature.
The Romany Rye, published six years later in 1857, is sometimes described as the “sequel” to Lavengro, but in fact it begins with a straight continuation of the action of the first book, which breaks off rather suddenly. The two books therefore are best considered as a whole and read together, and this Standard Ebooks edition combines the two into one volume.
In the novel Borrow tells of his upbringing as the son of an army recruiting officer, moving with the regiment to different locations in Britain, including Scotland and Ireland. It is in Ireland that he first encounters a strange new language which he is keen to learn, leading to a life-long passion for acquiring new tongues. A couple of years later in England, he comes across a camp of gypsies and meets the gypsy Jasper Petulengro, who becomes a life-long friend. Borrow is delighted to discover that the Romany have their own language, which of course he immediately sets out to learn.
Borrow’s subsequent life, up to his mid-twenties, is that of a wanderer, traveling from place to place in Britain, encountering many interesting individuals and having a variety of entertaining adventures. He constantly comes in contact with the gypsies and with Petulengro, and becomes familiar with their language and culture.
The book also includes a considerable amount of criticism of the Catholic Church and its priests. Several chapters are devoted to Borrow’s discussions with “the man in black,” depicted as a cynical Catholic priest who has no real belief in the religious teachings of the Church but who is devoted to seeing it reinstated in England in order for its revenues to increase.
Lavengro was not an immediate critical success on its release, but after Borrow died in 1881, it began to grow in popularity and critical acclaim. It is now considered a classic of English Literature. This Standard Ebooks edition of Lavengro and The Romany Rye is based on the editions published by John Murray and edited by W. I. Knapp, with many clarifying notes.
Read free book «Lavengro by George Borrow (read me a book txt) 📕» - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: George Borrow
Read book online «Lavengro by George Borrow (read me a book txt) 📕». Author - George Borrow
Balm in Mary Flanders: Defoe’s Moll Flanders. —Knapp ↩
MS., “Canning” (1827).416 —Knapp ↩
Viscount Goderich. —Knapp ↩
MS., “Canning” (1827). —Knapp ↩
MS., “Canning” (1827). —Knapp ↩
MS., “who eventually presented him with a bishopric, had espoused,” —Knapp etc. ↩
MS., “He is a small landed proprietor who eats,” etc. —Knapp ↩
Vaya! qué demonio es este! (Spanish): Bless me! what demon have we here! —Knapp ↩
MS., “the Despatch, of course.” —Knapp ↩
The Spanish Revolution of ’54–’56, made by O’Donnell. ↩
MS. (corrected):—
Un Erajái
Sinába chibando an sermón;
Y lle falta un balichó
Al chindomá de aquel gáo;
Y chanéla que los calés
Lo habían nicobáo;
Y penelá ’l erajái:
“Chaboró!
Guíllate á tu quer,
Y nicobéla la pirí
Que teréla ’l balichó,
Y chibéla andró
Una lima de tun chaborí,
Chaborí,
Una lima de tun chaborí.”
See also Lavo-Lil, p. 200. —Knapp ↩
Sessions of Hariri: Arabic tales in prose interlarded with verse. —Knapp ↩
The two languages: Chinese and Manchu. —Knapp ↩
Canto I, stanza 53.417 —Knapp ↩
Stanza 57.418 —Knapp ↩
An obscene oath.419 ↩
Oberon: A poem by Wieland (1733–1813). —Knapp ↩
The father of Anglo-Germanism: Taylor of Norwich. —Knapp ↩
Andrew Borde: The Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge. “The which doth teache a man to speake parte of all maner of Languages, and to knowe the vsage and fashion of al maner of coũtreys. And for to knowe the most parte of all maner of Coynes of money, ye which is curraunt in euery region. Made by Andrew Borde, of Phisicke Doctor. Dedicated to the right Honorable and gracios lady Mary doughter of our souerayne lord Kyng Henry the eyght.”
The text of the Bodleian copy (1547?) runs as follows—(A 3 verso):—
“I am an Englysh man, and naked I stand here,
Musyng in my mynd what rayment I shall were;
For now I wyll were thys, and now I wyl were that,
Now I wvl were I cannot tel what.
All new fashyons be plesaunt to me,
I wyll haue them, whether I thryue or thee;
Now I am a frysker, all men doth on me looke,
What should I do but set cocke on the hoope;
What do I care yf all the worlde me fayle,
I wyl get a garment shal reche to my tayle;
Than I am a minion, for I were the new gyse;
The yere after this I trust to be wyse,
Not only in wering my gorgious aray,
For I wyl go to learnyng a hoole somers day;
I wyll learne Latyne, Hebrew, Grecke and Frenche,
And I wyl learne Douche sittyng on my benche;
I do feare no man, all men fearyth me,
I ouercome my aduersaries by land and by see;
I had no peere yf to my selfe I were trew,
Because I am not so diuers times I do rew;
Yet I lake nothing, I haue all thyng at wyll
If were wyse and wold holde my selfe styll,
And medel wyth no matters not to me partayning;
But I haue suche matters rolling in my pate,
That I wyl speake and do I cannot tell what.” etc.
—Knapp ↩
See Muses’ Library, pp. 86, 87. London, 1738. [Better, the original ed. (1547). —Knapp ] ↩
Genteel with them seems to be synonymous with Gentile and Gentoo; if so, the manner in which it has been applied for ages ceases to surprise, for genteel is heathenish. Ideas of barbaric pearl and gold, glittering armour, plumes, tortures, blood-shedding, and lust, should always be connected with it. Wace, in his grand Norman poem, calls the Baron Genteel:—
“La furent li gentil Baron,” etc.
And he certainly could not have applied the word better than to the strong Norman thief, armed cap-a-pie without one particle of ruth or generosity; for a person to be a pink of gentility, that is heathenism, should have no such feelings; and, indeed, the admirers of gentility seldom or never associate any such feelings with it. It was from the Norman, the worst of all robbers and miscreants, who built strong castles, garrisoned them with devils, and tore out poor wretches’ eyes, as the Saxon Chronicle says, that the English got their detestable word genteel. What could ever have made the English such admirers of gentility, it would be difficult to say; for, during three hundred years, they suffered enough by it. Their genteel Norman landlords were their scourgers, their torturers, the plunderers of their homes, the dishonourers of their wives, and the deflowerers of their daughters. Perhaps after all, fear is at the root of the English veneration for gentility. ↩
Mr. Flamson: Samuel Morton Peto, M.P., later Sir Morton Peto of Somerleyton Hall, some five miles inland from Lowestoft. See Life, II, p. 52. —Knapp ↩
Gentle and gentlemanly may be derived from the same root as genteel; but nothing can be more distinct from the mere genteel, than the ideas which enlightened minds associate with these words. Gentle and gentlemanly mean something kind and genial; genteel, that which is glittering or gaudy. A person can be a gentleman in rags, but nobody can be genteel. ↩
Orcadian poet: “Ragnvald, Earl of the Orkney Islands, passed for a very able poet; he boasts himself, in a song of his which is still extant, that he knew how to compose verses on all subjects,” Mallet, [Northern Antiquities] p. 235. The original Runic of the lines translated by Borrow is found in Olaus Wormius. Transliterated into Latin letters they read thus:—
Tafl em eg
Comments (0)