Category: Classics

WWCD: What Would Cicero Do?

Canadian Politics / Classics / Politics / Rightwing claptrap / US PoliticsOne Comment

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Throughout his career, Marcus Tullius Cicero fought tyranny, stood up to dictators and bullies, defended the Republic, and paid for his principled stand with his life. He put himself in harm’s way frequently by openly challenging and even suing the elites, the rich, and the powerful who were controlling — or trying to control — Rome and its empire for their own personal benefit and enrichment. I wonder what he would do if he were alive today, facing the same threats to our government and … click below for more ↓

Reading the Iliad

Books & Reviews / Classics / Translations & translating / What I'm Reading Now4 Comments

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There was a moment when I was reading The Iliad that I thought to myself, “This is it. This is what the epic is really all about.” Somehow it all seemed to come down to one particular scene and all the rest was just leading up to it. Why I had that epiphany, I’ll explain in due course. But what struck me is that the real message of this epic poem was almost hidden by all the thousands of lines that came before it. I … click below for more ↓

Homer’s Odyssey Revisited

Classics / Poetry / Translations & translating2 Comments

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Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Thus begins the 1897 translation by Samuel Butler of Homer’s Odyssey. It’s just one of more than 60 translations of the book into English since the first in 1615, including one by T.E. Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia) in 1932. Odysseus — Ulysses in the Latin form — mythical king of Ithaca, is a complex protagonist; sometimes hero, sometimes villain, sometimes noble, other … click below for more ↓

Seven Faces of Marcus Aurelius

Books & Reviews / Classics / Musings / Philosophy / Stoicism & classical philosophy / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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I am going to assume that you, dear reader, already know who Marcus Aurelius Antonius was. I have respect for both the intelligence and education of my readers, enough to feel I can avoid making pedantic explanations and reiterating his biography that is more fluently available on dozens or hundreds of better, more encyclopedic websites. No, this is not a treatise on him, or even on his Stoic philosophy. It’s a look at how six different translators rendered some parts of his book, Meditations. But … click below for more ↓

Not the Chaucer You’re Looking For

Books & Reviews / Chaucer / Classics / Musings / Poetry3 Comments

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I received a couple of new Chaucer books recently and, despite my love of reading Chaucer, frankly, I was disappointed by both. My expectations for both greatly exceeded what little joy I received from them. I was deeply disappointed by both. And I’m here to tell you why. Let me back up a bit, before I get into my reviews. I have a couple of dozen books by or about Chaucer and his language on my bookshelves, which suggests he is a serious interest to … click below for more ↓

A Brief Review of Two ERB Books

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I am deeply disappointed in the quality of these two ERB books received from Amazon yesterday in my efforts to complete my collection of Burroughs’ novels. Both are noted as “Manufactured by Amazon.ca” in Bolton, ON. Production quality is poor, particularly in the designs and layout: they are more like amateur efforts than professional publications. The Jungle Adventures book from “Premium Classics Books” (no address is indicated anywhere) is not only too big for comfortable reading (8.5 x 11″), the lines of type inside are … click below for more ↓

Back to Horace No. 2

Books & Reviews / Classics / Poetry2 Comments

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I was browsing online recently because I wanted to order another book of Horace’s Odes or maybe his Epistles in my efforts to understand and appreciate the poet more fully. I was scrolling through the always-poorly organized list of items on Amazon’s search page results (selected, it seems, mostly to promote a wide range of unrelated rubbish they want to offload…). Some titles caught my eye (wanting more books is a longtime obsession… and owning many translations of the same work is commonplace with me) … click below for more ↓

How to Win an Election

Books & Reviews / Classics / Election 2022 / Municipal Politics / PoliticsLeave a comment

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Anyone running for office should consider reading How to Win an Election, by Quintus Tullius Cicero, translated by Philip Freeman. It’s a short, small book subtitled An Ancient Guide for Modern Politicians (Princeton University Press, 2012). It contains both the Latin and the English translation of Quintus’ letter to his more famous brother, the orator Marcus Cicero. Quintus penned it in 64 BCE when Marcus decided to run for the position of Consul, the highest office in the Roman Republic. No, it won’t give you … click below for more ↓

