"Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea."
Dylan Thomas was a difficult person. But ‘Fern Hill’ is a perfect poem.
by Jayme Stayer
literature
English playwright, poet, and actor William Shakespeare was born (baptized in 26 April) #OTD in 1564 and died #OTD in 1616.
Some of his most famous tragedies include "Hamlet," "Othello," "King Lear," and "Macbeth". His most known comedies, such as "A Midsummer Night’s Dream," "As You Like It," and "Twelfth Night." Shakespeare's histories—such as "Richard III," "Henry V," and "Julius Caesar"—dive into the lives of historical figures and the political machinations of his time.
French novelist, poet, short story writer, and literary critic Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly died #OTD in 1889.
His work depicts the ravages of passion, whether carnal (Une vieille maîtresse, 1851), filial (Un prêtre marié, 1865), political (Le Chevalier des Touches, 1864) or mystical (L'Ensorcelée, 1855). In particular, Les Diaboliques in which the unusual and the transgressive plunge the reader into an ambiguous universe, earned the author accusations of immoralism.
Edited 2y ago
Take Four Books: William Boyd
Available on BBC Sounds. William Boyd speaks to Take Four Books about his new spy novel, The Predicament, & together with presenter James Crawford & crime writer Louise Welsh they explore its connections to three other literary works.
@bookstodon
Edited 346d ago
Winter winds are biting,
Etching the woods in shadows.
The paw prints of hunting dogs
Are black stars in the snow…
—Sheena Blackhall, “A Brueghel Winter”
🖼️ Pieter Bruegel the Elder, “Hunters in the Snow”, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/a-brueghel-winter/
#Scottish #literature #poem #poetry #art #painting #Bruegel #PieterBruegelTheElder
On BBC Sounds: Jackie Kay talks to John Wilson about her childhood in Glasgow as the mixed-race, adopted daughter of a loving couple.
Jackie first introduction to performance & theatre were the parties her parents hosted to raise money for the Communist Party.
Growing up in Glasgow in the 60s & 70s, Jackie had very few Black role models & took inspiration from the works of Audre Lorde & Angela Davis.
English poet Rupert Brooke died #OTD in 1915.
He is known for his idealistic war sonnets written during the First World War, especially "The Soldier". Rupert Brooke’s promising literary career was cut short when he died in April 1915 from sepsis resulting from an infected mosquito bite while he was part of the British Mediterranean Expeditionary Force.
Books by Rupert Brooke at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/148
I want answers, but there are only the wild geese
Calling, high in the almost-dark, bearing south,
And me, stopped short, clutching a bag of groceries
On the doorstep of my not-quite home…
—Susan Mansfield, “Bearing South”
from The Rooftop Busker: New Writing Scotland 33 (ASL, 2015)
Here, I got you one of those you like:
those bewildered late bloomers, tough and small
and sweeter than they’ve any right to be…
—Don Paterson, “A Winter Apple”
Published in THE ARCTIC (Faber, 2022)
"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."
Essays: First Series
American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson died #OTD in 1882. He led the Transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century, such as in "Nature". He is best known for his essays, which were initially delivered as lectures. "Self-Reliance" and "The American Scholar" are among his most influential.
Books by Ralph Waldo Emerson at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1071
Today's POTD ©️ me
MESSIAH
So Jesus
ministered to
the dregs of society.
In His name a religion
was raised.
Messiahs
have
been seen
and are awaited by
Christian Jewish and
Arab believers.
Millions
upon
millions of
them. Irony: The
Messiah will
go
unrecognized.
cuz
the Messiah
will be dirty, poor,
bedraggled, sometimes
even bloodied. That's
just
how it is,
ministering
at the edges to
dregs
Edited 350d ago
Austrian Philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was born #OTD in 1899.
In Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, he attempted to delineate the limits of language. The book is structured around a series of numbered propositions and sub-propositions, which build on each other to create a dense, almost mathematical argument. In Philosophical Investigations, he introduced the concept of how words take their meanings from their function in various forms of life and activities.
Edited 2y ago
“Les pensées et maximes sont un genre épuisé et un genre futile.”
Les contemporains
French critic and dramatist Jules Lemaître was born #OTD in 1853.
