Howling Frog Books

Hello there studymates, it's the end of the month; have you read any Greek literature to finish off your summer?  This month I tried to play some catch-up and so I read Plato's Symposium and four plays by Euripides.  I started Aristotle's Rhetoric , but Euripides was more fun, so I still have a way to go in that book. How about you?

She Stoops to Conquer , by Oliver Goldsmith It's another perfect 18th century comedy!  Here we have a squire, his wife, a bumptious stepson, a lovely daughter, and a poor cousin.  Enter two handsome young men and watch the antics!  This one was a lot of fun; it's just as Georgian a piece as the Sheridan play, but it's in a country-squire flavor rather than London society.  If you enjoyed Tom Jones , this one is for you.

Helen , by Euripides Helen was performed in 412 BC and may have been a companion piece to Iphigenia in Tauris .  Their plots are virtually identical! Helen, Queen of Sparta, was not carried off to Troy by Paris after all.  Hera gave Paris a magic phantom and spirited the real Helen off to Egypt, where she was placed under the protection of the king.  Helen has been waiting ever since for Menelaus to come and rescue her, and her time is running out; the old king has died and the new king wants her for his wife.  It's now been 17 years since she arrived in Egypt, so hope is fading, and she has taken refuge at the old king's tomb. Menelaus, meanwhile, has been wandering for 7 years, trying to get home.  Shipwrecked on the coast of Egypt, he hides his companions and his (phantom)wife and arrives at the palace.  Once they recognize each other and Menelaus is convinced, Helen hatches a plan for their escape.  It is a very similar plan to Iphigenia's. It's an interest

The Owl and the Nightingale, Cleanness, St. Erkenwald, trans. by Brian Stone I found a nice little Penguin Classics paperback at my mom's house containing three long medieval poems that serve as examples of genres in religious literature.  St. Erkenwald is a saint's legend, Cleanness is a Biblical epic, and The Owl and the Nightingale is a debate.  They are nice digestible poems and rather fun to read. St. Erkenwald tells a story about how workers found an ancient tomb with the body still intact.  The bishop--Erkenwald--arrives and commands the dead man to speak; he turns out to have been a just judge back in pagan times.   Erkenwald's tears baptize the judge, at which point he sinks back into the grave and his miraculously preserved body disintegrates as his soul flies to heaven. Cleanness is a poem about spiritual purity.  It tells several Old Testament stories and draws morals from  them: Likewise, if you lay claim to the love of God, And loyally love him wi

Now that I've covered three plays, let's learn a little something about Euripides.  He is the third great ancient Greek playwright, and younger than Sophocles and Aeschylus, though not by much.  More of his plays survive, partly because he stayed in fashion longer.  Euripides produced 92 (or perhaps a few more) plays during his lifetime, and we have 18 or 19 complete texts and fragments of quite a few more. Aeschylus and Sophocles both made important innovations in Greek drama, expanding the number of actors onstage and so on.  Euripides built upon this and developed still more innovations.  His plays are more psychological and reveal more of the characters.  He played with form; some of his productions aren't really very tragic and can better be called comedies (in our sense) or problem plays.  He doesn't always put a chorus in.  His audiences must often have been shocked!  On the whole, his plays feel much more like modern plays--they are more familiar in flavor t

Iphigenia, priestess, meets her brother Iphigenia in Tauris , by Euripides Hey, good news everyone!  Iphigenia was not horribly slaughtered by her father Agamemnon as a sacrifice after all!  At the last second, Artemis substituted a deer and whisked Iphigenia off to the ends of the earth (the Crimea), where she has been serving as a temple priestess ever since.  She has been pining for her Greek home for a good twenty years, it seems.  Now she is in mourning because she has had a prophetic dream that she believes tells her that Orestes, her brother and her one hope for rescue (however remote), is dead. But Iphigenia is wrong!  Orestes is still being chased by some Furies and he has arrived in Tauris to try to get rid of them once and for all.  (Only some of them were pacified by the whole Eumenides maneuver in Athens.)  Apollo has let him know that if he can steal the image of Artemis from this temple and take it back to Athens, he'll be free.  He and Iphigenia meet, but of

