writing and writers – Page 176 – don't confuse the narrator

facts and fictions

A few more thoughts on the subject of how accurate we should be when we write poetry:

A few days ago, I had cause to look up Keats’ On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer, and I read the Wikipedia page. (The poem appears there, too.)

Despite what it says in the poem, it wasn’t “stout Cortez” who stood “Silent upon a peak in Darien”, but Nuñez de Balboa. But although the error was identified, apparently

“Keats chose to leave it in, presumably because historical accuracy would have necessitated an unwanted extra syllable in the line.”

Continue reading “facts and fictions”

images: both photographic and poetic

One problem with trying to find illustrations for some of the pieces I post here is that I’m between cameras and the phone isn’t as adaptable as I’d like it to be, so the photos – particularly the ones that should be close ups – are fairly hit and miss.

These wonderfully clam-like toadstools would probably have made a better photo to go with the smallest room in all the world:

the smallest room in all the world

After rain, sunshine:
tomorrow, there will be
mushrooms for breakfast

noble winners

After yesterday’s “race day“, it seems only fair to spend a few moments thinking about winners. Specifically about Nobel prize winners. And, more specifically, about mathematicians who have won Nobel prizes. (Note that there is no Nobel prize for mathematics.)

Sundays newspaper (El Público) ran a story on Echegaray, who they rightly said sounds more like a street name than anything else. He was a mathematician, but he won the Nobel prize for literature.

they say…

…that you can’t judge a book by its cover. They also say you can judge a man by the company he keeps. Can you judge a book by the company it keeps, though? And, if so, how come my book is hanging out in far more august company than I ever do?