I. Capítulo 1
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An essay of long periods for C2
Ariel Ariel
José Enrique Rodó, 1920
José Enrique Rodó’s essay of 1900, the complete text from the 1920 Valencia edition by Editorial Cervantes, not an adaptation. In the catalog it is C2: about 25,400 words and 46 words per sentence on average. It is an essay, not fiction: the old teacher Prospero’s farewell speech to his disciples, in eight sections from about 400 to 7,000 words.
- C2
- 25 387 words
- 4-7 hours
Will this text hold?
C1
Earlier
At C1, where the catalog’s books run at 15 to 30 words per sentence, periods of 40 to 50 words with chains of appositions will lose you, and so will learned words like inculpación or florescencia.
C1C2
This text
You can manage it at C2: translate single words and the longest periods whole, and read one section at a time; the sections of about 3,000 words are the comfortable size.
Check this passageThe average sentence has 46 words: more than Don Quijote de la Mancha (43) and close to the Novelas ejemplares (49) in the catalog, well above the 38 words that mark C2, and more than twice the 21 of Ingenieros’s essay El hombre mediocre on the C1 shelf. One word in six has 9 letters or more (15.9%). The difficulty is even: seven of the eight sections average 40 to 54 words per sentence, and only the short closing scene is lighter, at about 27. Hence C2. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 25 387
- words
- 46
- words in an average sentence
- 4-7
- hours of reading
- 1920
- Editorial Cervantes
Editorial Cervantes, 1920. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
Ariel is an essay, not a novel, so it has no plot of its own. Beside a bronze statue of Shakespeare’s Ariel, the old teacher Prospero says goodbye to his young disciples at the end of a school year and gives them a last lesson. Ariel stands for the noble, winged part of the spirit, Calibán for sensuality and clumsiness. Prospero asks the young to develop their whole nature, to love beauty and disinterested ideals, and to resist narrow utilitarianism and the levelling of everything to the mediocre. How the evening ends, and what the youngest disciple says, is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Many nouns for one Ariel
After “Ariel es...” the sentence piles up noun phrases (el imperio de la razón, el entusiasmo generoso, el móvil alto, la espiritualidad de la cultura), and every one of them is a definition of the same symbol. Read them as a list, not as a chain of clauses. The gerund rectificando at the end shows how this ideal works: it corrects the traces of Calibán in a person, like a sculptor’s chisel.
Find the verb behind the long subject
The subject, La inculpación del utilitarismo estrecho, waits for its verb se funda until the middle of the sentence, and the clause after sobre el desconocimiento de que... holds its own verb, son. Mark the three verbs (se funda, son, preparará) and the rest falls into place: the accusation rests on forgetting that this effort is necessary work. The comparison como el laborioso enriquecimiento de una tierra agotada compares that effort to enriching exhausted soil.
Chapters
Translation while you read
The book stays free on every plan. Reader, €1 a month, removes the daily limit on words and sentences.
Reader
€1 a month
The sentence that begins “La inculpación del utilitarismo estrecho...” holds back its verb se funda for many words: translating the whole sentence in Reader shows how the thought is built.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
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Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not a learner’s abridgement: José Enrique Rodó’s complete essay, first published in Montevideo in 1900, in all eight sections. The reader follows the 1920 Valencia edition by Editorial Cervantes, in the Breviario de la Juventud series, as digitized by Project Gutenberg.
Is there an audiobook?
Ariel has no audiobook on MovaReader: here the essay is read on screen. The translation appears when you tap a word, and you will need it most for abstract and learned words such as inculpación or florescencia.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. In this essay it helps most, since sentences average 46 words: for example the one that begins “La inculpación del utilitarismo estrecho...” and reaches its verb se funda only after a long subject. Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole essay takes about 4-7 hours: the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker’s. The eight sections run from about 400 to 7,000 words, so the two longest, the fifth and the sixth, are best read in two sittings.
Where does the text get easier?
It stays even from the first sentence to the last. Seven of the eight sections average 40 to 54 words per sentence; only the short closing scene, about 400 words, is lighter, at about 27 words per sentence. The opening scene is short and descriptive, a good place to get used to the long periods.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes. Once you sign in, the reader keeps your last place and the words you opened, so you can come back to the essay where you left off. Any of the eight sections also opens from the contents on this page.