Humanities and the Liberal Arts is the personal website of former Middlebury classics professor
William Harris who passed away in 2009.
In his retirement he crafted a wonderful site full of essays,
music,
sculpture,
poetry and his thoughts on anything from
education to
technology. But the heart of the website for me is, unsurprisingly,
his essays on ancient Latin and Greek literature some of whom are book-length works. Here are a few examples:
Purple color in Homer,
complete fragments of Heraclitus,
how to read Homer and Vergil,
a discussion of a recently unearthed poem by Sappho,
Plato and mathematics,
Propertius' war poems, and finally, especially close to my heart, his commentaries on the poetry of Catullus, for example on
Ipsithilla,
Odi et amo,
Attis poem as dramatic dance performance and
a couple of very dirty poems (even by Catullus' standard). That's just a taste of the riches found on Harris' site, which has been around nearly as long as the world wide web has existed.
posted by Kattullus
on Sep 30, 2011 -
18 comments
so the moral of the story is
always wear a condom
because otherwise
you are going to have to resort to an impromptu skull c-section
with a shovel
Myths Retold. [more inside]
posted by KathrynT
on Mar 2, 2011 -
50 comments
Dogtooth is an Oscar nominated Greek film directed by Yorgos Lanthimos.
Reviews have noted its
uncomfortable blend of family, insanity, sex, and power. In interviews, the director touches on his thoughts behind the film and its creation. (
1,
2,
3)
posted by Brandon Blatcher
on Feb 9, 2011 -
45 comments
They think of me as a scholar, an intellectual, a pen-pusher. And I am none of them. When I write, my fingers get covered not in ink but in blood. I think I am nothing more than this: an undaunted soul. [more inside]
posted by Joe Beese
on Nov 24, 2010 -
9 comments
We see it every day on signs, billboards, packaging, in books and magazines; in fact, you are looking at it now — the Latin or Roman alphabet, the world’s most prolific, most widespread abc. Typography is a relatively recent invention, but to unearth the origins of alphabets, we will need to travel much farther back in time, to an era contemporaneous with the emergence of civilisation itself.
The origins of abc.
posted by netbros
on Aug 10, 2010 -
24 comments
An attempt at a
collaborative translation of Plato’s Protagoras. Every day for a few months, Dhananjay Jagannathan will post roughly a page of the dialogue, side by side in Greek, in his own translation, and in Jowett’s classic 1871 translation. He's invited readers to comment and offer suggestions to improve the translation. Jagannathan's goal is to communicate Plato in English the way readers of his would have interpreted his Greek.
posted by unliteral
on Jun 30, 2010 -
11 comments
Father of the Anthora, dead at 87. Known to people outside of New York mostly from Law and Order episodes, the
Anthora is one of the most recognizable symbols of the city, the blue and white paper coffee cup with a Greek design and "We are happy to serve you" written on the side. "The Anthora seems to have been here forever, as if bestowed by the gods at the city’s creation. But in fact, it was created by man — one man in particular, a refugee from Nazi Europe named Leslie Buck. " For use outside of NYC, you can order the
paper version in bulk or get a
ceramic replica from MOMA.
posted by octothorpe
on Apr 30, 2010 -
61 comments
In Parentheses is a collection of many ancient, medieval and classic texts from all over the world, many of whom are hard to find anywhere, let alone on the internet. There are translations from
Greek,
Old Norse,
Medieval Irish,
Japanese,
Incan,
Old French,
Medieval Latin and many more! As well as all that they have
papers in medieval studies and
vaguely decadent and
orientalism series. Adding to that there's a
linguistics section with wordlists and language flash cards in languages such as
Icelandic,
Quechua,
Basque,
Classical Armenian and a whole bunch more.
[flashcard links go to pdf files]
posted by Kattullus
on Jul 10, 2008 -
18 comments
Libya is a desert, yes, but if you trace your fingers through the moonlit sand and listen, carefully, you may hear ancient whispers: of
Apollo's love of Cyrene; of prehistoric hunters making Rock Art [
1,
2,
3], back when the Sahara was wet; of Phoenicians subdued by Greeks, of Romans followed by Byzantines, all leaving
ruins that Libya is famous for [
Cyrene,
Leptis Magna,
Sabratha,
et cetera]; of desert soldiers in World War II, remembered in
Graves and
Memorials; of the occupying Italians, who responded to
Omar Mukhtar's resistance of the Fascists by rounding Libyans into
concentration camps; of the camps' prisoners, one of whom wrote this
famous poem: "My only illness is the torturing of our young women, with their bodies exposed ... how my speech has become subdued, the humiliation of our noble and leading men and the loss of my gazelle-like horse..."; of
more culture, more
memories from this land that witnessed the wrenching passion of all man's history—whispering in the very dust that made his soul.
posted by Firas
on May 14, 2007 -
18 comments
Griko is a language used by the descendents of ancient Greek colonists in southern Italy that still has thousands of speakers.