Medea escaping Corinth in her dragon chariot Medea , by Euripides This one is a real tragedy, with nothing but blood and horror.  Medea is a foreign princess from Colchis and a great sorceress besides; she is not Greek and seems therefore to be prone to violence.  Medea and Circe both must have carried many ancient nightmares about powerful and alien women, and black magic, and so on.  Medea is like a Greek man's worst nightmare: cunning, powerful, and vengeful, a womanly character gone horribly wrong.  (Alcestis, the ideal Greek woman, is her opposite number.) The original audience would have known all of the backstory well: Jason arrived in Colchis on his ship the Argo, and Medea helped him get the Golden Fleece.  In order to escape with Jason, she killed her own brother and scattered pieces of him around the harbor to delay pursuit (as everyone had to collect the pieces for a proper burial before chasing Jason).  They went to Iolchus, where Jason's uncle Pelias cheat

Alcestis , by Euripides This is the earliest known play by Euripides, but that's only because we're missing so much.  He had been producing plays for nearly 20 years by the time Alcestis was performed.  It was an unusual performance because this play was presented as the fourth of four tragedies, instead of three tragedies and a then satyr comedy.  Alcestis is dying in place of her husband, the king Admetus.  This has been the deal for some years--Admetus was told that he could avoid death (for a while) by getting someone to die in his place.  His parents refused but his wife agreed, and today is the day.   Admetus is grief-stricken, wailing about losing the best wife in the world and blaming his father and mother for not stepping up in Alcestis' place.  Their reaction is about what yours would be--"Look, you could have just done it yourself like you were supposed to.  Alcestis' death is on you, not us."  Alcestis says: I die, who did not have to die,

The School for Scandal, by Richard Brinsley Sheridan The late 18th century London literary scene seems to have been quite a time for satire, light and witty repartee, and not a whole lot else.  Sheridan is famous for his plays satirizing the upper classes.  In this play, gossip gets completely out of control. We have two brothers: one known to be a rake in debt, and the other with a reputation for high character.  Their wealthy uncle comes back from years abroad and decides to test them to see whether their reputations match their real characters.  Naturally, " one has all the goodness, and the other has all the appearance of it."  LADY TEAZLE. So--so--then I perceive your Prescription is that I must sin in my own Defence--and part with my virtue to preserve my Reputation.-- SURFACE. Exactly so upon my credit Ma'am. LADY TEAZLE. Well certainly this is the oddest Doctrine--and the newest Receipt for avoiding calumny.    It's a fun play, and I'd

Peer Gynt , by Henrik Ibsen Ibsen's play Peer Gynt is probably not as famous in the US as Grieg's suite of the same name, but apparently they were first performed together, with some of the music accompanying the play.  It is a fairly early play, and is written in verse--it was the last time Ibsen wrote a verse play.  The story is based on a hunter character from Norwegian folklore named Per Gynt (why did Ibsen change the spelling?  I must say I quite like the name Per, I have a friend named Per, but I don't like Peer), but it's set in the 19th century. I peeked at the original text for a minute (I'll look at it more) because Wikipedia says it's written in "Dano-Norwegian," which seems to mean that it's not so much in what we would call Norwegian as sort of mostly Danish but not entirely.  Both languages have changed in the last 100 years so it's not easy for me to tell, since my Danish is pretty rusty anyway, but the online text was prett

Periodic Tales: a Cultural History of the Elements, from Arsenic to Zinc, by Hugh Aldersey-Williams I just love books like this, especially when they're about chemistry. (Also: such a pretty cover!)  Aldersey-Williams meanders around the periodic table, giving us history, cultural meanings and associations, and science in about equal portions, with the odd personal story thrown in for fun.  He divides the book into five sections called Power, Beauty, Craft, Fire, and Earth , and so there is a certain amount of coherence in the narrative.   Since everything is made of elements, elements show up everywhere and the book has a little bit of everything.  It's very fun. Aldersey-Williams is quite funny as well.  I enjoyed his style and some of his stories made me laugh out loud.  In a section about the discovery of iodine, he talks about Humphrey Davy's trip to France, which was both a scientific trip and a honeymoon journey.  Davy thought science ought to bridge the animos

