From ‘Six studies of a cat’ by Thomas Gainsborough, 1763–70 The poet Christopher Smart — also known as “Kit Smart”, “Kitty Smart”, “Jack Smart” and, on occasion, “Mrs Mary Midnight” — was a well known figure in 18th-century London. Nowadays he is perhaps best known for considering his cat Jeoffry. Writer and broadcaster Frank Key[…]
Watercolour portrait by William Buckler of Robert Hunt, 1842 — Wellcome Library, Creative Commons In 1848, the mineralogist, pioneer of photography, and amateur poet Robert Hunt published The Poetry of Science, a hugely ambitious work that aimed to offer a survey of scientific knowledge while also communicating the metaphysical, moral, and aesthetic aspects of science to the[…]
By Dr. Tracy Sharpley-Whiting Gertrude Conaway Distinguished Vanderbilt Professor of Humanities (AADS and French) Vanderbilt University In his exquisitely written biography of Langston Hughes, Arnold Rampersad details the poet’s wanderlust, from his travels with his father to Mexico to his hopscotching across the globe on the S. S. Malone and McKeesport freighters, visiting African and European port cities in[…]
Georg Trakl in 1910 – Wikimedia Commons To mark the 100th anniversary of the death by cocaine overdose of Austrian lyric poet Georg Trakl, Richard Millington explores the role the drug played in Trakl’s life and works. By Dr. Richard Millington Senior Lecturer in German Victoria University of Wellington This article, Wild Heart Turning White: Austrian[…]
The painting depicts the end of the 1381 peasant’s revolt, mentioned in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The image shows London’s mayor, Walworth, killing Wat Tyler. There are two images of Richard II. One looks on the killing while the other is talking to the peasants. / Library Royal via Wikimedia Commons By Dr. Theodore L. Steinberg Distinguished Teaching[…]
Alexander the Great Confronts Darius III at the Battle of Issos (or possibly Battle of Gaugamela), floor mosaic, House of the Faun at Pompeii, Italy. 1st century CE Roman copy of a Greek wall painting of c. 310 BCE, perhaps by Philoxenos or Eretria or Helen of Egypt. Entire panel 8’10” x 17′ (2.7 x[…]
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Romantic poet and co-author of ‘Lyrical Ballads’. Image credit: National Portrait Gallery Much of the poetry in the Wellcome Library is anonymous – in many cases, it is amateur material bad enough for the author to be grateful for a cloak of anonymity – but our archives do also contain material by ‘proper’ poets[…]
Achilles sacrificing to Zeus for Patroclus’ safe return, from the Ambrosian Iliad, a 5th-century illuminated manuscript. / Wikimedia Commons By Dr. Gregory Nagy Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature Professor of Comparative Literature Director, Center for Hellenic Studies Harvard University The meaning of aphthito- The key word here is aphthito- in the sense of ‘imperishable’. And, by the time we reach the end,[…]
Dying Achilles (Achilleas thniskon) in the gardens of the Achilleion / Photo by Dr.K., Wikimedia Commons By Dr. Gregory Nagy Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature Professor of Comparative Literature Director, Center for Hellenic Studies Harvard University The meaning of akhos and penthos There are two key words for this hour, akhos and penthos, and the meaning of both words is ‘grief, sorrow; public[…]
“I’m a Dylan professor and a Dylan fan,” says Harvard Professor Richard Thomas, who teaches a popular freshman seminar on the singer-songwriter and recently published “Why Dylan Matters.” / Stephanie Mitchell, Harvard Staff Photographer New book examines the influence of the classics on the Nobelist’s music. By Jill Radsken / 12.13.2017 Richard Thomas may be the[…]
Portrait of Robert Bridges, taken sometime between 1910 and 1915 / Library of Congress, Public Domain In 1911 the soon-to-be poet laureate Robert Bridges published the poems of Digby Mackworth Dolben, a school friend who had drowned to death at the age of 19 almost half a century earlier. Carl Miller looks at Bridges’ lengthy[…]
Stefan Zweig / Creative Commons By Will Stone / 12.02.2013 Poet, Translator ‘Friendship stands highest on the forehead of humanity…’ Keats I While still at school, Stefan Zweig had tried his hand at translating a number of French and Belgian poets, Verlaine, Mallarmé and Baudelaire, but also another name almost unknown to us today, Emile[…]
By Dr. Gregory Nagy Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature Professor of Comparative Literature Director, Center for Hellenic Studies Harvard University Iliad, Book VIII, lines 245–53, Greek manuscript, late 5th, early 6th centuries AD / Public Domain Homeric poetry is a cover term for two epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey. The major part of this introduction will deal[…]
Robert Lowell, American Poet By Robin Lindley / 11.10.2017 I believe that mania and genius not uncommonly exist together, that suffering can be brought to some good, that the fast swither of mania can fire ambition, steel the nerve, and give high wind to imagination. If checked by discipline, and made flesh and blood by[…]
