Friday 27 April 2018

Van Rijn's Inspirations

To inspire his Diomedean allies, Nicholas van Rijn translates and recites:

This England (see also here)
Pericles' funeral speech
Scots Wha' Hae
the Gettysburg Address
St. Crispin's Day

Is it possible to reproduce not only the content but also the tone of these works in an alien language and effectively enough to inspire an alien audience?

Doubt it. In fact, how does van Rijn even remember each speech or song?

Something of the tone of Anderson's The High Crusade has crept in here. The Terrestrial past conquers the galaxy.

1 comment:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

At the very least Nicholas van Rijn had known about or read all these texts. We do see mention, more than once, of how surprisingly well read Old Nick was. Given both a retentive memory and a talent for quickly learning new languages, I think he could have cobbled together something like the speech we see him making.

Sean