[Essay] Coul you help me with my thesis please...?

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dilodi83

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Hi everybody...I'm writing my thesis to take the degree and I also have to write part of it in English. Is there any native or a very good English teacher who can correct what I have written so far? I'll post what I have written. Thank you very much in advance to whoever will help me. :))

THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY
BEDE
Bede lived during the VIII century in Northumbria. He is surely the most learned and certainly the most productive of the European scholars of his day. His works include treatises on grammar, metric and chronology, lives of saints, homilies and, above all, commentaries on the Bible. He also wrote historical works such as the Ecclesiastical History and the Historia Abbatum.
We get all the information we have about Bede from what Bede himself wrote at the end of the Ecclesiastical History, a kind of curriculum vitae, followed by a list of works written within the year 731. Bede was put into the monastery to be educated at the age of seven into the charge of Benedict Bishop at first and then of Ceolfrid. He spent his entire life in the monastery. Among his most important works, we have to cite De Arte Metrica, De Schematibus et Tropis, De Temporibus, De Natura Rerum, De Locis Sanctis and particularly the Ecclesiastical History, which gained Bede the accolade of "father of English history". It is also a masterpiece of literature, and its early translation into Old English at the end of IX century further enhances its worth for literary historians.
Bede's fame is mainly due to his work as an historian. The Ecclesiastical History, which is the final product of Bede's long educational process, is, without a doubt, the most important and his biggest work. The title of the work has been minted by Bede himself at the end of the V book, when the author speaks about the content of the entire work and, to be more exact, when he says he had just finished writing about the ecclesiastical history of the English people until his time. But I want to underline that Bede had already mentioned the title he would have given to his work even in the preface to the I book when he had written, talking to Ceolwulf, king of Northumbria: Historiam gentis Anglorum ecclesisticam... tibi... transmisi. From the title itself we get what the work deals with; Bede reconstructs in five books the history of Britain from the incoming of the Germanic tribes to his own times, he also tells, through the use of learned data and concrete documents, the incoming of the first Christian missionaries who brought the new faith into England, the birth of the first bishoprics and how they followed each other, and, moreover, how the first Anglo-Saxon kings received the Christian faith. For this work he mined all the sources available to him and lots of Christian authors from the IV century on. Most of these sources were available in the library of his monastery, but he also used personal exchange and correspondence from other ecclesiastical places. Perhaps the most important model was Eusebius with the Ecclesiastical History, which might have been read in the Latin translation by Bede. The most fundamental and important difference with Eusebius's work is the fact that Bede did not focus his attention only on the history of the generic church, but he also concentrated on a gens; particularlyhe focused on the ecclesiastical history of the Anglo-Saxon people. But since Bede reviewed several centuries, it is easy to suppose he needed a long and hard work of research and many sources. He, in fact, knew the Adversus Paganos of Orosius, the De excidio et conquestu Britanniae of Gildas and Gregory of Tours's Historia Francorum. He used Orosius and Gildas to get all the information about the Roman period and the conquest of Britain from the Anglo-Saxon tribes but he took the idea of an historical introduction, an autobiographical end and, of course, his strong will to tell the religious history of a unique people (the Anglo-Saxon) from Gregory of Tours's work, even though with different ways and results. Bede also used papal letters, hagiographical and biographical texts for those information about members of clergy and lives of saints. But, without a doubt, an entire life dedicated to the study and the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures and to the biblical exegesis, like Bede's life, has influenced his work for the Ecclesiastical History. Also the oral sources and all the news that Bede took from the oral tradition or from ecclesiastical men are of great thickness.
It is really important to point out that Bede did not focus, all things considered, on the political events of his time; he aimed at celebrating the power and the greatness of God on the English land and at emphasizing the ecclesiastical and religious events that followed the Anglo-Saxon conquest. Doing this, Bede has also the opportunity to talk about the political, cultural, economical and social events that were at the basis of the process of their Christianization.
The first three books of the Ecclesiastical History are about the Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons; in the other two books it is described how the new faith took root among the barbarian tribes and how it influenced their habits and customs. All the five books have a similar length but it is worth noticing that, the first one deals with events that took place in 650 years, whereas the other four books cover just a generation.
 

