(acommonreader.st)
The Plague of Athens by Michael Sweerts Picture sourceThis post looks at Book Two Chapters 47 – 65, which covers part of the second year of the war (430BC). All quotes come from the Thomas Hobbes translation. I realize I’m loading up on the quotes in this post, but I hope they prove helpful. Plague […]
This post looks at Book Two through the first 46 chapters. All quotes come from the Thomas Hobbes translation. Spartan strategy The Spartan king Archidamus attempted to dissuade his countrymen from declaring war against Athens in Book One (chapters 80 – 85). Archidamus raised the following concerns: Athens would be a powerful foe, a war […]
Bust of Pericles Inscription: “Pericles, son of Xanthippus, Athenian” Picture sourceThe question I’m focusing on in Book One centers on Thucydides’ claim for the reason for the Peloponnesian War. Not that I’m hoping to resolve the actual reasons…it’s more like I’m trying to understand Thucydides’ outlook…knowing where to take him with a grain of salt […]
“Are you sure?” (Apparently not…we ended up with a Hank the Cowdog book)
The Athenian empire (and surrounding areas) around 450 BC Picture source Pentecontaetia (Greek, “the period of fifty years”) is the term used to refer to the period in Ancient Greek history between the defeat of the second Persian invasion of Greece at Plataea in 479 BC and the beginning of the Peloponnesian War. (from Wikipedia) […]
Speaking of pretexts, I was about to throw out (long overdue) my lone Shakespeare Santa Cruz shirt and wanted to test out my new phone’s camera. So here we go. Not pictured is the shoulder and sleeve discolored from falling down a hill during a hike on Kauai. The red-lava dirt permanently stained it, but […]
Chalcidice in northern Greece(For those that followed Herodotus, Xerxes’ canal northwest of Mount Athos is noted)Picture source “For they love innovation, and are swift to devise, and also to execute what they resolve on. But you on the contrary are only apt to save your own; not devise any thing new, nor scarce to attain […]
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 […]
I’m not sure what links I followed to get to this article on Apt Adaptation: 10 Cool Converted Bookstores (otherwise I would be sure to credit them), but I’ll pass the link on regardless for your perusal. Note: the link still works but their pictures no longer load. My favorite is the Selexyz Dominicanen Church in […]
Cynthia Ozick: “Though Trollope belongs with the permanent enchanting few (he educates domestically in the manner of Jane Austen, and in a worldly sense in the manner of Balzac), he has been a diminished figure ever since—except in the unbiased regions of literary truth.” Her essay “Our Kinsman, Mr. Trollope” looks to offset that diminishment […]
“You, I think, are Miss Melmotte.” Picture sourceA reminder for anyone interested in Trollope, The Classics Circuit is underway with a tour of the author. SFP at pages turned has posted a good review of The Way We Live Now. I just finished Volume One so here are a few quotes and comments on Chapters […]