Why do you say "should"? My feeling is that there is a big sacrifice in not reading the original. Reading things that have been made "contemporary" in style is closing us off from the benefits of time travel. We assume everywhere is like where we are. Travel around the world helps for this, but this is increasingly less useful as the world turns more homogenized. Now, certainly the contents are valuable, not just the style. But that said, isn't there something lost in translation?
I would recommend this 1) as a study aid for people who want to read the original but struggle with the language. 2) for people incapable of mastering the old dialect in a matter of 200 pages of reading.
It's true that Chat GPT can make most books into a bullet list. But the ease of comprehension (which is even larger in the AI example) costs something valuable.
(As an aside- if there is any Straussian Philosophic esotericism involved, it will likely get lost in the rephrasing for clarity.)
Phrasing was a bit poor there. Maybe it would have been better as "You should read such-and-such (and can't use as an excuse your unfamiliarity with older styles)."
But I'm not sure where the boundary is; Bennett gives some examples somewhere on the website of words where subtle changes in the meaning can lead you to a wrong interpretation. So in those cases, even people who are fluent in lengthy periodic sentences can suffer when using the originals.
I have used EMT as a way of re-reading sections of text I find confusing or when I dislike the style of the original text. With that being said, I often prefer the originals because I find them better, which is to say more elegantly, written. This makes the originals more pleasurable to read, which in turn makes me more eager to read (or re-read the text) and typically allows me to retain more—though the pleasure itself would be sufficient for me, even if reading the original meant I had to read more slowly or with greater effort.
Why do you say "should"? My feeling is that there is a big sacrifice in not reading the original. Reading things that have been made "contemporary" in style is closing us off from the benefits of time travel. We assume everywhere is like where we are. Travel around the world helps for this, but this is increasingly less useful as the world turns more homogenized. Now, certainly the contents are valuable, not just the style. But that said, isn't there something lost in translation?
I would recommend this 1) as a study aid for people who want to read the original but struggle with the language. 2) for people incapable of mastering the old dialect in a matter of 200 pages of reading.
It's true that Chat GPT can make most books into a bullet list. But the ease of comprehension (which is even larger in the AI example) costs something valuable.
(As an aside- if there is any Straussian Philosophic esotericism involved, it will likely get lost in the rephrasing for clarity.)
Phrasing was a bit poor there. Maybe it would have been better as "You should read such-and-such (and can't use as an excuse your unfamiliarity with older styles)."
But I'm not sure where the boundary is; Bennett gives some examples somewhere on the website of words where subtle changes in the meaning can lead you to a wrong interpretation. So in those cases, even people who are fluent in lengthy periodic sentences can suffer when using the originals.
Yes, that is for sure a problem. I've found endnotes to be a terrible design, and footnotes to be good on this point.
I didn't fully consider that point. I guess you have to go in knowing you aren't a native speaker. That's something I'll take with me onwards.
I have used EMT as a way of re-reading sections of text I find confusing or when I dislike the style of the original text. With that being said, I often prefer the originals because I find them better, which is to say more elegantly, written. This makes the originals more pleasurable to read, which in turn makes me more eager to read (or re-read the text) and typically allows me to retain more—though the pleasure itself would be sufficient for me, even if reading the original meant I had to read more slowly or with greater effort.
Is there an easy way to listen to them?
Yeah. Here's the full list of the texts that have been narrated into audio: https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/audio
Includes 𝐿𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑎𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑛, 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑒, 𝐴 𝑉𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑅𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑊𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑛, Descartes's 𝑀𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠, Hume's 𝐸𝑛𝑞𝑢𝑖𝑟𝑦, Locke's 𝑆𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑 𝑇𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝐺𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡
Thank you.