Summary impatience
I liked this sharp injunction to Dante to hurry up and spit it out. You can imagine an impatient parent...
And this is anger
Dante's description of Anger is gloriously conveyed in Clive James' translation by the delicious echo of 'plots and plans' in...
Beware rash judgement
Dante is cautioned to beware those who pass speedy judgement - 'Anyone and his wife' who think in witnessing a...
As it sounded, so it looked
In the preface to his marvelous translation of Dante, Clive James mentions the poet's pithiness. I can't judge it in...
A poet’s prayer
In fact, a prayer for any writer. Having just read John Drury's marvelous appreciation of George Herbert's life and his...
The first golden age
Continuing his retelling of the myth of Creation, Ted Hughes reminds us of a first golden age...
The sin of fence-sitting
Clearly, sitting on the fence, hedging your bets, watching which way the wind blows, is a sin which leads to...
Hoovering up ideas
There's such a zest to this account of the Armenian approach to dealing with invaders: translate everything you can get...
The urge of bees
A charming way to convey the genesis of ideas or desires, likening them to the urge of bees to make...
The original fake news
'Fake news' is nothing but a new term for the age old curses of rumour or propaganda, so it's good...
Scum-skinned tide
Something alarmingly contemporary about this polluted surface in Dante's Inferno, especially when he discerns, through the miasma, dead souls fleeing.
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Frayed by sin
A surprising one, this, as sin is often presented, nowadays, as socially acceptable, even desirable 'vice' - something naughty-but-nice, essentially...
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