The Rag and Bone Bookshop of the Heart – after William Butler Yeats’ ‘The Circus Animals’ Desertion’ and the poetry anthology – a gift from your mother – edited by James Hillman, Michael Meade and Robert Bly. On September 25th, 2017, back when I was still alive (albeit barely) and you were still a classicist […]
This is the fourth and final preparatory post before we embark on the project “Our Ancient Group Material” with the participants of the “Democratising Classics” panel over the next four weekly posts. In many ways, these four preliminary posts, taken together, mirror the four posts to come in that they use the structure of Group […]
Today in my class I, Tiresias: Ovid’s Mythical Women and Contemporary Feminist Art, we are reading books 5 and 6 of the Roman poet’s epic Metamorphoses. Midway through book 5, we encounter the song of the Muses (which includes, among others, the tale of Proserpina/Persephone’s abduction by Pluto/Hades) which is part of a contest with […]
In a letter to Atticus (Att. 4. 8. 2), Cicero expresses his delight at the installation of some new bookshelves in an oddly convoluted and high-flown fashion: postea uero, quam Tyrannio mihi libros disposuit, mens addita uidetur meis aedibus. qua quidem in re mirifica opera Dionysi et Menophili tui fuit. nihil uenustius quam illa tua […]