Though it’s still taught in classrooms and studied by scholars to this day, Virgil’s Aeneid is less popular among readers than Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Mark Robinson makes a case for the Roman epic in a vivid animated video featured in Open Culture. “The Aeneid is a foundational epic in the Western literary tradition because of Virgil’s undeniable poetic skill in adapting classical Greek forms into Latin, and because of its influence on hundreds of poets and writers for hundreds of years after. […] Maybe the poem has also ‘survived to ask questions about the nature of power and authority ever since’ it was first published, to instant acclaim, in 19 BC.”
The Animated ‘Aeneid’
The Art of the Sentence
“If the history of the American sentence were a John Ford movie, its second act would conclude with the young Ernest [Hemingway] walking into a saloon, finding an etiolated Henry James slumped at the bar in a haze of indecision, and shooting him dead.” Adam Haslett takes on Stanley Fish, Strunk & White, and the art of writing a sentence.
●
●
Down, Set, Read
Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck is the NFL’s unofficial librarian. According to his teammates, Luck is a voracious reader who regularly recommends books in the locker room. The genre is unimportant; Luck reads everything from books on concrete architecture to Love Life by Rob Lowe. Where is the Football Book Club when you need them?
●
●
Zombified
Recommended Reading: Michael Christie on Aleksandar Hemon’s The Making of Zombie Wars. You could also read Hemon’s Year in Reading entry.
●
●
Looking Over the Shoulders of Giants
Ever want to watch someone write a novel? Nows your chance. Sorta. Silvia Hartmann, UK author of thriller novels, is inviting readers to observe as she types up her next novel in a Google doc.
●
●
Democratized Words
Ever heard of the Collins Dictionary? It’s the open-source lexicographic collection which apparently accepted “thanx,” but likewise rejected “alleygation” and “mobydickulous.” Consider it the happy medium between The American Heritage and Urban dictionaries.
End of an Era
Fifteen years later, Salman Rushdie and John Le Carre have ended their feud.