Monday, February 06, 2006
Yesterday afternoon I began the earnest study of Manfred Korfmann, who led excavations at Troy from 1988 until his death of lung cancer last August. He being German, most of my searches result in sites auf Deutsch, which intimidates me little until I scan through them and recollect that I do not speak German.
News sites, of course, are relatively simple, with headlines such as, "Manfred Korfmann ist tot." Apparently, German newswriters are not usually any more ambitious with stylistics than Americans. I recognize action in narrative texts a little easier, the Germans using a separate past tense for formal writing than that with they speak in conversation. As noted previously, however, I need to continue reading anything and everything in order to expand my vocabulary.
The official Troia Projeckt site contains links to discourses about Korfmann's work at Troy, especially the reactions to his stance that his research refutes the position of those who disbelieve Schliemann's Troy as that which inspired the Homeric (and related) epics. The gist, to my current understanding, is that despite most, if not all, evidence being circumstantial, his evidence is, still, evidence, whereas critics merely use the argument that his evidence is circumstantial, but usually present nothing to contradict it. However, the English version (the two main teams come from the University of Tübingen and the University of Cincinnati) notes that the articles are too copious to have been translated from their original German, which further complicates my life.
The bibliography and an outline being due Thursday, I made a cursory online catalogue search of the library's holdings of Troy-related or Korfmann-related books, which I diligently copied and promptly arose to seek out. However, upon perusing the shelves, I found them devoid of many books I might need, including the two authored by Korfmann. I had, of course, previously ascertained none of my selections had been checked out. They simply either do not exist or have been relocated, an enquiry into which I might make when I return to the library this afternoon after German Conversation.
Not desiring to leave the stacks containing thousands of tomes of literature empty-handed, I sticky-fingered four books, one of Schliemann's epic narratives being the thickest. The other three are of subjects relating to classical scholarship, written by Germans, which I took more for practice at reading German than to glean any information for this massive project, though that might arise incidentally.
Last night after a brief doze (I literally did rest my eyes, drooling on my pillow for about twenty minutes) I read about fifty pages of Schliemann, which (for reasons upon which I intend later to expound) was hilarious. Suffice it at present to note that when Schliemann destroyed Roman or Hellinistic ruins in order to dig further toward "the real Troy", he never did thus accidentally. He was always "forced" or "obliged", by what or whom he leaves unmentioned.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 8:20 AM]