Brexit!

Philip Murrary-Lawson Interviews Ruud Antonius

Ruud Antonius is no stranger to Highbrow readers.  His painting "The Fourth Plinth" appears on the cover of Emanations: 2 + 2 = 5, where he also published a short story, "J. P. Holmes, Jr." He was a participant in the 2011 Meeting of International Authors in London, where, incidentally, he and his lovely friend Deborah were my hosts the two nights I spent there.  Mr. Antonius was born in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands. He moved to England where he studied art, then moved to Germany where for a period of five years he painted and played music, then returned once more to England. From 2011, Mr. Antonius spent three years in Spain after which he moved back to the South of England again where he writes, paints, and records and produces music. Websites: http://ruudantonius.weebly.com; www.rmantonius.weebly.com

Philip Murray-Lawson, who has interviewed a number of people connected with International Authors, has posted a new interview with Mr. Antonius.  Please click HERE.

Tasso Progress Continues: the role of AI support

The translation of Torquato Tasso's long "ultra-modern" poem Il mondo Creato (Creation of the World) is now finalized, and the set-up of the actually book is nearly completed. In these final stages of production, I am once again thankful for the various instruments of 21st century technology which have made the realization of the project possible.  Truly, we live in a great age.

"Co-supremes and stars of love" -- more on the Phoenix

The Phoenix and the Turtle

  

    William Shakespeare

Let the bird of loudest lay

On the sole Arabian tree

Herald sad and trumpet be,

To whose sound chaste wings obey.

But thou shrieking harbinger,

Foul precurrer of the fiend,

Augur of the fever's end,

To this troop come thou not near.

From this session interdict

Every fowl of tyrant wing,

Save the eagle, feather'd king;

Keep the obsequy so strict.

Let the priest in surplice white,

That defunctive music can,

Be the death-divining swan,

Lest the requiem lack his right.

And thou treble-dated crow,

That thy sable gender mak'st

With the breath thou giv'st and tak'st,

'Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.

Here the anthem doth commence:

Love and constancy is dead;

Phoenix and the Turtle fled

In a mutual flame from hence.

So they lov'd, as love in twain

Had the essence but in one;

Two distincts, division none:

Number there in love was slain.

Hearts remote, yet not asunder;

Distance and no space was seen

'Twixt this Turtle and his queen:

But in them it were a wonder.

So between them love did shine

That the Turtle saw his right

Flaming in the Phoenix' sight:

Either was the other's mine.

Property was thus appalled

That the self was not the same;

Single nature's double name

Neither two nor one was called.

Reason, in itself confounded,

Saw division grow together,

To themselves yet either neither,

Simple were so well compounded;

That it cried, "How true a twain

Seemeth this concordant one!

Love has reason, reason none,

If what parts can so remain."

Whereupon it made this threne

To the Phoenix and the Dove,

Co-supremes and stars of love,

As chorus to their tragic scene:

                 Threnos

Beauty, truth, and rarity,

Grace in all simplicity,

Here enclos'd, in cinders lie.

Death is now the Phoenix' nest,

And the Turtle's loyal breast

To eternity doth rest,

Leaving no posterity:

'Twas not their infirmity,

It was married chastity.

Truth may seem but cannot be;

Beauty brag but 'tis not she;

Truth and beauty buried be.

To this urn let those repair

That are either true or fair;

For these dead birds sigh a prayer.

Elizabeth's Phoenix jewel, from the Phoenix portrait

Please click HERE for Wikipedia commentary.

The Phoenix: he, she, or something else entirely?

The Phoenix is feminine in Greek, masculine in Latin, masculine in French, feminine in Italian, and masculine in German.  For Tasso however, the flaming bird is both, and neither!

For more on this intriguing development in our translation adventure, see Dario Rivarossa's blog, il Tassista. Please click HERE.

"The Phoenix" by Selkis (Tiziana Grassi)

cryptic messages scrawled near the ceiling

In this secret room
from the past
I seek the future

The Radium Age

Cary Doctorow has written an article on "Science fiction's Radium Age: prewar stories of postscarcity, peace and justice."

Doctorow's brief article/review is based on the work of science fiction historian Joshua Glenn, who defines the "Radium Age" as follows:

One thing that distinguishes Radium Age [1904-1933] from Golden Age science fiction is its faith in the possibility of a post-scarcity, peaceful, tolerant, just social order.

 
Then Glenn writes:

But the Radium Age wasn’t naive: We find many warnings about dystopian tendencies in the cultural, political, and economic tendencies of the period: Karel Capek and Aldous Huxley worried about the drive towards efficiency in all things that characterized both America and the USSR; Yevgeny Zamyatin and Edgar Rice Burroughs worried about the effects of Soviet-style collectivism on the individual; and Jack London's “The Iron Heel” (1908), which is about fascist plutocrats who take over America, feels particularly relevant right now.

Which is it? If anything, Radium Age science fiction is full of dire projections: H.P. Lovecraft, R.E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Capek's War with the Newts... Dire projections indeed. If anything, "Golden Age" science fiction material was the voice of optimism, and it was the late-60s New Wave (embracing Kubrick, as well), that restored the darker view of things (and which, ironically, perhaps, was a midwife to the "utopian" promise of postmodernism...)

That is, if we can generalize about such matters. Suffice it to say that there is optimism and pessimism in all "historical periods" (I am wont to insert a "tra la" here), and that moreover the thing to watch out for is the phenomenon of unrealistic optimism--again as an example, take the utopian song and dance routine that went along with postmodernism when that shiny corrosive began raining down on our Beatles-blasted heads.

A Seascape from Tasso

From Creation of the World, lines 675-689:

A gentle wind blows; a placid breeze, sweetly
murmuring, whispers and wanders about,
and ripples the waves, which look like
foamy silver among the rocks or by the
curved coasts; often with the color of shiny
sapphires the sea is tinged, and like
pyrope under the sun’s gentle rays.
Scattered sails fan out far away,
shining white in hundreds, in thousands,
faster than running horses and chariots;
painted ships unfold their old, famous
ensigns, and with pointed rostra furrow
their flat ways; all around, the wet fish
thrash, and often the swift dolphins 
show off their hunched backs in the air.

Tasso Translation Progress

I have now entered the final stages of editing Creation of the World.  With a little luck, the book will be available in early July.

For all things Tasso, please visit Dario Rivarossa's blog, Il Tassista.

A presto!

Tracking...

New Hosting for the International Authors Website

The International Authors website has new hosting.  There has been no material change to the appearance or the function of the website, and the "migration" has little significance beyond the self-same fact that it has happened, but now you know.

Please click the IA logo to view the site: