Meaning of ‘no Authors’ and ‘Modern Book’
The passage below is from The Library: A Fragile History by Andrew Pettegree.
One of the most refined personal libraries of the period was owned by Samuel van Huls, a burgomaster of The Hague, whose books were auctioned in 1730. Van Huls could not read a word of Latin or Greek, yet he had put together a collection of over 5,000 volumes, mostly in Latin, including fifty folio Bibles and almost all the work of celebrated printers.
Collectors like Van Huls were frequently lampooned. Already in 1710, Joseph Addison had presented to the readers of The Tatler the collecting habits of a man named Tom Folio, who had ‘a greater esteem for Aldus and Elzevir, than for Virgil and Horace’. Twenty years later Alexander Pope mocked one noble collector for his antiquarian interests:
His Study? With what Authors is it stor’d?
In Books, no Authors, curious is my Lord;
For Lock or Milton ’tis in vain to look,
These Shelves admit not any Modern Book.
In these lines of the poem by the poet Alexander Pope, I think I have no problem with these lines in their literal meaning.
But I don’t think I understand the underlined ‘no Authors’ and ‘any Modern Book’.
How can any book be ‘no Authors’?
Since these lines are to mock ‘one noble collector for his antiquarian interests’, does ‘no Authors’ mean books are Latin or Greek books? (Am I right?)
But even if I am right, how Latin or Greek books have no authors?
And does ‘not any Modern Book’ imply that Lock or Milton are modern authors, but the poet cannot find any of them in this noble collector’s libray, so the poet says that he doesn’t see any Modern Book’ in these shelves.
Thanks in advance.
Since these lines are to mock ‘one noble collector for his antiquarian interests’, does ‘no Authors’ mean books are Latin or Greek books? ) No. By "no authors", he means "not in authors".
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Stenka25How can any book be ‘no Authors’?Since these lines are to mock ‘one noble collector for his antiquarian interests’, does ‘no Authors’ mean books are Latin or Greek books? (Am I right?)
No. By "no authors", he means "not in authors". In other words, he is saying that the collector is just interested in having any books (not in selecting quality mater