Tag Archives: Virgil

Statius: “Achilleid”

Posted on October 23, 2014 by Houyhnhnm

This 1st-century AD Latin poet died after writing a book and a half of his epic on Achilles; intended no doubt to build on the success of his Thebaid, about the civil war between the sons of Oedipus Polynices and … Continue reading →

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“The Human Chain” by Seamus Heaney

Posted on May 5, 2014 by Houyhnhnm

This, Heaney’s final collection, shows the poet at his most self-effacing, almost writing himself out of history, restricting his subject matter and themes to the narrowest, becoming a palimpsest for older, greater, thoughts to travel via his poems.

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“The Aeneid” by Virgil

Posted on August 24, 2013 by Houyhnhnm

Strange to confess, but this is the first time I’ve read the entire poem cover to cover (in English, quickly – several decades ago I’d read it all in Latin over a number of weeks). It came out other than … Continue reading →

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“What is a Classic?” T.S. Eliot

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Houyhnhnm

Lecture to the Virgil Society in 1944, in its second year. Starts long-Eliotly, with lots of Latin-based words and the kind of categorising I always imagine is rife in the German philosophers I haven’t read, but when he gets on … Continue reading →

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“Latin forms of address from Plautus to Apuleius” by Eleanor Dickey

Posted on January 29, 2012 by Houyhnhnm

Beautifully written and produced – hardly a single typo throughout. Her introduction is a fascinating survey of forms of address across languages, and is particularly interesting on English. Although much of the detail is there more for scholarly completeness than … Continue reading →

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“Smiley’s People” by John le Carré

Posted on December 29, 2011 by Houyhnhnm

Developing to some kind of resolution the story of Smiley and Karla, subtly making clearer the binary connections between them. P450 tries to make this explicit: Karla’s being brought down by Smiley’s defining compassion; Smiley’s being somehow damaged by his … Continue reading →

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