“Whom did novelist Henry Fielding summon to court for the murder of the English language? Poet laureate Colley Cibber in 1740. Fielding issued the summons under the pseudonym ‘Captain Hercules Vinegar.’”
Excerpted from: Corey, Melinda, and George Ochoa. Literature: The New York Public Library Book of Answers. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, humor, literary oddities, poetry
“How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Portable Curmudgeon. New York: Plume, 1992.
Zeus (Jupiter) * Hera (Juno) * Poseidon (Neptune) * Aphrodite (Venus) * Athena (Minerva) * Apollo (Apollo) * Artemis (Diana) * Hermes (Mercury) * Dionysus (Bacchus) * Hades (Pluto) * Aries (Mars) *Hephaestus (Vulcan) * Hestia (Vesta)
The cult of six female goddesses paired with six male gods came to Greece from western Anatolia during the Iron Age, though the doubling up of a trinity of female goddesses, and then giving the appropriate male counterparts, was a familiar aspect of many ancient cultures. Hercules is first credited with organizing sacrifices to all twelve of the great gods who dwelt on Mount Olympus and the oldest such altar was associated with Athens. The precise names of the Olympian pantheon would shift during 1,000 years of worship, which is why thirteen deities have been listed. Hades, as Lord of the Underworld, was vulnerable to downgrading, especially in favor of Hestia/Vesta, while at other times Hephaestus could be exchanged for Hercules, and in the early period Dionysus held an equivocal position.
Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.
“Colloquialism (noun): Spoken of conversational expression; familiar or informal English that falls between standard English and slang; everyday speech; an informal word or expression, or (loosely) a local or dialectical usage.
‘I had to learn American just like a foreign language. To learn it, I had to study and analyze it. As a result, when I use slang, colloquialisms, snide talk or any kind of off-beat language I do it deliberately.’ Raymond Chandler, Raymond Chandler Speaking.”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
“Reinaldo Arenas: (1943-1990) Cuban novelist. A great innovator with an inexhaustible poetic imagination, Arenas suffered years of repression of his ‘lack of realism’ and supposed decadence, as well as for his political dissent and open homosexuality. He exiled himself to New York in 1980. The novel that launched Arenas was El mundo alucinante (1969; tr Hallucinations, 1971), an allegorical reconstruction of the adventures of Fray Servando Teresa de Mier, a Mexican priest of the late 18th century, whose subversive mystical thought paved the way for Mexican independence. Arenas’s central work was ‘pentagony’ of five novels dealing with life in Cuba before and after Castro, consisting of Celestino antes del alba (1967; tr Singing from the Well, 1988); El palacio de las blanquistas mofetas (The Palace of the Very White Skunks, 1980); Otra vez del mar (1982; tr Farewell to the Sea, 1986); El color del verano (The Color of Summer, 1991); and El asalto (1991; tr The Assault, 1993). Other books include La vieja rosa (1980; tr Old Rosa, 1989), depicting a woman’s aging process within a society whose traditional values have been profoundly altered, and Arturo, la Estrella ms brillante (1984; tr Arturo, the Shining Star, 1992), about the traumatic experiences of a homosexual in a concentration camp. Ill with AIDS and no longer able to write, Arenas committed suicide in 1990 after completing his last works. He left two extreme visions of himself, the tender recollections of Adis a Mam (Good-bye to Mama, 1994) and his controversial autobiography, Antes que anochezca (1992; tr Before Night Falls, 1993), which portrays his troubled youth and sexual excesses.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
OK, here is a Cultural Literacy worksheet on Don Quixote for the final documents post of this blog’s observation of Hispanic Heritage Month 2023. This is a full-page worksheet with a four-sentence reading and six comprehension questions. Perhaps it’s length does not befit this landmark in world literature (confession: I am always reading this book–I keep it by my bedside and read a few pages each week; when I finish, I open the front cover and start again. It really is that good), but it is a solid introduction to this truly great book.
