by beatriceotto | Sep 14, 2018 | poetry mojo, writing & writers
Keats was a bold player, keeping his eye determinedly focussed on achieving enduring greatness, not on the fads and fashions of the critical present. His letters reveal his willingness to fly in the face of, and transcend, the vagaries of reviewers. Here he uses a...
by beatriceotto | Sep 14, 2018 | poetry mojo
The durability of things and of cultures intrigues me; and particularly when those artefacts are themselves physically fragile or insubstantial. Here, Adam Nicolson demonstrates that durability need not be carved in stone; in many cases it is simply continuing...
by beatriceotto | Sep 7, 2018 | poetry mojo
Patrick Leigh Fermor wore his vast learning lightly, as real scholars often do. Here he more than meets his match – and sees through his own presumption – when an old man instantly discerns the metre of a local dirge. Long live lay learning! ‘A...
by beatriceotto | Aug 31, 2018 | poetry mojo, writing & writers
My earliest impressions of Keats were as a languishing poetic type, not a man of action. Now, after getting to know him through his letters (among the best I have read), he comes across as a vital, life-loving and out-stepping person, even though destroyed by illness...
by beatriceotto | Aug 3, 2018 | poetry mojo, writing & writers
This is one of the longest and most entertaining chapters in Machado de Assis’ novel Don Casmurro, a fictional memoir of the eponymous narrator. Many of the other chapters are shorter than a sonnet, but I liked this one, describing the sonnet he almost wrote,...
by beatriceotto | Jul 27, 2018 | poetry mojo, writing & writers
This made me laugh, Keats’ pithy analysis of the source of English literary brilliance. There are several references in his letters to his belief that he will be recognised as one of the great poets of his country, already star-studded with great poets, but not...
by beatriceotto | Jul 13, 2018 | poetry mojo, writing & writers, you got mail
Here are Keats’ own aspirations for his letter-writing. Whether he found interesting matter or just made matter interesting, his letters reveal a brilliantly alert, alive, playful, lovable human being. Andrew Motion’s splendid biography also comments on...
by beatriceotto | Jun 8, 2018 | poetry mojo, readers & reading
Here Christopher Logue highlights the sheer vital durability of Homer and the magnitude of such sustainability, kept alive through a hard core of ‘Unprofessional Ancient Greek Readers’. I don’t know if I qualify, since the UAGR could refer only to...
by beatriceotto | Mar 12, 2018 | language & translation, metaphors, poetry mojo
A fine and subtle way to depict a look which appears to express more than the person looking is capable of feeling. And I’ve always been struck when I come across commonplace proverbs and phrases in their original setting, and see how readily they are used by...
