Category: Literature

Boccaccio’s Decameron

Books & Reviews / Literature / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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I never read The Decameron in any original, or complete translation. I have a bowdlerized edition I read in part some time ago, perhaps the 1970s. I recall seeing an art film based on the book, in the 1970s (directed Pier Pasolini). But I can’t recall it in any detail, except that it was subtitled. I have an old Penguin edition upstairs, its pages yellowing, mostly unread, but saved for that time in my life I felt able to tackle it. Seems that time has come. This week I found a copy of a recent translation of the Decameron at ……… click below for more ↓

Anthony and Cleopatra

Arts / Books & Reviews / Culture / Literature / Personal Reminiscences / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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While Julius Caesar is my favourite of all Shakespeare’s plays, I think Anthony and Cleopatra is my second favourite. I know it’s hard to choose any favourites from his plays, they’re all so good, but this one seems to resonate with me more than most others, enough to encourage me to reread it this week. Perhaps it’s because both lead characters are past their prime (as I am), but – like all of us who have put a few years behind us – reluctant to acknowledge it and still see themselves as their younger selves. In that, Cleopatra shines, while Anthony ……… click below for more ↓

Prenzie Scamels

Culture / Language & Grammar / Literature / What I'm Reading Now / Words & etymology2 Comments

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Four hundred years after he wrote them, we still use in everyday speech the many words and phrases Shakespeare coined. He gave us so many, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to list them all here. But two words he wrote have stopped us dead: prenzie and scamels. What do they mean? Were they more of his 1,700-plus famous neologisms like accommodation, castigate, frugal, inauspicious, premeditated and sanctimonious?* If so, no one today knows for sure what prenzie and scamels refer to. Or were they transcription errors? The typesetter or copyist reading from a crabbed, handwritten manuscript and spelling out for ……… click below for more ↓

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