If you find typos in this document, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
“Salvador Elizondo: (1932-2006) Mexican writer. Linked to the post-Boom writers like Sarduy and Rodriguez Julia, Elizondo is a writer’s writer, with a strong affinity to Borges. In junior high school he lived in in California, which would form the setting for his novella Elsinore (1988). His first collection of stories, Narda o el Verano (1964), contained ‘Historia de Pao Cheng,’ in which the title character leans over a writer’s shoulder to find out that he is a character in the story, and that, should the story end, he will die. The tale synthesizes many of Elizondo’s concerns about the nature of the creative process, the role of the writer and reader, and forms the basis of his novel El hipogeo secreto (1968). Farabeuf (1965; tr Farabeuf, The Chronicle of an Instant, 1992), his first novel, won the Villaurrutia Prize and established him internationally. It chronicles the obsession of a couple with a Chinese form of torture known as ‘Leng t’che,’ but through the use of images and ideograms becomes a hallucinatory, exquisitely written meditation on the insufficiencies and dangers of words. Elizondo has published a play, Miscast (1981), and books of critical prose, including Estanquillo (1993). His Cuaderno de Escritura (1969), ‘a writer’s notebook,’ contains a phrase that admirably sums up his aesthetic: ‘Scribo ergo sum.’”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
“Benito Perez Galdos: (1843-1920) Spanish novelist. In the 1870s he began a cycle of 46 short historical novels, Episodios nacionales (1873-1912), that earned him comparison with Honore de Balzac and Charles Dickens. Some of his finest works chronicle contemporary Spain, including The Disinherited Lady (1881) and his masterpiece, Fortunata y Jacinta (1886-87), a study of two unhappily married women. His earlier works showed a reforming zeal and anticlericalism, but after the 1880s he displayed greater sympathy for Spain and it idiosyncrasies, as in Nazarin (1895), Compassion (1897), and a series featuring the character Torquemada. He also wrote plays, some very popular, but of less artistic value, He was regarded as Spain’s greatest novelist since Miquel de Cervantes.”
Excerpted from: Stevens, Mark A., Ed. Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Encyclopedia. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, 2000.
“Jorge Luis Borges: (1899-1986) Argentinean short-story writer, essayist, poet, and man of letters. Borges was one of the first Latin American writers to achieve international as well as national fame. His reputation rests equally on his poetry, fiction, and critical/philosophical works. Borges’s writing is unmistakably local in the realities it perceives but is universal in its conceptions, manifesting the ultimate metaphysical preoccupations of man—time, destiny, and the absurdity of human existence. One of Borges’s most famous images is that of life as a labyrinth though which one passes, vainly seeking to understand the many facets of human existence. Only art can triumph over the chaos of existence, crystallizing and unifying experience and providing a sense of structure, validity, and form. His writing, which is a blend of myth, fantasy, symbolism, and erudition, has had a considerable influence on the attitudes and styles of a number of writers. Borges’s eyesight, affected by a congenital disease, deteriorated radically in the 1950s; by 1970 he was almost totally blind and had to rely entirely on dictation for his writing.
Among his many prose works are Ficciones (1944; tr Ficciones, 1962), El Aleph (1949; tr The Aleph and Other Stories, 1970), El informe de Brodie (1970; tr Dr. Brodie’s Report, 1972), El libro de arena (1975; tr The Book of Sand, 1977), Antologia personal (1961; tr A Personal Anthology, 1967), Nuevo essayos dantescos (Nine Dantesque Essays, (1982), Siete noches (1980; tr Seven Nights, 1984), and Los conjurados (The Conspirators, 1985), the last written shortly before his death. His verse has been collected in a translation, Selected Poems: 1923-1967 (1972).
The recipient of many literary awards and prizes, in 1983 Borges was awarded the Legion of Honor and was decorated by France’s President Mitterand for the body of his work.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
“Tomas Carrasquilla: (1858-1940) Colombian novelist and writer of short stories, novellas, and cuadros de costumbres. Born in the Andean department of Antioquia, Carrasquilla is first and foremost the painter of Colombian provincial life. His masterpiece is La Marquesa de Yolombo (1926), Set in the late 18th century, it is the story of the energetic dona Barbara Caballero, whose adventures and misadventures are symbolic of the conflicts between colonial Nueva Grande and imperial Spain. Other works include Frutos de me tierra (1896), a realistic novel, and Hace tiempo (193637), as well as numerous short stories and folk tales.”
Excerpted from: Murphy, Bruce, ed. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia, Fourth Edition. New York: Harper Collins, 1996.
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