The Sufferings of Young Werther , by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe--translation by Stanley Corngold This story of a young man's hopeless passion is a classic of Romantic literature, and I gather it was very influential.  Goethe wrote it as a young man and rather regretted it later on as a somewhat embarrassing work (and his best-known; it must have been a bit like being Harrison Ford in 2012 and having people still call you Han Solo).  It was semi-autobiographical and memorialized his love for a young woman named Charlotte Buff.  It's the sort of book you really ought to read when you're twenty years old, because if you wait too long you'll get old and just want to smack Werther instead of weeping over his doomed life. Werther is an artistic and sensitive young man enjoying a spell of country life.  In letters to his friend Wilhelm, he talks about the wonderful joys of his pastoral lifestyle--until he meets the lovely Lotte.  He knows perfectly well that Lotte is enga

Sarah's rules state that I must produce a wrapup post for her challenge.  I only get to be entered in the drawing for a prize if I submit this for her to inspect.  So: Any 19th Century Classic -- Doctor Thorne , by Anthony Trollope, a Barsetshire novel. I think this has been my favorite Barsetshire novel so far. Any 20th Century Classic -- Doctor Zhivago , by Boris Pasternak. (two doctors!) One of my favorite books of the year; I'm so glad I accidentally met it at the library. Reread a classic of your choice -- The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov.  I loved it in college and remember almost nothing about it. Wow, this is a strange book, and a great one.  Not easy to understand (and I don't claim that I did!), but very good. A Classic Play -- The Tempest , by Shakespeare, read aloud with my daughter. I've enjoyed reading some plays with my daughter this year, and I even got to take her and a friend to a broadcast performance of The Tempest --o

Doctor Zhivago , by Boris Pasternak I really loved this book.  I picked it up at the library because I fell for the gorgeous cover (isn't that a beautiful cover??) and also it was on my list anyway, and then I started reading it and I didn't want it to end.  This is one of my favorites of the year so far.  Love love love. It's the life story of Yuri Andreevitch Zhivago, who becomes a doctor and lives through the First World War, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Russian civil war, and the aftermath.  He loves his wife Tonya, but also falls in love with the beautiful Lara, whose husband disappeared during World War I.  She goes to the front to search for him.  Through long separations, all of their lives are intertwined with each others' and with the railway that stretches across Russia. Pasternak took ten years to write the book from 1945-55, and knew perfectly well that he couldn't publish it in the Soviet Union.  He got the manuscript to an Italian publisher, wh

The Shadow of the Wind , by Carlos Ruiz Zafón Until fairly recently I had never heard of Carlos Ruiz Zafón, and suddenly he was all over my blog reader.  Two or three book bloggers posted about him at once, and I thought I'd try out the book that people were talking about.  One blogger can't stand him and I wish I could remember who it was because now I want to ask why, so if you know, tell me! I read The Shadow of the Wind , which is the first of three books that center on the Cemetery of Forgotten Books--a giant secret repository for books, guarded by a keeper.  Once you select a book from the Cemetery, you become that book's guardian for life. Daniel is ten years old when his father takes him to the Cemetery of Forgotten Books.  He chooses The Shadow of the Wind , a novel by an obscure writer named Julian Carax.  Daniel learns that his is apparently the last copy in existence, since a mysterious person has been systematically seeking out and burning Carax's boo

Katherine at November's Autumn has a new monthly question up: I love coming across such a beautiful passage my eyes go back to linger once more on the words. Sometimes its deep and thought provoking other times a witty phrase that made me smile. Rather than a question this month's prompt is to share a memorable Quotation ... or a few of them from what you're currently reading. Try to select one that are not so well-known but, of course, if you can't help yourself share it too! I have just finished Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence , and so here are two quotations from that:     ...Newland Archer mounted thoughtfully to his own study. A vigilant hand had, as usual, kept the fire alive and the lamp trimmed; and the room, with its rows and rows of books, its bronze and steel statuettes of “The Fencers” on the mantelpiece and its many photographs of famous pictures, looked singularly home-like and welcoming.     As he dropped into hi