Raymott

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Hi everybody...I'm writing my thesis to take the degree and I also have to write part of it in English. Is there any native or a very good English teacher who can correct what I have written so far? I'll post what I have written. Thank you very much in advance to whoever will help me. :))

THE ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY
BEDE
Bede lived during the [STRIKE]VIII[/STRIKE] eighth century in Northumbria. He is surely the most learned, and certainly the most productive, of the European scholars of his day. His works include treatises on grammar, metric and chronology, lives of saints, homilies and, above all, commentaries on the Bible. He also wrote historical works such as the Ecclesiastical History and the Historia Abbatum.
What is 'metric'?
We get all the information we have about Bede from what Bede himself wrote at the end of the Ecclesiastical History, a kind of curriculum vitae, followed by a list of works written [STRIKE]within[/STRIKE] in the year 731. Bede was put into the monastery to be educated at the age of seven into the charge of Benedict Bishop at first and then of Ceolfrid. He spent his entire life in the monastery. Among his most important works, we have to cite De Arte Metrica, De Schematibus et Tropis, De Temporibus, De Natura Rerum, De Locis Sanctis and particularly the Ecclesiastical History, which gained Bede the accolade of "father of English history". It is also a masterpiece of literature, and its early translation into Old English at the end of [STRIKE]IX[/STRIKE] the ninth century further enhances its worth for literary historians.
Bede's fame is mainly due to his work as an historian. The Ecclesiastical History, which is the final product of Bede's long educational process, is, without a doubt, his most important and biggest work. The title of the work had been (or 'was') minted by Bede himself at the end of the V book, when the author speaks about the content of the entire work and, to be more exact, when he says he had just finished writing about the ecclesiastical history of the English people up until his time. But I want to underline that Bede had already mentioned the title he would [STRIKE]have given[/STRIKE] later give to his work even in the preface to the [STRIKE]I[/STRIKE] first book (or 'Book I') when he had written, talking to Ceolwulf, king of Northumbria: Historiam gentis Anglorum ecclesisticam... tibi... transmisi. From the title itself we get what the work deals with; Bede reconstructs in five books the history of Britain from the incoming of the Germanic tribes to his own times, he also tells, through the use of learned data and concrete documents, the incoming of the first Christian missionaries who brought the new faith into England, the birth of the first bishoprics and how they followed each other, and, moreover, how the first Anglo-Saxon kings received the Christian faith. For this work he mined all the sources available to him and [STRIKE]lots of [/STRIKE] many Christian authors from the IV century on. Most of these sources were available in the library of his monastery, but he also used personal exchange and correspondence from other ecclesiastical places. Perhaps the most important model was Eusebius with the Ecclesiastical History, which might have been read in the Latin translation by Bede. The most fundamental and important difference with Eusebius's work is the fact that Bede did not focus his attention only on the history of the generic church, but he also concentrated on a gens; particularlyhe focused on the ecclesiastical history of the Anglo-Saxon people. But since Bede reviewed several centuries, it is easy to suppose he needed a long and hard work of research and many sources. He, in fact, knew the Adversus Paganos of Orosius, the De excidio et conquestu Britanniae of Gildas and Gregory of Tours's Historia Francorum. He used Orosius and Gildas to get all the information about the Roman period and the conquest of Britain from the Anglo-Saxon tribes but he took the idea of an historical introduction, an autobiographical end and, of course, his strong will to tell the religious history of a unique people (the Anglo-Saxons) from Gregory of Tours's work, even though with different ways and results. Bede also used papal letters, hagiographical and biographical texts for those information about members of clergy and lives of saints. But, without a doubt, an entire life dedicated to the study and the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures and to the biblical exegesis, like Bede's life, has influenced his work for the Ecclesiastical History. Also the oral sources and all the news that Bede took from the oral tradition or from ecclesiastical men are of great thickness.
It is really important to point out that Bede did not focus, all things considered, on the political events of his time; he aimed at celebrating the power and the greatness of God on the English land and at emphasizing the ecclesiastical and religious events that followed the Anglo-Saxon conquest. Doing this, Bede has also the opportunity to talk about the political, cultural, economical and social events that were at the basis of the process of their Christianization.
The first three books of the Ecclesiastical History are about the Christianization of the Anglo-Saxons; in the other two books it is described how the new faith took root among the barbarian tribes and how it influenced their habits and customs. All [STRIKE]the[/STRIKE] five books have a similar length but it is worth noticing that the first one deals with events that took place in 650 years, whereas the other four books cover just a generation.
Quite impressive. I don't thnk you need help!
We don't use roman ordinals like VIII for adjectives. You can write "Book VIII", but "the eighth book".
 

