Language arts in the news this week: the news without which “men die miserably every day.†So here is to living happily today—hear-hear—as in the earliest poetry which was recited, stories told, and to aid the speakers’ memory, it was rhythmic, it rhymed, it used stock phrases while the speaker gathered her or his thoughts, yes, her, too—did you know that Samuel Butler in the late 1890s translated the Odyssey with the theory that Homer was a young woman?—I can see this, totally, but that is for another show, in fact, next week’s show is on the issue of translation of poetry, and I’ll tell you about that in a while, because it is a HUGE issue, that concerns you and me very much. But meanwhile, our news today is from newsy language happenings, maybe happiness:
“Don’t be afraidâ€â€”Seamus Heaney’s “last words†Continue reading
