How can anyone pick just one Millay sonnet? By a process of jabbing my finger randomly at a list I present:

Admetus, From My Marrow's Core
Edna St Vincent MillayAdmetus, from my marrow's core I do ( Read more... )

I really should stop reading the comments on online news articles before I lose all faith in humanity. Tearing up your organ donor cards in protest? WTF? Thinking that in an exceptional case organs should have gone preferentially to a relative is one thing. Saying the fact they didn't is an appalling moral outrage is fine too, if you must. What I ( Read more... )

Herewith two of Du Bellay's poems on Rome, one translated by Ezra Pound, the other by Yvor Winters. Also to be found below the cut are the same two poems translated by Spenser and, rather more recently (2002), Norman Shapiro. I admit that this is a little unfair to Shapiro, but then if you translate things you are pretty much bound to have your ( Read more... )

Rudel to the Lady of Tripoli
Robert Browning

I know a Mount, the gracious Sun perceives
First when he visits, last, too, when he leaves
The world; and, vainly favoured, it repays
The day-long glory of his steadfast gaze
By no change of its large calm front of snow.
( And underneath the Mount, a Flower I know, )

Gretel In Darkness
Louise GluckThis is the world we wanted ( Read more... )

Before launching our regular and meme-free schedule of things that hopefully aren't about me at all, an introductory set of things that are ( Read more... )

My Lute, Awake!
Sir Thomas Wyatt

My lute, awake! Perform the last
Labour that thou and I shall waste,
And end that I have now begun;
For when this song is sung and past,
My lute, be still for I have done.

( As to be heard where ear is none, )

My mail has finally, finally arrived - quite an embarrassing quantity in fact. The 'customers who bought this also bought' feature on Amazon is a dangerous thing. Somehow I progressed from early Japanese folk tales to Ottoman lyric poetry to homosexuality in Renaissance Florence and it was only when I reached Hittite mythology I remembered that I ( Read more... )

Herewith are three sets of recs. The first are stories that can stand entirely on their own, no canon knowledge required. The second set can probably stand on their own, but might be better if you have at least some vague and passing acquaintance with canon. The third is just a few light-hearted pieces, for any of which you can figure out as much ( Read more... )

The other day I was reading quite a passionate argument about the portrayal of house elves in Harry Potter; why, I am not sure, since I bailed on the series some books back. It put me in mind, however, of several other discussions I've seen recently where writers have talked about what they are trying to achieve in terms of addressing this social ( Read more... )