Ancient Election Wisdom

Classics / Election campaigns / Political philosophy / Politics / Stoicism & classical philosophy2 Comments

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I recently came across this piece by Marcus Tullius Cicero (one of my favourite classical authors) on the Sententiae Antiquae website (a good source of classical Latin and Greek translations), taken from Cicero’s oration Pro Murena (35-36). Lucius Licinius Murena was elected as his election as consul in 62 BCE but was subsequently accused of bribery. He was defended by  Cicero, who recorded his speech for posterity. Here’s what Cicero said about elections in general: What strait or what channel do you imagine has as … click below for more ↓

Ars Poetica

Books & Reviews / Classics / Culture / Literature / Poetry / Poetry & Lyrics / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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Horace’s Ars Poetica, or the Art of Poetry, was written as a 476-line poem in a letter to his friend, the Roman senator  Lucius Calpurnius Piso (Lucius) and his two sons, around 19 BCE. It was known for a time as the “Epistle to the Pisos” until 95CE when the critic  Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (Quintilian) called it the Ars Poetica in his a twelve-volume textbook on rhetoric, the Institutio Oratoria. The name stuck. Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) was popular during the Renaissance when Latin was … click below for more ↓

Socrates and Saunderson

Classics / Collingwood / Council / Disrespect and bad behaviour / Entitlement / Ethics and behaviour / Philosophy / Saunderson's MPP campaignOne Comment

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In Plato’s dialogue Gorgias, Socrates debates with three sophists — Gorgias the rhetorician and his pupils Polus, and Callicles — about justice, power, morality, and virtue. Socrates also questions the value of oratory and rhetoric — the crafts of the sophists — in contemporary politics and whether they do good for the people. Spoiler alert: he’s not convinced they are for the good. You can read the somewhat stuffy Benjamin Jowett translation here and here, or read David Horan’s more modern translation here. I realize … click below for more ↓

Musings on the First Tercet of Dante’s Inferno

Books & Reviews / Books about books / Classics / Poetry / Translations & translating / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

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Back in December, before Godaddy broke my blog through technical incompetence, I had written a piece about the first stanza in Inferno, the first book of Dante’s trilogy, The Divine Comedy. Since that post seems irretrievably lost, I decided to write another in the same vein. So please bear with me if this seems redundant. It all began innocently enough on Tuesday late last year when I was searching through my bookshelves in search of something I can no longer recall, and instead of what … click below for more ↓

Why Master Sun Matters Today

Books & Reviews / Classics / Culture / Philosophy / Politics / Quotes & Mis-quotes / Translations & translatingOne Comment

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Master Sun was a wise man. So wise that his famous treatise, The Art of War (aka The Art of Warfare), has been read, written about, critiqued, and discussed for roughly 2,400 years. It has been used as a model of strategy and leadership for the military, for business, romance, sports, and for politics. And, like Machiavelli’s The Prince, it has often been misused, misunderstood, and misinterpreted for those purposes.* It’s a short book: a mere 13 chapters written in generally brief aphorisms. And, very … click below for more ↓

On growing old

Books & Reviews / Classical period / Classics / Critical Thinking / Musings / Philosophy / Stoicism & classical philosophy / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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“We truly can’t praise the love and pursuit of wisdom enough,” wrote Marcus Tullius Cicero in one of his last works, How to Grow Old (De Senectute; aka On Aging or On Old Age), “since it allows a person to enjoy every stage of life free from worry.” “Ancient wisdom for the second half of life,” is how Philip Freeman subtitles his translation of Cicero’s little book in his 2016 Princeton University edition. Cicero wrote his essay (not really a book as we think of … click below for more ↓

I Struggle With Milton

Books & Reviews / Classics / Poetry / What I'm Reading NowOne Comment

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Confession time: I find a lot of epic or narrative poetry a slog. Milton, Homer, Dante… I have read my way into them all, but unlike my other books, I never get very far in any of them at each reading, although I make the effort and do so often. I don’t even enjoy reading Shakespeare’s two long poems, Venus and Adonis, and The Rape of Lucrece, and I read everything else by the bard with great relish.  It’s odd because I love reading Chaucer’s … click below for more ↓

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