27/07/2024
Short Poetry Collection 196
This is a collection of 54 poems read in English by LibriVox volunteers for September 2019. [chương_files]
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27/07/2024
Essays and Dialogues
“We would no more choose to feed the minds of our countrymen and women with the despairing utterances of the pessimist poet, than we would their bodies with hasheesh. Such melancholy as his clothed in such eloquent words may be the luxury of the idle; it is poison to those who have work to do in the world. It shuts out hope, the very spring of energy; it makes the cheerful steady pursuit of duty a thing utterly beyond human powers. For we can none of us stand alone. Either in human or divine love we must find the mainspring of all life worth living. There must be something outside of ourselves which we regard not with despair, but with hope.” — Handwritten dedication in the book, dated Feb. 19th, 1883 [chương_files]
27/07/2024
Book of Twenty-four Sonnets
This is a collection of 24 sonnets by Laurens Maynard. This rather unknown poet brings many classical themes into this volume, with biblical figures beginning the circle and then in somewhat chronological order arriving in the poet’s present day (1894) life. All readers should find a sonnet to their tastes in this collection. – Summary by Carolin [chương_files]
27/07/2024
Short Nonfiction Collection Vol. 033
Eighteen short nonfiction works in the public domain, independently chosen by the readers. Topics include astronomy, religion, United States history, football, child raising, Tokyo firebombing, and more. [chương_files]
27/07/2024
Curiosities of Olden Times
This book is a collection of 17 gems of random knowledge, such as what women are made of and the philosopher’s stone, written in Baring-Gould’s own style. [chương_files]
27/07/2024
Short Poetry Collection 197
This is a collection of 46 poems read in English by LibriVox volunteers for October 2019. With a number of spooky ones for Halloween! [chương_files]
27/07/2024
Selected Poetry on or about the MacLeans
“Gifted with poesy as are the Highlanders, and given to the praise of their country and their leaders, it would be expected that many poems would still be extant concerning the MacLeans and their ancestral dominions,” wrote John Patterson MacLean in his “A History of the Clan MacLean,” These selections, collected and arranged by J.P. Maclean comprise part of Note C of MacLean’s treatise (pp. 406-452), although they were written by different authors for different reasons. Dealing with incidents experienced by the MacLeans throughout their long history this highland poetry reveals, in ways the historical narrative cannot, the feeling behind the actions of the MacLeans and the reactions to their activities. – Summary by DrPGould [chương_files]
27/07/2024
Second Rubaiyat Miscellany
In 1840 Louisa Stuart Costello published in Fraser’s Magazine an article on classic Persian poetry, which included a section on Omar Khayyam with translations of some verses. Interest in the poetry of Omar Khayyam received its first major boost in the English speaking world when Edward Fitzgerald published a translation of 75 quatrains in 1859. Fitzgerald’s mentor was Professor Edward Byles Cowell, who, in the previous year, had published an essay entitled “Omar Khayyam, the astronomer-poet of Persia” which included translations of thirty quatrains. In 1885 Whitley Stokes, a renowned Irish orientalist and linguist, published an English translation of eighteen quatrains in the journal ‘Academy’, nr. 663. In the National Review, December, 1890 Charles J. Pickering published a lengthy essay entitled “Umar of Nishapur”, in which he compared several notable translations including those in English by Fitzgerald and Edward Whinfield and that in German by Von Hammer. In 1896 Nathan Haskell Dole, acting as editor, published the following tome in two volumes: Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam English, French, German, Italian, and Danish translations comparatively arranged in accordance with the text of Edward Fitzgerald’s version with further selections, notes, biographies, bibliographies and other material. Included in the “further selections” are translations of assorted quatrains by Henry George Keene and Frank Siller. In 1901 Dole and Belle Walker published two volumes of “Flowers from Persian Poets.” The first volume contains a short article about Omar Khayyam and translations of twenty two quatrains by an unknown translator. Omar Khayyám: some verses and an […]
27/07/2024
Exotics and Retrospectives
Lafcadio Hearn, born 1850 in Greece, went to Japan when he was 40 years old and became a Japanese citizen only 6 years later. His writings about Japan from the beginning of the Meiji era, when the country was just opening to the West, remain among the most important explanations of Japanese culture. This book contains in the first part, “Exotics”, his observations of and personal insights into Japan. For example, Fuji no Yama tells about him climbing the highest mountain in Japan; and A Question in the Zen Texts, Literature of the Dead, and Of Moon Desire try to explain Buddhist teachings. In the second part, “Retrospectives”, Hearn leaves both Japan and his vantage point as impartial observer behind and delves into personal experiences and musings that occurred to him in the numerous countries he visited. The main topic of these very personal pieces is beauty in all its forms. [chương_files]
27/07/2024
Short Poetry Collection 177
This is a collection of 23 poems read by LibriVox volunteers for February 2018 [chương_files]