help!

[highlyeccentric]

So, I've been ploughing my way through an actually quite bad intro to the Chanson de Roland by one Jean Maurice, for the reason that it's introductory and I need to acquire, quickly, an introductory vocab for the CdR and for medieval studies generally.

I cannot read this sentence, and I think I need to (underlined bits. Italics are in the book, I think it's quoting a translation of some 16th century dude. Non-italic non underlined bits are for context.):

... pas plus que les saints, les personnages de la chanson de gest ne sauraient appartenir à l'humanité moyenne. Ils ne s'appréhendent que dans une rupture assumée et nécessaire avec les réalités de la vie pratique la plus banale, rupture que le lecture moderne doit accepter lui aussi.

Tarimanveri? Fahye? Bron? Anyone else? I can't find a definition for s'apprehender, although apprehender seems to mean 'comprehend'. My Wife is too tired to be of any use. Also the sentence doesn't seem to hang together properly- I can't find the verb in the subordinate clause beginning after the first 'que'.

I gather that it's about someone not understanding the rupture between the text and the realities of practical life? Which sounds like something I need to understand, since I'm supposed to be talking about the supernatural in the text.

Comments

[avedaggio.livejournal.com]

I hate that about academics sometimes. It would be so much more polite of them to provide footnote translations for the primary sources they quote, rather than arrogantly assuming that anyone possibly educated enough to be thinking of reading their book must surely be fluent in all eras of french, german, latin, greek and so on. *fumes*

Alas, I cannot help you. But I do wish you the best of luck, as this is a problem I have run into before.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's a book IN french, and whatever it's quoting is translated into french, so that's not so bad. If i could read french better, it'd be fine.

[sea-of-tethys.livejournal.com]

If apprehender means to comprehend, and s'apprehender means to comprehend oneself, I think it means "They do not comprehend themselves except in an assumed and necessary rupture from the most banal realities of everyday life, a rupture that the modern reader must also accept."

Does that make any sense in the context? My French is less than perfect.

[ineptshieldmaid.livejournal.com]

Indeed, it makes sense! It makes a LOT of sense, and reveals my total inability to remember the "ne... que" construction.

[(Anonymous)]

It took me a while of staring at the sentence before I spotted it. It's hard to see! It's two tiny words that completely change the meaning!

[sea-of-tethys.livejournal.com]

*sigh* That was me. I think this entry is cursed!

[tarimanveri.livejournal.com]

I've just googled s'apprehender, after having my parents' French dictionary give me nothing much, and according to the Centre National de Resources Textuelles et Lexicales online, it's a rare reflexive use of appréhendre and as sea_of_tethys beat me to saying, it means to understand oneself.

Here at the bottom: http://www.cnrtl.fr/lexicographie/appr%C3%A9hender

Anyway, don't discount the power of googling French vocabulary for the times when your dictionary fails you!

Also, for picking up medieval vocabulary, I found Le seigneur des anneaux pretty useful. Not for the scholarly jargon, obviously, but definitely for the vocabulary of material culture and "feudal" organization. Plus, it was fun!

[ineptshieldmaid.livejournal.com]

Huh, I'm glad it's not just me misusing my Dictionary of Doom, then. So far, googling french vocab has only lead me around in circles- possibly due to not having the vocab to understand the definitions ;).

Heh, I nearly bought the first book of LOTR in french the other day, and then was all "no, don't waste money". Now I have a good REASON! WHOO!

[wolf-shadow.livejournal.com]

Ils ne s'appréhendent que dans une rupture assumée et nécessaire avec les réalités de la vie pratique la plus banale, rupture que le lecture moderne doit accepter lui aussi.

"They only understand themselves in a necessary and assumed rupture with the most banal realities of practical life, a rupture which the modern reader must accept themselves also."

Hope that helps some :)

[daiskmeliadorn.livejournal.com]

that sounds good to me - i think you (highly) were missing that ne...que = only, rather than the 'que' being the beginning of some subordinate clause...

[ineptshieldmaid.livejournal.com]

Yep, I persistently forget that one :D. I was reading it as one of those useless 'ne' words that get thrown in to look pretty...

Thanks!

[ineptshieldmaid.livejournal.com]

Gnerg. Must remember "ne...que". It ALWAYS falls out of my mind.

[ineptshieldmaid.livejournal.com]

P.S.- that's short for 'yes that makes sense and i feel kinda silly now'. THANK YOU.

[highlyeccentric.livejournal.com]

er, ineptshieldmaid was me. Wrong account ;). (that account is my fanfic account, be warned if you try to follow the link back to it.)