Genreal | Content Section | Literary Review

An Ancient Stew

Posted on May 20, 2015 by Jonathan Beckman

WE CLASSICISTS SPEND a lot of our time taking things on trust, without quite knowing how they can be true. The use of olive oil provides a good example. Every book on the ‘Amazing Ancients’ reports that olive oil was a multi-purpose product, used for lighting, cooking and cleaning and for making perfumes, cosmetics and […]

A Good Book

Posted on May 15, 2015 by Jonathan Beckman

Translation is a mysterious business, which often subjects a text to the literary equivalent of a chemical change. It can flatten or heighten. Dostoevsky’s tales, for instance, are even more strange in Constance Garnett’s translation than in Russian. Edmund Wilson, who taught himself Hebrew to read the Old Testament in the original, said it was […]

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