Here in these poems from the naïve and yet wisdom reply of a little girl to poems about nature or nature poems we see what William Wordsworth does so well: Mixing passion with poetic excellence, displaying poetic mastery in simple diction to give the profound and remarkable through verses that show beauty and mean something and provoke thought and entertain at the same time.
Category: Classic Literature Reviews
A Review of The Odyssey translated by Michael Solot
As soon as I started reading Michael Solot’s translation of The Odyssey, I felt instantly connected to the text. It felt so alive, so “modern,” so contemporary, so immediate. It was like reading Homer composed in my native English. Solot uses a conversational register yet it is replete with both elevated and ordinary language with a wide, dynamic range. The story was not only clearly understandable, it was compelling, urging me onward to read to the next chapter. I have never read 400 pages so quickly!
A review of Count Luna by Alexander Lernet-Holenia
The influence of Dracula on both popular and literary culture goes on and on. That there are tons of awful movies out there, and many novels not worth mentioning, goes without saying. Yet every so often, a book comes along that is a true wonder. It glimmers with a unique identity while leaving little doubt as to its thematic pedigree. One such work is the Austrian poet Alexander Lernet-Holenia’s 1955 short novel Count Luna, which New Directions has released in a fine translation by Jane B. Greene.
Dark Continents: Sima Godfrey’s The Crimean War and Cultural Memory and Raymond Roussel’s Impressions d’Afrique
The Crimean War and Cultural Memory is more than a window on cultural disapprobation, from a particular era. It is a sensitive, scholarly (with great photographs and illustrations) exercise in resurrecting obscure, ‘forgotten’ history. How history gets to forgotten is the main issue here.
A review of Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth
As a protagonist, Lily is not easy to love. She isn’t down to earth and feisty like a Jane Austen heroine or destitute and virtuous like one of Thomas Hardy’s. She is vain, materialistic, and small-minded. She obsesses over clothes, incomes, and table settings, and is cruel to the friends whose modest means render them socially useless to her.
A review of The Iliad translated by Emily Wilson
In summary, Emily Wilson’s translation of The Iliad is a tour de force that navigates the fine line between faithfulness to the original and contemporary relevance. While some critics accuse her of excessive modernization, these criticisms often overlook her intent: to make this epic tale accessible to a broader audience without sacrificing its original integrity.
A review of Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Anna Karenina is a novel that beguiles and intrigues. The world it depicts and dissects remains fascinating in itself. Its characters are among the most memorable ever created. And the targets and outward forms of social disapproval may be different now to what they were then, but they nevertheless exist. The world is still an awfully harsh place to those who step out of line or who cannot enter into prescribed ways of thinking and feeling.
A review of The World of Yesterday by Stefan Zweig
A review of The Kiss and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov
These classic stories have been cast in wonderfully fresh translations by Hugh Aplin. To start with, let me say that it is an attractive package overall: seven stories, an account of Chekhov’s life and his works (the plays as well as the books), a fair few photographs of Chekhov and family, and a select secondary bibliography (to which should be added Rosamund Bartlett’s outstanding biographical work Chekhov: Scenes from a Life).
Another Dodge in a System of Dodges: Evasion of Responsibility in What Maisie Knew, Book and Film
Henry James created characters able to embody his concern for elegance, intelligence, morality, and social ritual; and his work attains intellectual and spiritual dimension of a high degree—and his style, thoughtful, textured, teasing, can be complex to the point of profound obscurity, requiring attention, consideration, and deep understanding. The drama is increased for all that.