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Map of ancient Greek world Picture source This was the first cause that the Corinthians had of war against the Athenians: namely, because they had taken part with the Corcyræans in a battle by sea against the Corinthians, with whom they were comprised in the same articles of peace. I’ll apologize about the length of […]
Bust of Thucydides Picture source Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the war of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians as they warred against each other, beginning to write as soon as the war was on foot; with expectation it should prove a great one, and most worthy the relation of all that had been before it: conjecturing […]
But Thucydides is one, who, though he never digress to read a lecture, moral or political, upon his own text, nor enter into men’s hearts further than the acts themselves evidently guide him: is yet accounted the most politic historiographer that ever writ. The reason whereof I take to be this. He filleth his narrations […]
My resources posts intend to link to sites I think may be helpful in understanding a work as well as posts or sites I want to explore while reading the book. I never intend these posts to be comprehensive, and in approaching Thucydides I’m not going to pretend to cover more than a fraction of […]
I chose The Way We Live Now as part of the The Classics Circuit’s tour of Anthony Trollope. Rebecca Reid does a wonderful job coordinating the various tours and has provided a retrospective post that links to various posts by book bloggers on works by Trollope. I didn’t finish in time to be included but […]
I just finished watching the TV series of Trollope’s novel adapted by Andrew Davies and David Yates. Despite some major changes in characterization and storyline, which I’ll detail later, I enjoyed the movie very much. A detailed discussion on the adaptation and the novel can be found at Ellen And Jim Have A Blog, Two […]
Lionel G. Fawkes, Detail from “Mr Mixet of course made a speech” [Ruby as the “happy” bride], The Way We Live NowWhile there are many possible topics to cover in the last twenty-five chapters of Trollope’s novel, especially with the avalanche of weddings, I’m going to limit myself to two areas I struggled with in […]
Lionel G. Fawkes, “Mr Melmotte speculates”, Chapter 62Picture source Having had a stomach virus work its way through the family this past week, I’m hoping things are returning to some sense of normalcy. While recuperating from my bout Tuesday, I watched about three-fourths of the BBC adaptation of The Way We Live Now. I hope […]
I may have stretched the truth a little in this post’s title, but then maybe Nabokov did as well. While listening to Nabokov’s Speak, Memory the following passage caught my ear, probably because I read Hadji Murad recently. The following scene takes place in southern Crimea in the spring of 1918: One morning, on a […]
I know, I know…I still need to finish Trollope, Thucydides awaits in the wings, but for some reason Vienna keeps calling me. I ran across a used copy of Fin-de-Siécle Vienna: Politics and Culture by Carl E. Schorske and after browsing a few pages on Hugo von Hofmannsthal I had to buy it. Now if […]