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Friday, 29 May 2015
Book Review: Yellow Street by Veza Canetti
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Monday, 25 May 2015
Poetry Revisited: Whitsuntide by Juliana Horatia Ewing
Whitsuntide
(1864)(church hymn first published in Horatia Katharine Frances Gatty,
Juliana Horatia Ewing and Her Books [1885] page 17)
Come down! come down! O Holy Ghost!
As once of old Thou didst come down
In fiery tongues at Pentecost,
The Apostolic heads to crown.
Come down! though now no flame divine,
Nor heaven-sent Dove, our sight amaze;
Our Church still shows the outward sign,
Thou truly givest inward grace.
Come down! come down! on infancy,
The babes whom Jesus deign'd to love;
God give us grace by faith to see,
Above the Font, the mystic Dove.
Come down! come down! on kneeling bands
Of those who fain would strength receive;
And in the laying on of hands
Bless us beyond what we believe.
Come down! not only on the saint,
Oh! struggle with the hard of heart,
With wilful sin and inborn taint,
Till lust, and wrath, and pride depart.
Come down! come down! sweet Comforter!
It was the promise of the Lord.
Come down! although we grieve Thee sore,
Not for our merits--but His Word.
Come down! come down! not what we would,
But what we need, O bring with Thee.
Turn life's sore riddle to our good;
A little while and we shall see. Amen.
Juliana Horatia Ewing
(1841-1885)
Labels:
Poetry Revisited
Friday, 22 May 2015
Book Review: Penguin Island by Anatole France
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Monday, 18 May 2015
Friday, 15 May 2015
Book Review: Heart of Tango by Elia Barceló
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Labels:
2000s,
book reviews,
fiction,
magical,
novels,
Spanish literature
Wednesday, 13 May 2015
Author's Portrait: Laure Conan
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Laure Conan, ca. 1870 |
In a time when writing was still widely considered a male profession, the courage and stamina of women who despite all obstacles and polemics aspired to become authors can only be called admirable. What made them go public with their stories, essays etc. wasn’t always the strong yearning to share them with less biased readers than family and friends, nor the overpowering desire to show to the world that they were just as able writers as their male contemporaries, but in many cases necessity and desperation drove them to try a literary way out of misery. One of these women was the French-Canadian novelist, biographer and journalist Laure Conan who was the first in her country who actually managed to live from the pen.
Monday, 11 May 2015
Poetry Revisited: The Unseen Miracle by Theodosia Garrison
The Unseen Miracle
(from The Dreamers and Other Poems: 1917)The Angel of the night when night was gone
High upon Heaven's ramparts, cried, "The Dawn!"
And wheeling worlds grew radiant with the one
And undiminished glory of the sun.
And Angel, Seraph, Saint and Cherubim
Raised to the morning their exultant hymn.
All Heaven thrilled anew to look upon
The great recurring miracle of dawn.
And in the little worlds beneath them--men
Rose, yawned and ate and turned to toil again.
Theodosia Garrison
(1874-1944)
Labels:
Poetry Revisited
Friday, 8 May 2015
Book Review: Pereira Maintains by Antonio Tabucchi
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Labels:
1990s,
book reviews,
fiction,
historical setting,
Italian literature,
Lisbon,
novels
Monday, 4 May 2015
Poetry Revisited: The Surprise by William Barnes
The Surprise
(from Poems of Rural Life in Common English: 1868)As there I left the road in May,
And took my way along a ground,
I found a glade with girls at play,
By leafy boughs close-hemmed around,
And there, with stores of harmless joys,
They plied their tongues, in merry noise:
Though little did they seem to fear
So queer a stranger might be near;
Teeh-hee! Look here! Hah! ha! Look there!
And oh! so playsome, oh! so fair.
And one would dance as one would spring,
Or bob or bow with leering smiles,
And one would swing, or sit and sing,
Or sew a stitch or two at whiles,
And one skipped on with downcast face,
All heedless, to my very place,
And there, in fright, with one foot out,
Made one dead step and turned about.
Heeh, hee, oh! oh! ooh! oo! Look there!
And oh! so playsome, oh! so fair.
Away they scampered all, full speed,
By boughs that swung along their track,
As rabbits out of wood at feed,
At sight of men all scamper back.
And one pulled on behind her heel,
A thread of cotton, off her reel,
And oh! to follow that white clue,
I felt I fain could scamper too.
Teeh, hee, run here. Eeh! ee! Look there!
And oh! so playsome, oh! so fair.
William Barnes
(1801-1886)
Labels:
Poetry Revisited
Friday, 1 May 2015
Book Review: Lyric Novella by Annemarie Schwarzenbach
Thinking of Switzerland literature certainly isn’t the first thing that comes to mind because in this context language is more important than nationality and therefore the country’s bigger neighbours France, Italy… and Germany reap many of the laurels. Nonetheless there is a thriving community of German-language writers in Switzerland and probably there always was although among Swiss authors published before 1939 I could name only four until recently: Johanna Spyri, C. F. Meyer, Carl Spitteler, and Hermann Hesse. With today’s review I’m putting the spotlight on the work of a fifth, of a woman writer. Lyric Novella by Annemarie Schwarzenbach is the sentimental story of a nameless narrator’s obsession for the cabaret singer Sibylle set in the thriving theatre scene of 1930s Berlin as it is known from the musical Cabaret.
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