Jillian's Classics Club has taken on a life of its own, and now has a home to itself on the Web with all sorts of lists and suggestions and fun, and a whole group of moderators!  From now on they'll be hosting a monthly meme with a question to answer, and the first one is: What is your favorite classic book?  Why? Yeah, let's just make this first one easy, right?  Ha.  I'm not very good at coming up with favorites, except that of course Diana Wynne Jones is my all-time favorite ever.  You could certainly call her classic fantasy, but I'll try to come up with somebody else too. Of course I love Jane Austen, and I think my favorite is Persuasion if I have to pick one, but all of them are high on the list, even poor unpopular Mansfield Park .  Jane Eyre and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall are my Brontë picks. I do have a thing for Arthurian literature, and have read most of the major works right up to T. H. White.  I especially love The Quest for the Holy Grai

The Age of Innocence , by Edith Wharton I've never been much for American literature, so I've never read Edith Wharton at all.  My loss-- I love her!  I'm going to read more, definitely. The 'Age of Innocence' is the 1870s in New York; it's a city on the brink of total change, but for this moment, a tiny group of wealthy New Yorkers cling to traditions and standards that dictate impeccable behavior in public, and determined ignorance of anything unpleasant.  Newland Archer loves this society and lives by its rules unquestioningly, until he meets his fiancee's cousin Madame Olenska.  Knowing her makes him wonder about everything he's ever believed. It's a wonderful book, so beautifully written, and the story doesn't quite take the predictable path.  Newland is in a prison of his own making, but he doesn't know it until it's almost too late. Wharton published The Age of Innocenc e in 1920 and it won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for lite

The First World War , by John Keegan I do not enjoy reading about World War I, which always seems to me to have been such a horribly avoidable and pointless war, fought for almost no reason at all.  But we have to learn about it, because the Great War created the modern world.  Most of what happened in the 20th century can be traced back to WWI, and of course that continues now. John Keegan's book is an overview of the entire war.  It can't get into details or personal stories much; the perspective is from the heights.  I found it difficult to get into for this reason, though it's not a flaw in the book--that's just how it has to be in order to get the story told.  Still, it's a dense book about war tactics, which is never easy for me to read.  I've been working on it for months, bit by bit. Keegan explains some on the reasons that World War I was such a mess.  For one thing, the state of technology at the time dictated the entire shape of the war, trenche

On my trip, I took along the Symposium , which is probably about the easiest work of Plato out there.  Before I get into that, let's find out a little bit about Plato himself-- Plato's name was really Aristocles; his nickname came from his broad shoulders.  He was a wealthy guy who belonged to an aristocratic Athenian family that descended from the old kings of Athens.  He was a talented young man--athletic, musical, clever, and brave (he won a prize for bravery against the Spartans).  A couple of his uncles were followers of Socrates, and Plato followed suit when he was twenty. Plato learned to dislike Athenian democracy.  His uncle was killed in the civil war between the Athenian factions of aristocrats and democrats, and a few years later, he was present at the execution of Socrates.  He therefore left Athens and wandered for several years, once having to ransom himself out of slavery. Once Plato returned to Athens, he bought a sacred grove belonging to the god Acade

Chronicle of the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, by Jocelin of Brakelond I actually finished a book!  Jocelin of Brakelond became a monk in 1163 and joined the Benedictine abbey that ran his hometown of Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk.  He was not the recordkeeper for the abbey; he just wrote down stories of the abbey and his own life in a personal account which continues until 1202, which is probably when he died. I don't know of many memoirs like this from the medieval era, and I don't think I've ever read a medieval account that was so straightforward and full of personal detail.  Jocelin mostly focuses on the abbey's leader, Abbot Samson, his actions, and the monks' opinions of his governance.  Samson seems to have been a very able administrator, but he didn't necessarily worry about making everyone happy.  Instead he dragged the abbey out of debt and made sure everything ran shipshape.  The monks argued over issues all the time, and that's pretty interesting