The number, as they say, is unlucky 13, but it works for me. I'll be reading Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible. I've been meaning to get to it for some time but I keep putting it off, so this will be good for me.
Ah, lucky you. Short and hopefully interesting. At least it will take you out of 6th century Britain and into somewhere more ....... well, I was going to say "sane" but perhaps it will be just as insane, only in a different way? Please let us know! :-)
Yeah, definitely not a noticeably higher sanity level, but should be interesting. :) I expect to disagree with quite a lot, so I'll check up on that, Ruth!
I read this and even did a report on it in high school but I was so ignorant that I didn't realize it had anything to do with the McCarthyist witch-hunts till much later. I should really read it again (or preferably, watch it--I don't see enough plays).
"The Four Ages of Poetry," by Thomas Love Peacock I am becoming fond of Thomas Love Peacock. Besides his unbeatable name, he was a lot of fun. Peacock was a minor literary figure of the early 19th century; he tried his hand at poetry but mainly succeeded in satire. I read his short novel Nightmare Abbey last year, but at the time I didn't know that the young hero of the story, Scythrop, was modeled on Peacock's good friend Percy Shelley. He and Shelley were quite close and Peacock was the executor of Shelley's will. Thomas Love Peacock Percy Bysshe Shelley "The Four Ages of Poetry," a tongue-in-cheek essay on the history and development of poetry, was published in 1820 in a new magazine called Literary Miscellany , which promptly died. It would probably have been completely obscure and unknown--it nearly is anyway--but for Shelley. Peacock sent a copy to his friend, who I guess didn't really have much of a sense of
Back in August, I got hold of a book of Urdu short stories translated into English. It's a large book, so I wanted to read just the women authors for WIT, and that would still be a good amount. August got away from me, and I only read one or two stories back then, but I've continued reading them since. I've now finished all the short stories in the book that were written by women (luckily for me, there are short biographies in an appendix, since I could only tell from the name about half the time). I'll just highlight a couple: "The Wagon," by Khalida Asghar, is a hallucinatory, apocalyptic story. The narrator meets three strange men who are watching the evening sky and point out that it has become red. No one had noticed until they said so, but the sky is now strangely red. Then a smell arrives, so offensive and sickening that it causes real pain -- but only once it's pointed out. And finally, a mysterious wagon, which may be the source of the s
I did it, I read all of Book I! My minimum requirement was two cantos a day, but I managed three a couple of times. I'm hoping to read ahead, because I'll be gone for two weeks in the middle of this event and I'd like to be able to prep a post ahead of time...but the schedule is already pretty demanding. The reading is not terribly difficult, but it is slow. I keep thinking that I've read a large chunk, only to look back and realize that in fact I have read six verses. So here we go with analysis... Each book in the Faerie Queene features a knight, and a story, about a particular virtue. The Redcrosse Knight, to be known as St. George after he accomplishes his feats, is all about Holinesse . This does not mean that Redcrosse already exemplifies holiness; he doesn't. Holiness is what he's working towards and struggling with. His foes symbolize various forms of unholiness, and he falls into their clutches at least as often as he defeats or avoids th
Great play! I enjoyed it immensely, even though I researched Miller's underlying motive and totally disagreed with him.
ReplyDeleteAh, lucky you. Short and hopefully interesting. At least it will take you out of 6th century Britain and into somewhere more ....... well, I was going to say "sane" but perhaps it will be just as insane, only in a different way? Please let us know! :-)
ReplyDeleteAw, yay! Good choice by the Classics Club! I hope you enjoy it.
ReplyDeleteYeah, definitely not a noticeably higher sanity level, but should be interesting. :) I expect to disagree with quite a lot, so I'll check up on that, Ruth!
ReplyDeleteI read this and even did a report on it in high school but I was so ignorant that I didn't realize it had anything to do with the McCarthyist witch-hunts till much later. I should really read it again (or preferably, watch it--I don't see enough plays).
ReplyDelete