Pennsylvania Dutch, the only German language native to North America, was used as a first language until well into the twentieth century.
Ladino ia a variant of medieval Spanish written in the Hebrew alphabet that florished among refugees from the Spanish Inquisition in modern Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece. Welcome to the world of
ethnolinguistics.
posted by huskerdont
on Jul 20, 2006 -
22 comments
In 1875,
Josiah Mason gave a gift to establish a college which was called the Mason Science College (now a part of the
University of Birmingham). Within the terms of the gift to the institutuion, one of the stipulations was that
classics not be taught. Of course at such an institution, the
Founder Day's address was logically given by
Thomas Henry Huxley on the place of Science in Education. Huxley preached the virtues of science and derisively dismissed all value in studying classics, and he wondered whether any rational person would choose to study classics over science. His conclusion was that the only people who would choose a study of classics are those like "that Levite of culture"
Matthew Arnold. Arnold took the
opportunity to respond to his friend. In his reply, Arnold acknowledged that nobody would expect him to engage Huxley in a debate about science, and though he wouldn't presume to take on Huxley in such a debate, he did want to mention something that struck him as he thumbed through
a book of Huxley's
friend. Arnold noted that he was struck by the idea that "our ancestor was a hairy quadruped furnished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal in his habits." Arnold acknowledged that he isn't a scientist and therefore doesn't dispute such a claim, but he did want to point out that even if that were true, with regards to this good fellow, there must have been a necessity in him that inclined him to Greek. And would always incline him to Greek. After all, we got there, didn't we?
posted by dios
on May 26, 2006 -
27 comments
Oprheus, is said to be the
founder of
The Orphic Mysteries, or
Orphism.
While in school most students are taught the
Theogony of Hesiod, but as in most religions, a differing account existed:
The Orphic Theogony, summarized somewhat in this short
video (
nsfw? abstract nudity). The
Orphic Reform to the
Dionysian Mysteries included vegetarianism, abstention from sex, and restraint from eating eggs and beans — which came to be known as the
Orphikos bios, or "Orphic way of life".
Initiation into the
Mystery school was needed to teach the
Road to the Lower World, through
Bone Tablets and
papyrus remnants of Orphic
Hymns. The Orphic Mystery has been seen as very similar to
other
religions.
(
scroll about 2/3 down the page or search for Orphics).
posted by ozomatli
on Feb 17, 2006 -
7 comments
Are you not amazed at how she evokes soul, body, hearing, tongue, sight, skin, as though they were external and belonged to someone else? And how at one and the same moment she both freezes and burns, is irrational and sane, is terrified and nearly dead, so that we observe in her not a single emotion but a whole concourse of emotions? Such things do, of course, commonly happen to people in love. Sappho’s supreme excellence lies in the skill with which she selects the most striking and vehement circumstances of the passions and forges them into a coherent whole. Longinus, On the Sublime Sappho’s poem of jealousy survives only because the ancient critic Longinus quoted it as a supreme example of poetic intensity--now Ken Knabb has put up 26 translations of it in the English at the
Gateway to the Vast Realms , the literature and texts section of his
Bureau of Public Secrets. And wait! There's more!
posted by y2karl
on Oct 2, 2004 -
10 comments
A man, just back from a trip abroad, went to an incompetent fortune-teller. He asked about his family, and the fortune-teller replied: "Everyone is fine, especially your father." When the man objected that his father had been dead for ten years, the reply came: "You have no clue who your real father is."--that's one of the jokes from
The Laughter Lover (Philogelos), an ancient Greek joke book published in the 4th or 5th century AD. The New Yorker commented on it, and other old jokes
here, stating about one of the possible authors:
... there is some scholarly speculation that the Hierocles in question was a fifth-century Alexandrian philosopher of that name who was once publicly flogged in Constantinople for paganism, which, as one classicist has observed, “might have given him a taste for mordant wit.”
posted by amberglow
on Jul 10, 2004 -
12 comments
Alphabet Evolution
See the evolutionary progression of alphabets through time and cultures. Examples include Cuneiform, Phoenician, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, modern Cyrillic and the Latin character sets. The Latin is the best documented character set and requires a wide screen to see all the evolutionary events (especially Y and Z)
posted by Irontom
on Oct 7, 2003 -
9 comments
Goddess : The Classical Mode, at the Met. Ancient Greek fashion and haute couture interpretations.
(via fashioNroll)
posted by taz
on Sep 17, 2003 -
4 comments
Heraclitus of
Ephesus, sometimes called
Heraclitus the Obscure: We only know him through 100 gnomic quotes and aphorisms
--I loves me some gnomic aphorisms!--all direct from or inferred in the comments of various authors of Classical literature, of which
no one steps into the same river twice is the best known.
Mark Cohen,
J. H. Lesher and
Cynthia Freeman provide excellent introductions.