His literary studies were collected under the title of Les Contemporains (7 series, 1886–99), and his dramatic feuilletons as Impressions de Théàtre (10 series, 1888–98). Lemaître found Zola's naturalism to be excessively deterministic and pessimistic.
Books by Jules Lemaître at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/5505
American writer Willa Cather died #OTD in 1947.
Cather's first novel, Alexander's Bridge (1912), was a departure from her later work, but it was with her Prairie Trilogy — O Pioneers! (1913), The Song of the Lark (1915), and My Ántonia (1918) — that she established her reputation as a major American novelist. In 1923, she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for One of Ours, a novel set during World War I.
Books by Willa Cather at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/22
Faar’s Baabie Jeanie’s loon? The aal wife hersel
Stans treeshin hame the milkers at the ley park yett…
—“War: 1939–1945”, by Flora Garry (1900–2000) – born #OTD, 30 September
Published in FROM THE LINE: Scottish War Poetry 1914–1945
1/2
https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/from_the_line/
#Scottish #literature #20thcentury #poem #poetry #Scots #Scotslanguage #warpoetry #WW2
Scottish author R. M. Ballantyne was born #OTD in 1825.
He is best known for his adventure stories for young readers, his most famous work being The Coral Island (1858). This novel was particularly influential in the adventure genre and was a key predecessor to later classic adventure stories, including William Golding's Lord of the Flies. He also wrote The Young Fur Traders, The Dog Crusoe and His Master, The Lighthouse, The Lifeboat and Martin Rattler.
A bony horse with a bird on it droops its head.
With a cart of skulls like potatoes Death drives onward…
—Iain Crichton Smith, “Bruegel”
from DEER ON THE HIGH HILLS (Carcanet, 2021)
A poem for World Art Day
https://artsandculture.google.com/entity/pieter-bruegel-the-elder/m0h6nl?hl=en
#Scottish #literature #art #painting #visualart #poetry #poem #Bruegel #WorldArtDay
Today, 30 September, is International Translation Day – read THE BOTTLE IMP: Scottish literature & translation issue free online:
🇩🇪 SUNSET SONG in the GDR
🇮🇹 THE BLACK ARROW on Italian TV
🏆 Scotland’s Nobel-nominated Esperanto poet
🇫🇷 Franco-Scots poetry & postcolonialism
🏗️ Transcreating concrete poetry
https://www.thebottleimp.org.uk/2019/12/bad-harsk-speech-and-lewit-barbar-tung/
#Scottish #literature #InternationalTranslationDay #translation #SunsetSong #GDR #Italian #Esperanto #French #postcolonial #poetry #concretepoetry
“The use of Scots, apart from the relative ease of working up the right atmosphere, also helps (though dangerously) because of the verbal freedom it confers on a harassed translator”
—Edwin Morgan on translating Mayakovsky into Scots
1/3
https://asls.org.uk/publications/books/volumes/edwin-morgan-in-touch-with-language/
#Scottish #literature #poetry #translation #InternationalTranslationDay #Scots #Scotslanguage #Russian #EdwinMorgan #Mayakovsky
Brazilian writer José de Alencar was born #OTD in 1829.
He is considered to be one of the most famous and influential Brazilian Romantic novelists of the 19th century, and a major exponent of the literary tradition known as "Indianism". Some of his most celebrated works include: "O Guarani" (1857), "Iracema" (1865), "Senhora" (1875), "Ubirajara" (1874), "Til" (1871).
Books by José de Alencar at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/33653
Professor John Corbett discusses Edwin Morgan’s translation of Rostand’s CYRANO DE BERGERAC – from our 2021 Schools Conference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0lp5t85x2g
#Scottish #literature #theatre #drama #translation #InternationalTranslationDay #Cyrano
“Somehow hearing the play in Scots gave Anglophone audiences an insight into Tremblay that had hitherto eluded them”
—Mark Fisher on MICHEL TREMBLAY: PLAYS IN SCOTS – Scots translations of 8 plays by the Quebecois playwright
1/4
https://www.critical-stages.org/29/michel-tremblay-plays-in-scots-two-vols/
#Scottish #literature #Scots #Scotslanguage #drama #theatre #Quebec #Tremblay #translation #InternationalTranslationDay
My father passed with his penny letters
Through closes opening and shutting like legends
When barbarous with gulls
Hamnavoe’s morning broke…
—“Hamnavoe”, by George Mackay Brown (1921–1996) – born #OTD, 17 Oct
“I have never seen his poetry sufficiently praised.”
