The literary term excursus has to do with a more neutral sort of digression. An idea is expanded upon mostly in the appendix or the footnotes. Maybe the subject discussed will be of interest to only certain readers and maybe the information will benefit those readers who are more interested in back story. If you are familiar with Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, you will find that the novel makes extensive references to whaling, a kind of excursus in its own right,<\/p>\n
\u201cYou are sure that I would not be well advised to make certain excisions and eliminations? You do not think it would be a good thing to cut, to prune? I might, for example, delete the rather exhaustive excursus<\/strong> into the family life of the early Assyrians?\u201d
\n\u2015\u00a0P.G. Wodehouse,\u00a0<\/span>The Inimitable Jeeves<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cBut there is another class of assassinations, which has prevailed from an early period of the seventeenth century, that really does surprise me; I mean the assassination of philosophers. For, gentlemen, it is a fact, that every philosopher of eminence for the two last centuries has either been murdered, or, at the least, been very near it; insomuch, that if a man calls himself a philosopher, and never had his life attempted, rest assured there is nothing in him; and against Locke\u2019s philosophy in particular, I think it an unanswerable objection (if we needed any), that, although he carried his throat about with him in this world for seventy-two years, no man ever condescended to cut it. As these cases of philosophers are not much known, and are generally good and well composed in their circumstances, I shall here read an excursus<\/strong> on that subject, chiefly by way of showing my own learning.\u201d
\n\u2015\u00a0Thomas de Quincey<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The literary term excursus has to do with a more neutral sort of digression. An idea is expanded upon mostly in the appendix or the footnotes. Maybe the subject discussed will be of interest to only certain readers and maybe the information will benefit those readers who are more interested in back story. If you … Continue reading “That’s the Word for It: Excursus”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[251],"tags":[336,335,269],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7vAZr-1eP","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4820,"url":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/27\/thats-the-word-for-it-non-refoulement\/","url_meta":{"origin":4763,"position":0},"title":"That's the Word for It: Non-refoulement","date":"November 27, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Non-refoulement is a legal term. While political asylum applies to those who can prove fear of persecution based on a certain category of persons, non-refoulement refers to a principle of international law that prevents expulsion or deportation of people, including refugees into war zones and places that pose a risk\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "That's the word for it"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/nonrefo.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4563,"url":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/2019\/04\/26\/thats-the-word-for-it-obstreperous\/","url_meta":{"origin":4763,"position":1},"title":"That\u2019s the Word for It: Obstreperous","date":"April 26, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"The word obstreperous comes from\u00a0ob\u2013 which means in the way\u00a0plus\u00a0strepere,\u00a0a verb that means to make a noise or to rebel against something. So the adjective works well especially with unruly children, politicians, rebel groups and certain kinds of families. It\u2019s fun to see the way this word is used in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "That's the word for it"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/instascribe.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/obstreperous.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4572,"url":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/10\/interview-suresh-ramaswamy\/","url_meta":{"origin":4763,"position":2},"title":"Interview: Suresh Ramaswamy","date":"May 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"We got the opportunity to speak with Suresh Ramaswamy, author of Just Be: Transform Your Life and Live as Infinity. Suresh Ramaswamy is a transformational teacher and visionary entrepreneur passionate about igniting and catalyzing the transformation of humanity. With his background as an electrical engineer and technology executive, he brings\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Interviews & Stories"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/IMG_7732resized-e1557727935566-240x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5747,"url":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/2022\/03\/20\/salilchaturvedi-haiku-haibun-haiga-anthropocene\/","url_meta":{"origin":4763,"position":3},"title":"Interview: Writing Haiku, Haiga and Haibun with Salil Chaturvedi","date":"March 20, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"We had the opportunity to chat with Salil Chaturvedi, author of love and longing in the anthropocene. Salil Chaturvedi is the author of short fiction and poetry and dabbles in photography. His stories and poems have been published in various journals and anthologies. He loves creating haiku, haiga (a combination\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Interviews & Stories"","img":{"alt_text":"Shortening Days","src":"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/shortenening-days-1.jpg?fit=1200%2C785&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":5647,"url":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/2021\/09\/04\/wildlife-day-books-anthropocene\/","url_meta":{"origin":4763,"position":4},"title":"Wildlife Day: Eleven Books for Readers in the Anthropocene","date":"September 4, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"National Wildlife Day was founded by animal behaviorist and philanthropist Colleen Paige. The idea behind this day is to bring to the fore knowledge about endangered animals and spread the word about animal conservation. We put together a list of wildlife animal books for you on this day. \u00a0A Zoo\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "BookSmith"","img":{"alt_text":"Wildlife Day","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Wildlifeday-fb.png?fit=940%2C788&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4886,"url":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/2020\/02\/13\/thats-the-word-for-it-apricity\/","url_meta":{"origin":4763,"position":5},"title":"That's the Word for It: Apricity","date":"February 13, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Apricity is a word that the Pothi.com team stumbled upon on Twitter. It's a rare word, having appeared in 1623 when Henry Cockeram recorded or invented it it for his dictionary. The word never really took off. Here are some instances of this word used in literature: Apricity (n.) the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "That's the word for it"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/apricity.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4763"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4763"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4765,"href":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4763\/revisions\/4765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pothi.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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<\/p>\n