5.0198 Rs: Lipogrammatic Literature (3/47)
Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Thu, 27 Jun 91 14:50:06 EDT
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 5, No. 0198. Thursday, 27 Jun 1991.
(1) Date: Wed, 26 Jun 91 23:43 EDT (20 lines)
From: O MH KATA MHXANHN <MCCARTHY@CUA>
Subject: lipogrammatica
(2) Date: Thu, 27 Jun 91 15:03 GMT (12 lines)
From: Dusko Vitas 38-11-639-544 <XPMFL02@YUBGSS21.BITNET>
Subject: Re: 5.0193 ... Lipogrammatic
(3) Date: Wed, 26 Jun 91 10:49:13 CST (15 lines)
From: (James Marchand) <marchand@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: lipograms
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 26 Jun 91 23:43 EDT
From: O MH KATA MHXANHN <MCCARTHY@CUA>
Subject: lipogrammatica
Georges Perec's _La Disparition_ is the lipogrammatic novel which
escaped Dirk Held's memory; a similar feat (?) was accomplished by
Ernest Wright in _Gadsby_ (subtitled: A Story of over 50,000 Words
Without Using the Letter E). For reasons which I need not go into here,
I have a few tidbits of lipogram- matica gleaned from a few common
sources which some may find interesting: -Tryphonius (5th BCE)
supposedly composed an epic poem in 24 books in which each book omitted
one of the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet. -Gottlob Burmann, a German
poet of the late 18th century, wrote 130 poems (approximately 20,000
words) wholly omitting the letter 'r'; moreover, during the last 17
years of his life he omitted from his daily conversation words which
contained the letter 'r.'
W. McCarthy
Wash., D.C.
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------15----
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 91 15:03 GMT
From: Dusko Vitas 38-11-639-544 <XPMFL02@YUBGSS21.BITNET>
Subject: Re: 5.0193 Lipogrammatic
Dirk Held asked for information about lipogrammatic.
Relevant sources are
R. Queneau - Battons, chifres et letters, coll. Idees, nrf,
Gallimard
R. Queneau (ed.) - La Literature potentielle,
(ibid)
Dusko Vitas
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------26----
Date: Wed, 26 Jun 91 10:49:13 CST
From: (James Marchand) <marchand@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: lipograms
The book which is e-less is by Ernest Vincent White, Gadsby, A Story of
Over 50,000 Words Without Using the Letter E (Los Angeles: Wetzel
Publishing Company, 1939); it has 267 pages. Since I am a medievalist,
my favorite lipogrammatic tour de force is Peter Riga's
Recapitulationes, a series of poems, each without a letter of the
alphabet. The only really easy one was "sine K", since many grammarians
thought the Latin alphabet to lack that letter, whence the practice of
not naming a quire "K" (answer to a previous question). The Middle Ages
are full of these and other "Verskuensteleien", as P. Meyer used to call
them, including the tmesis of the first line of the Chanson de Roland
and the frequently unnoticed versus rapportati.
Jim Marchand