dilodi83

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Thank you very much for your help!! :)) Could I send you the second part I have written?
 

Raymott

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Thank you very much for your help!! :)) Could I send you the second part I have written?
You can post it here. How many parts are there?
 

dilodi83

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Re: Could you help me with my thesis please...?

It's made up of 4 or 5 parts that I've already written in Italian, but now I have to do a summary of the whole thesis in English. I'll post you the second part I've written. And thank you so much for your help.


OLD ENGLISH BEDE
The Ecclesiastical History is translated into old English in the second half of the IX century.
Many scholars have been discussing the attribution of this translation. Moreover, they have been trying to understand, through a careful study and analysis of the text, and to throw light on who might be the author and what time the translation goes back to. T. Miller, J. Schipper, R. Vleeshruyer and H. Hecht have pointed out that the text has been written in the dialect from the Mercia and they also formed the hypothesis that it might have been written during king Alfred's reign. M. Deutschbein declared that there might be two different versions, one that would have been written by an anonymous translator and one attributable to king Alfred himself. This theory has been attacked and demolished by F. Klaeber and R. Jordan, who think Alfred could not have been the author of the translation at all, but he surely could have been the person who might have been paid for it. They also highlighted the presence of lots of words in the text in the dialect from Mercia. Without a doubt, one of the most important and recent theory about the attribution of the old english bede (the translation is commonly called like this), is D. Whitelock's. In 1960 she hypothesized the translation had been written by the king or, at least, by some translators of the king's entourage; in 1962, she retraced her steps and wrote that the translation should go back to a following time. The latest one I want to report in this work is S. M. Kuhn's theory; according to her theory the old english bede should be attributed to king Alfred who would have made the translation by his own hand.
We have four manuscripts of this Anglo-Saxon version of Bede's work and some fragments of a fifth. They are known as T., C., B., O. and Ca.
The translation, whoever it is the translator, is shorter than the original. It has sometimes been suggested that the old english bede can be showed to have formed part of Alfred's scheme because it omits certain matters which are dealt with in other works translated, and hence that the translation was planned in relation to these. Bede's work has been cut with remarkable care. The translator did not leave loose ends and, in some passages, he supplies information when the story is no longer clear because of a previous omission. Lots of letters, documents andepitaphs have been taken out; he also eliminated all those news about the internal affairs of the Celtic churches and dropped off the accounts of the foreign saints Germanus, Columba and Adamnan, just focusing on the English affairs. The translator also omitted most of the Roman history in the I book, the responsa of Gregory the Great and the chapter on him, and the controversy between the Celtic and the Roman church about the date of Easter, because it was considered an old and dead controversy by then. The long chapter on the synod of Whitby has been cut too. The translator took out the date calculated by Bede from the foundation of Rome as well, or from the coming of the Anglo-Saxon tribes. It is necessary to point out that the translator modifies Bede's work in some points he considers correct to update. In fact, for instance, if Bede is speaking about someone who was still alive during his time and he was not during the translator's time, he adds that, in the meantime, those people had died. In another case, for example, if Bede is writing of a particular political situation of his time or of a monastery, the translator, if the situation has changed, modifies and modernizes the story according to his time.
As we can notice, the old english bede is more focused on the Anglo-Saxon history and affairs than the Latin work.
It is significant that those words that Bede had used at the end of his work to define it(Historiam ecclesiasticam nostrae insulae ac gentis in libris V), have been turned into by stære Ongelϸiode cirican on Brytene by the Anglo-Saxon translator, which I think it is a more appropriate and suitable definition for this work.
 

