Re: Usenet's Greatest Poet / gjd

On Friday, June 10, 2022 at 9:49:42 AM UTC-4, NancyGene wrote:

On Friday, June 10, 2022 at 1:16:50 PM UTC, michaelmalef...@gmail.com
wrote:

On Friday, June 10, 2022 at 5:48:48 AM UTC-4, george...@yahoo.ca wrote:

On 2022-06-09 8:52 p.m., W-Dockery wrote:

I know more about Horatio Hornblower's influence on Star Trek than I

do

Horatio Nelson's influence on the Hornblower character, but from

what

I've just read on Google, Horatio Hornblower was indeed based

partially

on Horatio Nelson.
HTH and HAND.

I see "Professor NancyGene" has returned to challenge your claim. So,
while I'm not all that interested in Hornblower and Nelson, I was
interested enough to do my own googling.
>
Here's a website I found by Kyra Cornelius Kramer. She's not a

literary

expert; according to her bio, she's
>
"an author and freelance medical anthropologist. She had BS degrees in
both biology and anthropology from the University of Kentucky, as well
as a MA in medical anthropology from Southern Methodist University."

Which certainly makes her a go-to source for expert opinions on British
Naval history.

>
So she's just an amateur who knows something of the subject. How much,

I

can't say;

Then why bring her up if she is not a credible source?

but then, I can't say how much if anything Prof. NG knows
about it either. So Kramer's opinion at least balances that off.

Well, no... she doesn't.

No, she doesn't. It sounds like Ms. Kramer read shallowly of Nelson.

>
You seem to have missed the point, George.
>
Here's what the Wikipedia article said:
>
"Inspirations
There are many parallels between Hornblower and real naval officers of
the period, notably Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson, Sir George Cockburn,
Lord Cochrane, Sir Edward Pellew, Jeremiah Coghlan, Sir James Gordon and
Sir William Hoste."
>
IOW: Hornblower was *inspired by* Nelson and many of his peers.
>
He was not *based on* Nelson as both of the Splooges have claimed.
>
"Inspired by" ≠ "based on."
>
Words matter.

George Dance skipped that part, as it was inconvenient to his argument.

"One of Nelson’s most interesting legacies is that he was the obvious
model for Horatio Hornblower, the navy officer in a series of
best-selling early 20th century novels by C. S. Forester. In turn, the
protagonist of the Forester novels was the source of Gene

Roddenberry‘s

inspiration when he created his famous starship captains James T. Kirk
and Jean-Luc Picard."
>

http://www.kyrackramer.com/2018/09/29/horatio-nelson-hornblower-prototype-and-hero-of-trafalgar/

>

"Obvious" is sometimes wrong. See below.

Kramer doesn't get into the similarities, but one that I noticed from
her article is that Nelson got seasick. According to the Wikipedia
article on Hornblower, that was a recurring motif in the novels:
Hornblower "suffers from seasickness at the start of each of his

voyages."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Hornblower#Inspirations

So what? One in three people get seasick. Are they all emulating Nelson
and Hornblower? We once spent a grueling half-day ocean fishing trip in
the waters off San Diego. We were below deck puking the entire time. The
rest of the passengers did not say, "Oh, they're just like Nelson and
Hornblower!"
>
If George Dance is going to do research, he should go to primary
sources. Who is more primary than C. S. Forester for the name of his
character and the influences? From "The Hornblower Companion" – C. S.
Forester (1964) p. 90:
>
“One final point, before the Margaret Johnson sighted the Bishop Light
and we entered the English Channel. This odd character had to have a
name – so far he had been merely ‘he’ in my discussions with myself. He
had to have a name which the readers would remember easily, which would
stand out on the page, and which would not be confused with any other
name. […] It would be desirable, but not entirely necessary for ‘him’ to
have a slightly grotesque name – something more for his absurd
self-consciousness to be disturbed about. The consideration of least
weight – the merest milligram – was that ‘he’ was a slightly grotesque
character, too. ‘Horatio’ came first to mind, and oddly enough not
because of Nelson but because of Hamlet; but it met an essential
requirement because it was a name with contemporary associations. Nelson
was by no means the only Horatio in late Georgian times. Then, from
Horatio, it seemed a natural and easy step to Hornblower. At one moment
he was ‘he’; at the next, ‘Horatio’; and yet a moment later he was
‘Captain Horatio Hornblower of His Britannic Majesty’s Navy,’ and the
last awkward corner was turned and the novel practically ready to be
written, and there was England fully in sight on the port bow.”
----------
>
"Thank God I have done my duty." - NG and "somebody else"