Rebecca Reads

Reading The Iliad (trans. by Robert Fagles) isn’t like reading a modern-day novel: I think it did take a level of concentration I’m not accustomed to. But that just proved to me that the “difficult pleasure” of reading is highly worth experiencing.
The Robert Fagles translation was poetic and rhythmic. Once I became accustomed to reading [...]

I thought reading The Iliad by Homer (translated by Robert Fagles) would be a chore. Even after I reviewed four different translations and chose one I felt was “best,” I told myself I would have to read at least one chapter a day, just to get through it before it was due at the library. [...]

When I decided to read The Iliad, I knew essentially nothing about it.
All I knew was that it was Greek, it was written by Homer, and that it was somehow a precursor to The Odyssey (which I read in high school). Having read The Iliad, I can say now that while it certainly is Greek, [...]

My son is musical. As a newborn, his body would instantly start to relax if I started to sing to him. Now, at 13 months old, he doesn’t calm so easily. But if he hears music, he dances. He laughs when he hears any rhythm. His favorite toys make music. He likes to touch the [...]

Why is autumn always, poetically, so sad? It’s a good season in it’s own right. Yet, the poetry always dwells on the “growing older” analogy. Here’s some Shakespeare.

What am I looking for when I read the Iliad this month? I’ve been wondering that, especially now that I have four translations before me. As I mentioned when I wrote about Aesop’s writers last week, a translation can make a big difference in how a story is portrayed.
I’m not against a literal translation, but [...]

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Hemingway’s stories are poetry: that is my first and lasting impression of Ernest Hemingway’s short stories. In his short stories, Hemingway treats words as sparsely as do poets.
I don’t usually understand or enjoy poetry because it feels so much must be inferred or interpreted. (After I finish reading the HTR&W short stories, [...]

I really like the poem “If” by Rudyard Kipling. It is an inspiration for all of us to be mature. It’s especially timely for me right now because I’m currently listening to the nonfiction audiobook Emotional Intelligence (by Daniel Goleman). More about that later…

I found Poems Every Child Should Know, which was edited by Mary E. Burt and published in 1904, on the Project Gutenberg site. I was looking for poems by Rudyard Kipling, but I decided to look at all of this, as I have a child and want him to know what he “should” know.
I’ve [...]

I’ve been reading The Complete Tales and Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne to my infant son. I can’t determine what he thinks of them — I read while he kicks and rolls around the floor — but I truly enjoy reading them.
The Complete Tales includes the story books, Winnie-the-Pooh and The House on Pooh [...]