Occasional Glimpses of the Sublime

Walter De La Mare’s The Listeners (1912)

davewheeler2@hotmail.com — Fri, 08 Nov 2024 17:07:13 +0000

Philistines might say that they “don’t get” poetry because it’s dressed up in flowery language and they can’t understand it. If the objective is to tell a story or communicate a message, they wonder, why dress it up in poetic language so that the meaning is obscured and only serves to create work for the … Continue reading Walter De La Mare’s The Listeners (1912) →

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Albrecht Dürer’s Self-Portrait At Twenty-Eight (1500)

davewheeler2@hotmail.com — Sat, 26 Oct 2024 10:42:13 +0000

Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) was a German painter and printmaker and a leading light of the Northern Renaissance. Born in Nuremberg to a successful goldsmith, he lived in the same street where his godfather Anton Koberger was turning Gutenberg’s printing press into a huge commercial enterprise and publishing the famous Nuremberg Chronicle (1493). Albrecht learnt the … Continue reading Albrecht Dürer’s Self-Portrait At Twenty-Eight (1500) →

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Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet On The Western Front (1929)

davewheeler2@hotmail.com — Sat, 12 Oct 2024 11:19:58 +0000

Last week’s University Challenge asked which literary work opens with these lines: “We are at rest five miles behind the front. Yesterday we were relieved, and now our bellies are full of bully beef and beans”. Like a shot, I metaphorically spat out my cornflakes in a garbled attempt to get my answer out before … Continue reading Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet On The Western Front (1929) →

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John Keats’ Ode, To Autumn (1819)

davewheeler2@hotmail.com — Fri, 27 Sep 2024 12:40:30 +0000

Autumn is in the air, a sign that is welcomed in my household, and one which triggers a swapping out of cushions and candles for ones befitting the season. Autumnal colours and aromas abound. My weekend walk was cooler and cloudier but the hedgerows were still full of late-fruiting blackberries, and the walk brought to … Continue reading John Keats’ Ode, To Autumn (1819) →

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Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men (1957)

davewheeler2@hotmail.com — Fri, 13 Sep 2024 11:46:46 +0000

Classics night at Cottage Road cinema is proving to be the gift that keeps on giving! Just as the dust settles on my recent blog about Bad Day at Black Rock, this month’s feature compelled me to write about another classic from the fifties, Sidney Lumet’s legal drama 12 Angry Men (1957). The film was … Continue reading Sidney Lumet’s 12 Angry Men (1957) →

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Ben Johnson’s Encomium To Shakespeare (1623)

davewheeler2@hotmail.com — Fri, 30 Aug 2024 09:10:05 +0000

For some years now I have been interested in the Shakespeare authorship question: did the man from Stratford really pen the plays and poems attributed to him, or was he just a front for some other true genius? Anti-Stratfordians (those of the latter persuasion) point out that the sheer breadth of education, knowledge, experience and … Continue reading Ben Johnson’s Encomium To Shakespeare (1623) →

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Wilfred Thesiger’s Arabian Sands (1959)

davewheeler2@hotmail.com — Fri, 16 Aug 2024 09:57:38 +0000

Back in 2003, whilst on a cruise of the Black Sea, we dined each night with an elderly couple, Evan and Vivien Davies, who turned out to be charming and interesting company. They were clearly well-connected and rather posh, and Evan in particular had lived what sounded like a pretty adventurous life back in the … Continue reading Wilfred Thesiger’s Arabian Sands (1959) →

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Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

davewheeler2@hotmail.com — Fri, 02 Aug 2024 15:08:50 +0000

You could have safely bet that at some point in this series of blogs I was always going to visit a certain trinity of British university dons who have done more for the literary fantasy genre worldwide than, well, any other trinity of university dons. Huge. Immense. The Ronaldo, Messi and Mbappé of children’s fantasy … Continue reading Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) →

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Akseli Gallen-Kallela’s Kalevala Paintings (1890s)

davewheeler2@hotmail.com — Fri, 19 Jul 2024 08:53:41 +0000

Greece has its Iliad and Odyssey, Italy its Aeneid, Portugal its Lusiads, Iceland its Eddas, Germany its Nibelungenlied, Britain its Beowulf and Le Morte d’Arthur, and India its Mahabarata and Ramayana. I am talking of course about national folk-epics, those literary masterpieces that were originally an oral canon of folk-stories percolated down through the mists … Continue reading Akseli Gallen-Kallela’s Kalevala Paintings (1890s) →

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L M Montgomery’s Anne Of Green Gables (1908)

davewheeler2@hotmail.com — Fri, 05 Jul 2024 11:52:57 +0000

Ah, the bookshelf in our classroom during my later years at primary school, I remember it well. Replete with titles and illustrated covers promising tales for children of adventure and derring-do in exotic lands: Robinson Crusoe, King Solomon’s Mines, Treasure Island. It had all the girls’ classics, too: Black Beauty, Little Women, What Katy Did, … Continue reading L M Montgomery’s Anne Of Green Gables (1908) →

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