Late last year, I decided to let go of my longstanding project, stalled for a long time, to publish translations of Graeco–Roman paradoxographical texts on a dedicated website. It was a tough decision, but I simply had too much on my plate, and too little time. I hadn't the heart to delete everything, though, so I left it still hanging for a few months before rather wistfully deciding to finish it off.
But as I readied myself to press the Big Red Button, something on the bibliography caught my eye: a 2016 article in the Fortean Times, 'Paradoxography: Forteana Before Fort'.* This piece, I recalled (and confirmed by re-reading), had given prominence to my website and had quoted from it. Never mind your learned journals, I had made it into the Fortean Times – two well-received pieces on recordkeeping and archives notwithstanding, this surely represented the pinnacle of a chequered academic and para-academic career. Was the site really an undertaking to be so easily discarded?
So I am returning to the fray, with a much streamlined project. Here it is, then, slimmed down and blinking as it re-emerges into the light: the Paradoxography Website. Gone is the hopelessly over-ambitious framework of cross-references and links, which was taking up more time than revising the translations themselves; the focus is now on the texts and bibliography. I have changed the layout of text for more comfortable reading on screen: there is, I have discovered, an optimal range of line lengths for reading text.
I have also taken the opportunity to polish up the existing translations of Antigonus, Apollonius, and the Paradoxographi Florentinus and Vaticanus, with the Paradoxographus Palatinus newly added. Two texts – the pseudo-Aristotelian On Marvellous Things Heard and Phlegon's Wonders, are present but not yet in new translations, as they are already available in open-access editions so the need to provide them is not so pressing.
Next up will be another old / new combination – a licked-into-shape version of a hoary public-domain translation of Ps.-Plutarch De fluviis, and a new translation of one of the more extensive fragmentary paradoxographical texts, probably Nicolaus.
This blog is also undergoing a year-zero reset: I have used a different template style, trimmed the links list, and removed all existing posts. Some of the earlier posts will be updated and posted again, but many of them consisted of material that has now been fully incorporated into the website. Comments have been turned off, mainly because they seem to attract spammers more than genuine interaction, but you can find me on Mastodon and Bluesky.
* The Hierophant's Apprentice [Anon.] (2016) ‘Building a Fortean Library 9. Paradoxography: Forteana Before Fort’, Fortean Times, no. 339, 52–4.
Image credit: http://digi.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/diglit/cpgraec398. Title and opening lines of Antigonus from Codex Palatinus Graecus 398.
