About stories of all kinds
Folklore. Fairy-tales. Horror stories. Urban legends. Mythology. What is it about the inexplicable, the fantastical, and the outrageously unrealistic that captures the human imagination? For that matter, what is it about the human imagination that causes it to manufacture these things, if indeed there is no outside originator? It was while studying "The Old Nurse's… Continue reading On-Line English Literature Discussion: Not Natural
If you've read widely at all, you've probably read a book that's been translated. Easiest example: the Bible. All translated unless you're reading it in ancient Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. Books have been and are being translated by the millions. I feel as though most are probably translated from English into other languages these days;… Continue reading Books in Translation: author’s voice or translator’s voice?
Appreciation of poetry was a much neglected area of development in my education that my first year English classes rectified all too effectively. We studied all kinds of verse: sonnets, lyric poems, narrative poems, and even briefly encountered epic poetry. A pair of poems we studied concurrently were Marlowe's "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love,"… Continue reading On-Line English Literature Discussion: The Lonely Shepherd
BBC's Sherlock/The Picture of Dorian Gray I'm a day late, but I thought this quote and picture set I made a while back would fit with Best Friends' Day. I got to spend the day yesterday with a great friend of mine. Whether they're your depressed artist friend, blogger/flatmate, or your archenemy/brother/"detested" relation, let your… Continue reading The Picture of Sherlock Holmes
In any work of writing, even this blog, whether we are conscious of it or not, there is a voice that comes through. It's what you hear in your head while you're reading. It's how it makes you feel--is it whimsical? Informative? Tense? Know-it-all? It's up to how you interpret what you're reading on the… Continue reading Writing in Style: Authorial Voice
The desert isn't as empty as we think. Sands crawl over sands, rippling with wind or the tracks of sidewinders. Ruins gape, abandoned by the men who made them and left for an inheritance of the relentless sun. But it's not only elements, lesser creatures, and the relics of human habitation that fill the desert.… Continue reading Gods and Saints: Setting in Story
Canadian literature. Yawn. Why are we like this? Probably because Canadian art, like that of other British Commonwealth nations, is a) recent: comparatively speaking to other literary traditions; b) slow to develop: why make your own art when your "mother" nation has a pre-established canon?; and c) difficult to maintain: why patronize upstarts when, again,… Continue reading On-Line English Literature Discussion: Canadian Authors
The conflict between Rumplestiltskin and Killian Jones (a.k.a. Cpt. Hook) is a long one—several hundreds of years long, in fact. The way it began was fairly cut and dried, with Killian playing the role of the villain, and Rumple the victim. But it didn’t stay that way. When Rumple acquired the power of the Dark… Continue reading Once Upon a Time: Hook or Crocodile?
In my first year of university, our English professor had us participate in an on-line discussion group about the texts we studied, providing us with different questions or topics to discuss. When we studied Shakespeare's Othello, the topic was the obscure motivation of Iago in his quest to bring Othello down. The professor wanted to… Continue reading On-line English Literature Discussion: Shakespeare’s Dark Knight
A couple summers ago, I got the chance to share some books I love with my older brother and sister. When I asked each of them separately how they’d liked their individual selection, I got opposite (and therefore mirrored) responses: from my brother, “You can sure tell it’s written by a woman,” and from my… Continue reading “You Can Just Tell…”
Fictitiously Yours 