I loved his In Memoriam. Here’s my favorite poem in that work:
I trust I have not wasted breath:
I think we are not wholly brain,
Magnetic mockeries; not in vain,
Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death;
Not only cunning casts in clay:
Let Science prove we are, and then
What matters Science unto men,
At least to me? I would not stay.
Let him, the wiser man who springs
Hereafter, up from childhood shape
His action like the greater ape,
But I was born to other things.
I just wrote a book and Now I’m going to read Thomas Reid’s Inquiry into the Human Mind. I’ve read it before but I didn’t really do a critical study. I want to do this for my own book which is kind of a philosophical odyssey. For pleasure I just read Name of the WInd. It’s a fantasy novel. It was brilliant.
I attempted to write my own version of Sophie’s World but part one didn’t get good enough reviews for me to make part two even though I was 30% done with it. I still play with my book every once in a while. I’ve moved on to a sci fi dystopian now. Here’s my project:
Strange Angel by George pendle the story of , the co founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, .ca Johns Parsons.
Here is a verse he wrote, (an excerpt) :
I height Don Quixote, I live in peyote,
marijuana, morphine and cocaine,
I never knew sadness, but only a madness
That burns at the heart and the brain.
To be honest, it’s my next read. It’s coming by UPS. Should’ve taken note of the “right now” part of the title.
I like the idea of languages evolving and going extinct, which this book promises to be about. I also like the idea behind the towel of babel, one language for everybody, so I picked this book based on that. If that gives you an idea?
Have you read other books by him? I think he’s an associate professor in linguistics.
It would be a terrible shame if Shakespeare and his works at some point came to be forgotten. But I do not believe that.
I am now listening to an audiobook about William Shakespeare called I believe William Shakespeare and how he became William Shakespeare. It is really a wonderful audiobook and fascinating, informative. It gives you a more intimate perspective into the man, the human being which he was, and some of the thing which might have driven him, the themes of which show up in his masterpieces.
There is another book about language. I cannot recall the name of it or the writer. I do not believe it is the Tower of Babel. But I will find it. The write-up sounded fascinating - one that McWhorter recommended.
I eventually got McWhorters Language Lectures on cd. They are well worth the viewing time and he is a great lecturer. Makes the history of language so come alive.
As long as there is written language, a language will not be forgotten or die out.
Why would you like language to die out?
Enactive Realism by Kyle Takaki, a comparison of varience and similarity between Karl Polanyi’s tacit knowledge and Merleau Ponty’s phenomenology, in order to get to the latter’s : ’ The Visible and the Invisible, an unfinished work.
A spring to summer self assignment, perhaps a bit too ambitious, but worth a try.
Winter of the World picks up right where the first book left off, as its five interrelated families—American, German, Russian, English, Welsh—enter a time of enormous social, political, and economic turmoil, beginning with the rise of the Third Reich, through the Spanish Civil War and the great dramas of World War II, up to the explosions of the American and Soviet atomic bombs.
No time or capacity for books, as my mind is occupied with reading Party manifestos, daily briefings on Party policies, and a tonne of political Party literature.
I will be in need of a very good party or two to attend, after the Local Elections are over, as doing such things during campaign time does not look good.