The Knight from the Ellesmere Manuscript of the Canterbury Tales By Dr. Eric Weiskott / 09.15.2017 Assistant Professor of English Boston College In the 13th century, English poetry changed dramatically. There were no battles, no pamphleteering, or Ezra Pound-style polemics, and no warring factions. Yet by the end of the century, a poetic revolution had[…]
Lecture by Dr. Belinda Jack at the Museum of London / 04.11.2017 Professor of Modern Languages Christ Church, University of Oxford We have been listening to a selection of piano music by George Gershwin whose creative period overlapped with Robert Frost’s, although Gershwin, unlike Frost, died young. Why have I chosen to speak about Frost[…]
Beba Coca Cola (Drink Coca Cola), 1957, Décio Pignatari. Screen print from Poesia concreta in Brasile (Milan: Archivio della Grazia di Nuova Scrittura, 1991). The Getty Research Institute, 45-13. Courtesy of the Estate of Décio Pignatari By Dr. Lauren Graber (left) and Dr. Henar Rivière (right) / 04.05.2017 Graber: Research Assistant Rivière: Curatorial Department[…]
“Rig in Great-grandfather’s Cottage”, by W. G. Collingwood, 1908 / Public Domain By Kimberly Lin / 03.21.2017 Historian Introduction Edda is a term used to describe two Icelandic manuscripts that were copied down and compiled in the 13th century CE. Together they are the main sources of Norse mythology and skaldic poetry that relate the[…]
Augusto de Campos’s Lygia Fingers, a poem from 1953 for his wife-to-be, Lygia Azeredo, highlights the international tendencies of concrete poetry; it appeared in a portfolio of concrete poems by European and Brazilian artists issued by the German printer and publisher Hansjörg Mayer in 1964. From 13 visuelle Texte (Stuttgart: Edition H. Mayer, 1964). The[…]
Sculptural Group of a Seated Poet (possibly Orpheus) with Two Sirens, 350–300 B.C., Greek, made in Tarentum, South Italy. Terracotta with traces of polychromy. Sirens: 55 1/8 in. high. The J. Paul Getty Museum, 76.AD.11. Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program Is the greatness of poetry behind us? Writer Gabriele Tinti shares[…]
Frosty temperatures at Vindolanda in winter 2014. / Photo by the Vindolanda Trust, Creative Commons By Dr. Peter Kruschwitz / 05.08.2014 From The Petrified Muse Professor of Classics Fellow of the Pontifical Academy for Latin (Pontificia Academia Latinitatis) University of Reading An inscription which has long fired my imagination is a fragmentary piece from Habitancum/Risingham[…]
BrightStar By Dr. Dorothy Jakobsh Professor of Religious Studies University of Waterloo, Canada What is today known as the Bhakti Movement had its genesis in the South of India in the 6th century CE. It is characterized by the writings of its poet-saints, many of whom were female, that extolled passionate devotional love for the[…]
By Oriah Mountain Dreamer / 10.30.2016 What do you ache for? An exquisite and potent poem about real life. It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you[…]
By Daniel Penny / 08.02.2016 Those who are truly contemporary, who truly belong to their time, are those who neither perfectly coincide with it nor adjust themselves to its demands. They are thus in this sense irrelevant. But precisely because of this condition, precisely through this disconnection and this anachronism, they are more capable than[…]
The elements of art, described entirely in verse—using real and mythological creatures By Porche’ Carter / 08.09.2016 My journey as a poet and haiku master began in grade school, in 7th grade to be exact. My English teacher, Ms. Knight, introduced me to a form of expression that I would continue to use in my[…]
The idea of a human’s life being divisible into distinct stages has been around for millennia, a recurring theme in the literature and art running through all historical periods and places. The early Greeks were particularly fond of the idea, the earliest reference being from lawmaker, and poet Solon (ca. 600 BC), who had ten[…]
Lesser Hippias / Plato By Dr. Michael Davis Professor of Philosophy Illinois Institute of Technology Cogent Arts & Humanities 3:1 (2016) Abstract How is it possible that we can be so deeply affected by poetry even when we are not altogether sure what it is about? By way of interpreting a Platonic dialog, “Lies Like[…]
Photo by Louis Cahill By Brian Jeganathan / 05.28.2016 In January last year, I visited Mullaitivu. Since it was after dusk, I decided to find lodging just for one night. During the day, I had the opportunity of listening to the horror stories of local Tamils who were caught in the final onslaught on Mullivaikkal[…]
Image courtesy Sri Lanka Brief Anonymous Poem I have learned humility, to respect my brother, to walk on the straight line when the man in blue requires compliance, but I am not drunk, and I am not free, yet tonight I will eat hoppers on national televsion, not in a private soiree, so the fisherman[…]
Image| Jerry Riley | http://www.jerryrileyphotography.com By Dr. Aaron Brady Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Texas Does “African poetry” exist? It’s the worst sort of question, because the answer is too easy to be interesting: Yes. There are poets who are African—lots of them—and when Africans make poetry, that poetry is “African poetry.” There are poets who[…]