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Category: News
W.B. Yeats and the Nobel Prize
This week marks the centenary of W. B. Yeats being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature – the first Irishman to be granted that honour. Sally Minogue looks at Yeats’s achievement and suggests some of his poems to enjoy. W.B. Yeats was 58 when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature – a good… Read More
The Fall of the House of Usher
In the summer of 1960, American International Pictures released a little gothic number called The Fall of the House of Usher based on the strange and phantasmagoric short story of the same name by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine in 1839. AIP was a low-budget, independent outfit that banged out cheap… Read More
Man-Size in Marble: A Tale for Halloween
‘Whatever you do, sir, lock the door early on All Saints’ Eve, and make the blessed cross-sign over the doorstep and on the windows.’ Halloween season, in common with Christmas, is the time of year many an avid reader will reach for a ghostly tale. Whilst sitting comfortably by the fireside hopefully the story will… Read More
Listening for the leaden circles dissolving in the air
Stefania Ciocia finds new harmonies in The Hours and Mrs Dalloway “In a play, if more than one person speaks at the same time, it’s just noise. No one can understand a word. But with music, with music you can have twenty individuals all talking at once, and it’s not noise – it’s a perfect… Read More
Orwell and Women
As new biographies revisit George Orwell’s standing and attitudes, Sally Minogue considers Orwell and Women George Orwell’s reputation both as man and as writer has been placed under re-examination of late. New biographies of both him and of his first wife Eileen O’Shaughnessy have re-evaluated his standing, and I have just finished listening to this… Read More
Celebrating Pride
In Pride month, Sally Minogue reminds us of a time when writers couldn’t easily be out and proud. A couple of weeks ago I was wandering through the cool paths of the Cimitero Acattolico – the Protestant Cemetery – in Rome, with fellow-blogger and friend Stefania Ciocia as my companion and guide. It was our… Read More
Sumer is icumen in – finally.
Sally Minogue reflects on evocations of Summer by some Wordsworth authors. ‘Sumer is icumen in –/ Lhude sing! cuccu.’ Not by one of Wordsworth’s authors, but by one of that large and motley crew, Anon., this early 13th century lyric is still widely recognized because it was set to music and is still sung today…. Read More
Great Expectations: reduced imaginations
Sally Minogue and Stephen Carver give a final overview of the BBC One adaptation of Dickens’s novel. The first episode of Steven Knight’s adaptation of Great Expectations was a pleasant surprise to both Stephen Carver and me. Stephen will speak in the later part of this blog; but for both of us, I think, this… Read More
‘Moments before the Great Corruption’ – Great Expectations
‘Moments before the Great Corruption’ – Great Expectations Episode One Review After all the hype, the interviews, and the extended trailer, I must confess I was expecting more from last night’s pilot episode of Steven Knight’s new adaptation of Great Expectations. This is, after all, ‘The Dickens tale as you’ve never seen it before’ according… Read More