Not wanting to shell out for another copy of a book I own, but which is upstate, I found this:

http://classics.mit.edu/

Not, alas, as useful as it first appears. MIT don't seem to have done anything with it since 2000. Many of the downloadable sections get truncated in mid-sentence for some reason.

Bingley

>>truncated mid-sentence<<

As I discovered, making my way through the Poetics. Ah, well. Funny, though, the translator had Aristotle referring to 'the poet' (in general) as 'she,' at one point. In fairness, the effect may be Shakespearean.

While we're on about retractions, incidentally, I would like to unrecommend "Smart Mobs," a book that promises to become elegantly theoretical and delivers itself a rather lengthy list to be skipped.

Inselpeter, the system seems to be reluctant to send you a pm, so I'm going to have to go public with this address for the Poetics:

http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Aristot.+Poet.+1447a

Bingley

the translator had Aristotle referring to 'the poet' (in general) as 'she,'

I wonder. The Latin is first declension, although considered masculine. Was it feminine in ancient Greek?

The declensions and the endings of words in general do not determine gender. In the first declension, nouns end in -a in the nominative sigular and are in the main feminine, but not so poeta, agricola 'farmer', and nauta 'sailor'. Poeta in Greek was also masculine. Likewise, not all nouns ending in -us are masculine: some in the third declension are neuter corpus and some in the 4th declension are feminine anus 'old woman' (not to be confused with the masculine 2nd declension word anus) and tribus. Also grammatical gender should be considered separately from natural gender.

I figgered. I was jus wondrin.

All,

Be assured, I get your emails -- and often, more than once :) It seems the server won't confirm it's been sent; however, *I* will.