Aline & Valcour Volume 2 by Marquis de Sade
In a letter written from prison to his wife in 1784, Marquis de Sade complains about his discomfort and what he perceives as his ill treatment: You are also well aware that my dizzy spells and my...
View ArticleCommunication in the Midst of Solitude: My Year in Reading—2019
In his essay “On Reading,” Proust writes, “Reading is that fruitful miracle of a communication in the midst of solitude.” I try to make reading plans every year but I honestly never know where the year...
View ArticleRespice Futurum: Reading Plans for 2020
It’s time for my annual Respice Futurum post about possible books and reading projects I am interested in for the new year. I’ve explained in previous years that the institution where I have had the...
View ArticleDispelling our Fears: Aline and Valcour Volume 3 by Marquis de Sade
Contra Mundum chose wisely to publish the first complete English translation of Aline & Valcour in three volumes. Each volume is distinctly different in tone and focus. The first letters between...
View ArticleBody into Body: Lucretius De Rerum Natura 4.1096-1120
Just as when a thirsty man, in his sleep, attempts to take a drink but the moisture needed to extinguish the fire in his limbs is no where to be found; so instead he looks for images of liquids and …...
View ArticleHow to Pick up Women: Advice from Ovid’s Ars Amatoria
Yesterday I shared on Twitter a pick up strategy from Ovid that Pound alludes to in the Cantos. I’ve had a request to translate a few more. Here are some of my favorites: From I.139-142. A great...
View ArticlePone Subit Coniunx: Robert Hass and Vergil’s Aeneid
Robert Hass has been another American poet that I’ve discovered from literary Twitter. My favorite poem in his collection Time and Materials is entitled “The World as Will and Representation.” In this...
View ArticleHomeo-Pharmacopeia’s Adagia: Geoffrey Hill’s Pindarics
Pindar, an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes, wrote a series of epinikia, odes to commemorate athletic victories in the Olympic, Nemean, Pythian and Isthmian games. His poems are notoriously...
View ArticleLa Jeune Parque by Paul Valéry
In Roman myth the three Fates— Parcae in Latin Moirai in Ancient Greek— are referred to as sisters: Clotho, the youngest, is the spinner of a person’s life thread, Lachesis measures the final thread of...
View ArticleModerating and Checking The Emotions: Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
One of my closest friends is always telling me not to take off hand remarks or things that people say personally. It’s a good piece of advice but one that is much easier said than done. I think he is …...
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