—Seamus Heaney
A 🎂 🧵
You can listen to George Mackay Brown read his poem “Hamnavoe” online via the Poetry Archive
1/7
Edited 328d ago
English essayist, poet, playwright Joseph Addison was born #OTD in 1672.
In 1711, he co-founded "The Spectator" with Steele. Unlike their earlier venture, "The Tatler," which Steele had begun in 1709, "The Spectator" was more focused and systematic. His plays, such as "Cato, a Tragedy" (1713), also left a mark on English literature, influencing figures such as Voltaire and George Washington.
Books by Joseph Addison at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/1024
See How Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ Inspired Centuries of Artists—From Caravaggio to René Magritte
A show at the Rijksmuseum brings together paintings, sculptures, film and other artworks that reinterpret the ancient Roman poet’s tales of transformation
by Christian Thorsberg
Metamorphoses at PG:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21765
![Metamorphoses (Italian). - Printed in Venice: for Zoane Rosso Vercellese at the request of the noble man Lucantonio Zonta of Florence, in the year 1487, on the 10th day of April. - 146 c.; [*]4, a-r⁸, s⁶; fol. - Typographical mark in the explicit.
A woodcut-illustrated opening page of a 15th-century printed book, framed by an ornate Renaissance border. The border features putti, birds, foliate scrollwork, vases, and grotesque masks arranged symmetrically on all four sides. A frieze of nude figures in a landscape runs along the bottom panel.
The central woodcut illustration depicts a bearded robed figure standing amid various animals — a lion, a rabbit, and a fox — in a landscape with a large rock or mountain, trees, and celestial bodies including a sun with a face and a crescent moon. Two winged birds fly above.
Below the woodcut, the text begins in Italian in two columns, with two decorative woodcut initial letters — a large ornamental I and a P — marking the start of paragraphs. The text opens with "Incomicia il primo libro methAmorphoseos de Ouidio in prosa vulgare traduto con le alegorie. Capitulo primo."
At the bottom centre is a circular library stamp.
Ovidius Naso, Publius - Available in the BEIC digital library and uploaded in partnership with BEIC Foundation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamorphoses#/media/File:Ovidius_Naso_-_Metamorphoses,_del_MCCCCLXXXXVII_Adi_X_del_mese_di_aprile_-_1583162_Carta_a1r.jpeg](/proxy/post_attachment/999069/4ef0d28a20.jpg "Metamorphoses (Italian). - Printed in Venice: for Zoane Rosso Vercellese at the request of the noble man Lucantonio Zonta of Florence, in the year 1487, on the 10th day of April. - 146 c.; [*]4, a-r⁸, s⁶; fol. - Typographical mark in the explicit.
A woodcut-illustrated opening page of a 15th-century printed book, framed by an ornate Renaissance border. The border features putti, birds, foliate scrollwork, vases, and grotesque masks arranged symmetrically on all four sides. A frieze of nude figures in a landscape runs along the bottom panel.
The central woodcut illustration depicts a bearded robed figure standing amid various animals — a lion, a rabbit, and a fox — in a landscape with a large rock or mountain, trees, and celestial bodies including a sun with a face and a crescent moon. Two winged birds fly above.
Below the woodcut, the text begins in Italian in two columns, with two decorative woodcut initial letters — a large ornamental I and a P — marking the start of paragraphs. The text opens with \"Incomicia il primo libro methAmorphoseos de Ouidio in prosa vulgare traduto con le alegorie. Capitulo primo.\"
At the bottom centre is a circular library stamp.
Ovidius Naso, Publius - Available in the BEIC digital library and uploaded in partnership with BEIC Foundation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamorphoses#/media/File:Ovidius_Naso_-_Metamorphoses,_del_MCCCCLXXXXVII_Adi_X_del_mese_di_aprile_-_1583162_Carta_a1r.jpeg")