John Burnett's 1920 translation is another academic standard. Jonathan Barnes. whose Penguin Classic
The Early Greek Philosophers has the best contemporary translation, wrote
Heraclitus attracts exegetes as an empty jampot wasps; and each new wasp discerns traces of his own favourite flavour. Here are the jampots of
Friedrich Nietzsche,
Bertrand Russell and
Martin Heidegger. And here, in passing, is a taste of the jampot of
Jorge Luis Borges. Heraclitus coined the word
enantiodromia.
John William Corrington's
Logos, Lex, And Law is also of interest. Heraclitus figures strongly in the
Archetypal Psychology of Carl Jung and
James Hillman, the latter especially in his discussion of the
Soul.
posted by y2karl
on Sep 11, 2003 -
22 comments
As to
The Uses and Disadvantages of Socrates, sources differ but seem to share in common an ideal fictional Socrates to speak their understanding of the common account. From Doug Linder's
Famous Trials--for your bookmarking convenience--comes
The Trial of Socrates, featuring ample background materials, including
I.F. Stone's take. Marilyn Katz's
Background Materials on Socrates' Trial and Death are essential, too. Several other accounts are offered online--consider
Socrates and his Audience,
The Accusations Against Socrates, Gadfly on Trial: Socrates as Citizen and Social Critic and the rather d.i.y.
Socrates Had It Coming. But as to the historical Socrates, the man in context becomes key--as all of the above do contend, more or less, let it be noted--and therefore one needs to become become familiar with things like
sexuality in Fifth-Century Athens,
desecration of the herms,
Eleusian Mysteries,
the Peloponnesian War,
the fateful Sicilian Expedition and the collective memory of
civil war and civic memory in ancient Athens that ensued, as well as the personalities of
Critias and
Alcibiades to answer the question entitled in my own favorite account, the book entire:
Who Was Socrates ?
posted by y2karl
on Jul 24, 2003 -
39 comments
Greek Temple Architecture: They were houses--houses for cult statues, storehouses of treasures given to the gods--they were not churches. Worship consisted, by and large, of
sacrificial ritual--
animal sacrifice:
killing animals and eating them, for the most part--and, hence, it was done out of doors.
The Internet Ancient History Sourcebook's Accounts of Hellenic Religious Beliefs and
Accounts of Personal Religion give additional flavor and context. Greek religious architecture evolved from
wooden structures and was tradition bound--they built in stone as they had in wood according to variations on a traditional canon called the
orders, first and foremost, the
Doric Order , the
Ionic Order and the
Corinthian Order. Here are some
restorations. I love restorations, on paper or models rather than at the actual sites.
The first in a series.
posted by y2karl
on Jun 19, 2003 -
15 comments
I've been accused in the past of only posting clever and astonishingly cynical quips - so just to prove that I'm no fly-by-night-non-serious-funster here is an informative link. It requires no flash plugins of any sort..... ladies and gentlemen I give you....
What Is Cynicism?
thank you.. As usual, details within.
posted by y2karl
on Feb 3, 2002 -
32 comments
Amazing Photo of real hand to hand combat. The page is in Greek but the (600K) picture on top is, I think, worth your while. This is a photo taken by a British liaison officer to the partisans in the Greek island of Crete during WWII (named John Eberson or Emberson), as a group of guerillas confronts a German patrol. What is amazing is the fact that Emberson reached for his camera instead of his gun... This is the closest view of a combat situation
I've ever seen captured on film - does anyone know of anything similar on the web? Caption translation inside this thread's comments.
posted by talos
on May 25, 2001 -
11 comments
The Independent has a report that excavations at Herculaneum has brought forth some 850 papyri and "Among the works, which academics hope to read using the new equipment, are the lost works of Aristotle (his 30 dialogues, referred to by other authors, but lost in antiquity), scientific works by Archimedes, mathematical treatises by Euclid, philosophical work by Epicurus, masterpieces by the Greek poets Simonides and Alcaeus, erotic poems by Philodemus, lesbian erotic poetry by Sappho, the lost sections of Virgil's Juvenilia, comedies by Terence, tragedies by Seneca and works by the Roman poets Ennius, Accius, Catullus, Gallus, Macer and Varus."
posted by stbalbach
on Feb 11, 2001 -
20 comments
The world's most successful terrorist group strikes again. Although they can't claim the numbers of other terrorist groups, 17 November is considered to be one of the deadliest. Claiming over 20 kills with none of their members ever having been captured or killed is something to be proud of I guess. When I was stationed over in Greece, this group was our biggest fear, besides the fact that it was rumored that the group had links to the Socialist Party of the government and that the party "assisted" (using the term loosely) them from being captured. I had hoped that they had turned to internal terrorism and not International, as I hadn't heard anything about them in the last 7 years, but I guess that hope was optimistic.
posted by da5id
on Jun 8, 2000 -
1 comment