Raymott

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Re: Could you help me with my thesis please...?

It's made up of 4 or 5 parts that I've already written in Italian, but now I have to do a summary of the whole thesis in English. I'll post you the second part I've written. And thank you so much for your help.


OLD ENGLISH BEDE
The Ecclesiastical History was translated into old English in the second half of the IX century.
Many scholars have discussed the attribution of this translation. Moreover, they have been trying to understand, through a careful study and analysis of the text, [STRIKE]and[/STRIKE] to throw light on who might be the author and what time the translation goes back to. T. Miller, J. Schipper, R. Vleeshruyer and H. Hecht have pointed out that the text has been written in the dialect from the Mercia and they also formed the hypothesis that it might have been written during King Alfred's reign. M. Deutschbein declared that there might be two different versions, one [STRIKE]that would have been [/STRIKE] written by an anonymous translator and one attributable to King Alfred himself. This theory has been attacked and demolished by F. Klaeber and R. Jordan, who think Alfred could not have been the author of the translation at all, but he surely could have been the person who [STRIKE]might have been[/STRIKE] was paid for it.
You don't need to put the conditional in both clauses, as in the two examples above.
"It could be that he wrote it." Not "It could be that he would/might have written it".
"It might have been him that did it. Not, "It might have been him that could have done it."
They also highlighted the presence of [STRIKE]lots of[/STRIKE] many ['lots of' is rather informal] words in the text in the dialect from Mercia. Without a doubt, one of the most important and recent theories about the attribution of the old english bede (the translation is commonly called like this), is D. Whitelock's. In 1960 she hypothesized that the translation had been written by the king or, at least, by some translators of the king's entourage [sufficiently English by now]; in 1962, she retraced her steps and wrote that the translation should go back to a following time. The latest one I want to report in this work is S. M. Kuhn's theory; according to her theory the old english bede should be attributed to king Alfred who would have made the translation by his own hand.
We have four manuscripts of this Anglo-Saxon version of Bede's work and some fragments of a fifth. They are known as T., C., B., O. and Ca.
The translation, whoever [STRIKE]it is[/STRIKE] the translator is, is shorter than the original. It has sometimes been suggested that the old english bede can be shown to have formed part of Alfred's scheme because it omits certain matters which are dealt with in other works translated, and hence that the translation was planned in relation to these. Bede's work has been cut with remarkable care. The translator did not leave loose ends and, in some passages, he supplies information when the story is no longer clear because of a previous omission. Lots of letters, documents andepitaphs have been taken out; he also eliminated all the news items about the internal affairs of the Celtic churches and dropped off the accounts of the foreign saints Germanus, Columba and Adamnan, just focusing on the English affairs. The translator also omitted most of the Roman history in the I book, the responsa of Gregory the Great and the chapter on him, and the controversy between the Celtic and the Roman church about the date of Easter, because it was considered an old and dead controversy by then. The long chapter on the synod of Whitby has been cut too. The translator took out the date calculated by Bede from the foundation of Rome as well, or from the coming of the Anglo-Saxon tribes. It is necessary to point out that the translator modifies Bede's work in some points he considers correct to update. In fact, for instance, if Bede is speaking about someone who was still alive during his time and he was not during the translator's time, he adds that, in the meantime, those people had died. In another case, for example, if Bede is writing of a particular political situation of his time or of a monastery, the translator, if the situation has changed, modifies and modernizes the story according to his time.
As we can notice, the old english bede is more focused on the Anglo-Saxon history and affairs than the Latin work.
It is significant that those words that Bede had used at the end of his work to define it(Historiam ecclesiasticam nostrae insulae ac gentis in libris V), have been turned into by stære Ongelϸiode cirican on Brytene by the Anglo-Saxon translator, which I think [STRIKE]it[/STRIKE] is a more appropriate and suitable definition for this work.
R.
 

dilodi83

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Thank you very much. In a couple of days I'll post you the other passages. :))
 
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