Mega biblion, mega kakon (Big book, big evil)
CallimachusTags: poetry criticism classics greek
Classics aren't books that are read for pleasure. Classics are books that are imposed on unwilling students, books that are subjected to analyses of "levels of significance" and other blatt, books that are dead.
Alexei PanshinTags: classics classic-literature classics-curriculum classic-fiction
Unasked, Unsought, Love gives itself but is not bought
Henry Wadsworth LongfellowUpon the publication of Goethe’s epic drama, the Faustian legend had reached an almost unapproachable zenith. Although many failed to appreciate, or indeed, to understand this magnum opus in its entirety, from this point onward his drama was the rule by which all other Faust adaptations were measured. Goethe had eclipsed the earlier legends and became the undisputed authority on the subject of Faust in the eyes of the new Romantic generation. To deviate from his path would be nothing short of blasphemy.
E.A. BucchianeriTags: classics drama faust goethe romanticism classic-literature romantics faustus faust-legend faustian
¿Os dais cuenta cabal de la cadena de crímenes tramados por la nena? Crimen número uno: la acusada comete allanamiento de morada. Crimen número dos: el personaje se queda con tres platos de potaje. Crimen número tres: la muy cochina destroza una sillita isabelina. Crimen número cuatro: va la dama y se limpia los zapatos en la cama... Un juez no dudaría ni un instante: «¡Diez años de presidio a esa tunante!». Pero en la historia, tal como se cuenta, la miserable escapa tan contenta mientras los niños gritan, encantados: «¡Qué bien; Ricitos de oro se ha salvado!».
Roald DahlTags: poetry classics children-s-literature spanish golden
I am not what I am..
William ShakespeareTags: classics
What are the dead, anyway, but waves and energy? Light shining from a dead star?
That, by the way, is a phrase of Julian's. I remember it from a lecture of his on the Iliad, when Patroklos appears to Achilles in a dream. There is a very moving passage where Achilles overjoyed at the sight of the apparition – tries to throw his arms around the ghost of his old friend, and it vanishes. The dead appear to us in dreams, said Julian, because that's the only way they can make us see them; what we see is only a projection, beamed from a great distance, light shining at us from a dead star…
Which reminds me, by the way, of a dream I had a couple of weeks ago.
I found myself in a strange deserted city – an old city, like London – underpopulated by war or disease. It was night; the streets were dark, bombed-out, abandoned. For a long time, I wandered aimlessly – past ruined parks, blasted statuary, vacant lots overgrown with weeds and collapsed apartment houses with rusted girders poking out of their sides like ribs. But here and there, interspersed among the desolate shells of the heavy old public buildings, I began to see new buildings, too, which were connected by futuristic walkways lit from beneath. Long, cool perspectives of modern architecture, rising phosphorescent and eerie from the rubble.
I went inside one of these new buildings. It was like a laboratory, maybe, or a museum. My footsteps echoed on the tile floors.There was a cluster of men, all smoking pipes, gathered around an exhibit in a glass case that gleamed in the dim light and lit their faces ghoulishly from below.
I drew nearer. In the case was a machine revolving slowly on a turntable, a machine with metal parts that slid in and out and collapsed in upon themselves to form new images. An Inca temple… click click click… the Pyramids… the Parthenon.
History passing beneath my very eyes, changing every moment.
'I thought I'd find you here,' said a voice at my elbow.
It was Henry. His gaze was steady and impassive in the dim light. Above his ear, beneath the wire stem of his spectacles, I could just make out the powder burn and the dark hole in his right temple.
I was glad to see him, though not exactly surprised. 'You know,' I said to him, 'everybody is saying that you're dead.'
He stared down at the machine. The Colosseum… click click click… the Pantheon. 'I'm not dead,' he said. 'I'm only having a bit of trouble with my passport.'
'What?'
He cleared his throat. 'My movements are restricted,' he said.
'I no longer have the ability to travel as freely as I would like.'
Hagia Sophia. St. Mark's, in Venice. 'What is this place?' I asked him.
'That information is classified, I'm afraid.'
1 looked around curiously. It seemed that I was the only visitor.
'Is it open to the public?' I said.
'Not generally, no.'
I looked at him. There was so much I wanted to ask him, so much I wanted to say; but somehow I knew there wasn't time and even if there was, that it was all, somehow, beside the point.
'Are you happy here?' I said at last.
He considered this for a moment. 'Not particularly,' he said.
'But you're not very happy where you are, either.'
St. Basil's, in Moscow. Chartres. Salisbury and Amiens. He glanced at his watch.
'I hope you'll excuse me,' he said, 'but I'm late for an appointment.'
He turned from me and walked away. I watched his back receding down the long, gleaming hall.
Tags: death dreams classics architecture unhappiness museum
Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things can not be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
Mark TwainTags: classics europe voyage traveling
While art thrives on the blazing colours of scandal, literature blossoms on the dark soil of tragedy.
E.A. BucchianeriTags: art books writers literature creativity tragedy artists classics novels dark-humor arts-and-humanities sad-but-true scandal
Every young lady may feel for my heroine in this critical moment, for every young lady has at some time or other known the same agitation. All have been, or at least all have believed themselves to be, in danger from the pursuit of some one they wished to avoid; and all have been anxious for the attentions of someone they wished to please.
Jane AustenTags: love classics austen page-50 young-ladies suitors
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