Every few years, there is a new, and generally assumed to be improved, translation of a major literary classic. Robert Fagles (The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Aeneid), Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (Anna Karenina and The Brothers Karamazov), Robert and Jean Hollander (Dante’s Divine Comedy) are just a few […]
Make your life wide rather than long. Think rather than know. These are just two of the New Year’s resolutions Jo-Ann Minden sent us from the site Brain Pickings. In its January newsletter, the site offers a list of “higher-order” ideas on how to change your life. See thinkers and […]
How impoverished we would be with no access to literature written in languages unknown to us. Let us give thanks to literary translators. But their challenges are colossal. How do you translate wordplay or a metaphor? What about culturally-specific landmarks or expressions that may be unknown to a foreign audience? […]
Last week, in this pictorial puzzle from the Classical Pursuits trip in New Orleans, Ann asked, “What do these two addresses have in common?” We have the answer for you! 632 is the street address of the New Orleans homes of both Tennessee Williams and the fictional Stella and Stanley […]
Find out with this whimsical PowerPoint
As literature PhD candidate Adam Burgess notes, “One of the best parts about reading classic literature is discovering, and often falling in love with, great characters. Talented writers have the ability to craft characters in such a way as to make us, the readers, imagine we could know these people […]
Trip the light fantastic Meaning To dance, especially in an imaginative or ‘fantastic’ manner. Origin This apparently obscure expression originates from the works of John Milton. In the masque Comus, 1637, he used the lines: Come, knit hands, and beat the ground, In a light fantastic round. By ‘trip’, […]
Today, when I was proofing Lisa Pasold’s GUEST BLOG on her walks four our Belle Epoque trip to Paris, I came across this phrase, “…writer Emile Zola—whose famed letter J’Accuse courageously spear-headed the defense of Jewish army officer Alfred Dreyfus.” I paused at the word defense. Should it be defence? I […]
These were sent to me by Pat Shaunessy, a fellow ex-pat from Philadelphia now living in Toronto. I asked Pat for an attribution. She says, “my pals have indicated that the message has gone through many evolutions and bcc’s so the origin can’t be traced.” I trust I am not […]
No time for a full post at the moment, as we are enjoying full days on the Sub-Continent, but I wanted to share this excellent piece with you: a little food for thought! (with thanks to James Harbeck at Word Tasting Notes) http://sesquiotic.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/mulligatawny/