from Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” to William Carlos Williams’s “Prelude to Winter,”

Everyman's Library

"In a Station of the Metro" by Ezra Pound (1885-1972)

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.

*

Simple yet capable of great complexity, the haiku is a tightly structured verse form that has a remarkable power to distill the essence of a moment keenly perceived. For centuries confined to a small literary elite in Japan, the writing of haiku is now practiced all over the world by those who are fascinated by its combination of technical challenge, expressive means, and extreme concentration. This anthology brings together hundreds of haiku by the Japanese masters–Basho, Issa, Buson, Shiki–with superb examples from nineteenth- and twentieth-century writers. The pioneering translator R. H. Blyth believed that the spirit of haiku is present in all great poetry; inspired by him, the editor of this volume has included lines from such poets as Wordsworth, Keats, Tennyson, Thoreau, and Hopkins, presented here in haiku form. Following them are haiku and haiku-influenced poems of the twentieth century–from Ezra Pound’s “In a Station of the Metro” to William Carlos Williams’s “Prelude to Winter,” and from the irreverence of Jack Kerouac to the lyricism of Langston Hughes. The result is a collection as compact, dynamic, and scintillating as the form itself. READ more here: http://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/…/haiku-by-peter-washing…/

these beautiful 19th-Century illustrations of William Shakespeare plays

BBC Culture 分享了 BBC Shakespeare 的影片。

Take a look at these beautiful 19th-Century illustrations of William Shakespeare plays.

33,756 次觀看

BBC Shakespeare

1月12日 21:09 · 

ons from 19th Century Complete Works online. And they're beautiful. Search the complete archive here: http://bit.ly/2gPW3Lc.

"Oft expectation fails, and most oft there Where most it promises; and oft it hits, Where hope is coldest, and despair most shifts."

今天比較認真地讀此段英文：查hit、shift 等字在莎士比亞中的意義：中文無法有原文的力量。

Hanching Chung 分享了 William Shakespeare 的相片。

2015年1月11日 13:47 · 

最有把握的希望，往往結果終於失望；最少希望的事情，反而出人意外地成功。 (《終成眷屬》朱生豪譯；吳興華校)

William Shakespeare

2015年1月10日 22:23 · 

"Oft expectation fails, and most oft there
Where most it promises; and oft it hits,
Where hope is coldest, and despair most shifts."
--Helena from "All's Well That Ends Well" (2.1)

Pomegranate石榴 Valéry's Muse of Many Seeds

Pomegranate石榴 Valéry's Muse of Many Seeds

2008年10月，"南風吹過廚房"的主人給的沙拉有十幾樣菜。William Scherkenbach夫人都沒嘗過紫色透黃的粒粒晶瑩石榴子。David Hsu拿起手機找它的英文拼寫。
想起Paul Valery的詩。

LES GRENADES (POMEGRANATES): Valéry's Muse of Many Seeds

有漢譯

POMEGRANATES, by PAUL VALERY            Poet's Biography First Line: Hard pomegranates sundered Last Line: Its secret architecture. Subject(s): Pomegranates

Hard pomegranates sundered By excess of your seeds, You make me think of mighty brows Aburst with their discoveries! If the suns you underwent, O pomegranates severed, Wrought your essence with the pride To rend your ruby segments, And if the dry gold of your shell At instance of a power Cracks in crimson gems of juice, This luminous eruption Sets a soul to dream upon Its secret architecture.

後來，超商內有美國進口的。
您買來，剝出滿滿的驚喜。

Dear David Hsu請再查一次：分享

David Hsu 還勉強記得那一頓大餐，其他的全忘了。Pomegranate

Literary detective Heather Wolfe cracked the case of Shakespeare’s identity

Guardian culture 分享了 1 條連結。

How ‘Sherlock of the library’ cracked the case of Shakespeare’s identity

Literary detective Heather Wolfe reveals how her passion for manuscripts helped unravel mystery of who the bard really was

WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM|由 ROBERT MCCRUM 上傳

It’s at this point in the story that Wolfe discovered “the smoking gun”. In the Brooke-Dethick feud, it becomes clear that “Shakespeare, Gent. from Stratford” and “Shakespeare the Player” are the same man. In other words, “the man from Stratford” is indeed the playwright. Crucially, in the long-running “authorship” debate, this has been a fiercely contested point. But Wolfe’s research nails any lingering ambiguity in which the Shakespeare deniers can take refuge.

Wolfe is circumspect about making extravagant claims. Speaking carefully, she says that her manuscript discoveries fill in gaps, illuminating Shakespeare’s character. “They point to someone actively involved in defining and defending his legacy in 1602, shortly after his father’s death.”

For Wolfe, it’s Shakespeare the man who breaks cover here. “He’s defending his legacy not only as a playwright but, most importantly to him, as a gentleman.” The derogatory references to arms belonging to “Shakespeare ye player”, she says, show that “he’s playing the same game as everyone else in the period, purchasing land in Stratford to support his case to ‘ancient’ gentility, rather than through his astonishing professional success”.

James Shapiro, bestselling author of 1599, who is persuaded by Wolfe’s discoveries, compares her to “a Sherlock Holmes of the archives”. Shapiro says that Wolfe “has had the intellectual independence to see what others have overlooked, the skills to make sense of what she has stumbled upon and the modesty not to trumpet the larger implications of those finds. But make no mistake: they are enormously consequential.”

For Shapiro, Wolfe’s work suggests future breakthroughs. “I doubt that these are the last archival treasures she will unearth. Her recent finds sharpen our sense of Shakespeare’s dogged pursuit of upward mobility. And it is one more nail in the coffin of those who can’t bring themselves to acknowledge that the glover’s son from Stratford was also the successful man of the theatre who left us so many extraordinary plays.”

Wolfe says she looks forward to “poking about” in the archives, and is convinced that Shakespeare’s identity no longer needs re-confirmation. “There is such a wealth of evidence out there that he’s the playwright.” She adds: “I’m sure there’s more untapped material waiting to be uncovered. Additional finds will certainly help us understand his life – as much as we can understand anyone’s life from 400 years ago.”