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a quote
Tyranny always starts auspiciously. —Jean Racine in Britannicus
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Britannicus by Jean Racine
I finished reading Britannicus by Jean Racine, translated by John Cairncross. It’s a play of five acts and was first performed in 1669. The plot centers on the Roman emperor Nero, his mother Agrippina, his stepbrother Britannicus, and Britannicus’s lover, June. The action takes place over a single day and tracks the characters’ attempts to…
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The Chessmen of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs
I finished reading The Chessmen of Mars (1922) by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the fifth novel in his Barsoom series. This story focuses on Tara, the daughter of John Carter, Warlord of Mars. I enjoyed this novel more than the one or two that precede it. I found myself getting pleasantly wrapped up in the characters…
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The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy
I finished reading The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy (1887). This is one of his Wessex novels, stories that take place in a fictionalized county of England during the Victorian era. I just love Hardy’s writing and often find myself smiling in the midst of reading certain passages. His books tend to focus heavily on character,…
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Argonautica by Apollonius Rhodius
A book jot from June 2021: I just finished reading the Argonautica (3rd century BC) by Apollonius Rhodius, translated by Peter Green. It is an epic poem that relates the story of the Argonauts and the quest for the Golden Fleece. This edition includes a glossary that, at 67 pages, is full of helpful information.…
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Mozart and Salieri by Alexander Pushkin
I also read a short play by Alexander Pushkin called Mozart and Salieri (1832), translated by A. F. B. Clark. Despite being a very, very short play it has been influential, and was an inspiration for the play Amadeus (by Peter Schaffer), which in turn was adapted for film. The play has only two speaking…
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The Trojan Women by Seneca
I finished reading The Trojan Women by Seneca (translated by E. F. Watling), a tragedy written in the first century AD. This might be my favorite of Seneca’s plays thus far. It tells the fate of Polyxena and Astyanax after the fall of Troy at the hands of the conquering Greeks. This is a familiar…
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Eugénie Grandet by Balzac
I just finished reading Eugénie Grandet; by Honoré de Balzac, a short novel published in 1833 and translated by Marion Ayton Crawford. This is only the second novel I’ve read by Balzac, and I wasn’t feeling deeply enmeshed in the story at first. Thankfully, I stuck with it and ended up loving the book. By…
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Phaedra by Seneca
I read Thyestes by Seneca a couple weeks ago and then decided to try another of his plays, this time reading Phaedra. I’m very pleased I decided to read another one, as I enjoyed Phaedra a great deal. Here is the little reaction to it I wrote: I finished reading Phaedra, a play written around…
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Thyestes by Seneca
I read Thyestes by Seneca (translated by E. F. Watling), a tragedy written in the first century AD. This is the first play by Seneca I’ve read, having only read his letters to Lucilius Junior in the past. Euripides, one of my favorite writers, wrote a play with the same title some 500 years earlier.…