Cinema · Books · London · Monarchies · Observations
Shakespeare's Henry is the ideal national hero, and by showing his imperfection the freewheeling interpreter only brings the ruler closer to the people, so that the reckless drunkard and ne'er-do-well becomes all the more beloved and all the more patrioti. Among the first words
Cinema · Books · Monarchies · Science
Henry V is, for the English, one of the best-loved figures of their history and very nearly the champion of screen adaptations, rivalled only by Richard the Lionheart, Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth. But what makes this not especially distinguished, yet so celebrated, ruler so attractive? Talent! And a
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Fludd's Black Square, which is just how the English thinker and philosopher of the 16th and 17th centuries, Robert Fludd, depicted in 1607 the emptiness of the world before its creation. Darkness, the infinite nothing. On all four sides of the square runs the inscription Et sic in
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Aristocracy · Art · Books · Mores
Girls who wanted happiness. Happiness... Georges Moreau de Tours, The Morphine Addicts. I remind you that this pernicious dependence was extremely popular in aristocratic and bohemian circles in the nineteenth century. The fashion, which spread from England, is shown by Leo Tolstoy in the case of Anna Karenina, whose personality
Books · Observations · Education
Given that the plot of Donna Tartt's novel "The Secret History" unfolds at a provincial college in Vermont, I immediately wondered how such a remarkable course in Ancient Greek could have crystallised there. Immersion in the classical world seemed a privilege of the chosen few, a
Books · Moscow · Observations · Humour
On the eve of the day when the dead and other unclean spirits run riot, one cannot but recall the work of Russian literature that is held to be mysterious, full of otherworldly signs and horror, and is invariably linked with mystical signs. Although, on the whole, The Master and
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"Fate was kind to the Greeks. She preserved them from vulgarity. Euripides was eaten by dogs; Aeschylus was killed by a stone; Sappho threw herself from a rock. We know no more of them than that. We have their poetry, and that is all," wrote Virginia Woolf in
Books · London · Observations · Mores
There is a classic cocktail made from gin, orange liqueur and lemon juice: the White Lady. Its name is usually linked to Ella Fitzgerald, who sang about a white lady. But the cocktail itself was devised in London when Ella was still an infant. And in England the image of
Books · Observations · Society
Irina Prokhorova has revealed that she is preparing a large book on women entrepreneurs in Russia in the 18th and 19th centuries. According to her, before the Revolution 13% of women in Russia had a business of their own. Well, we shall await the book.
Books · Monarchies · Observations · Mores · Humour
Sir John Harington's joke, which he played on James VI. At least, so it is recorded in the book by the admirable Christina Larner, a historian and one of the first to take up the subject of witchcraft. The court poet, incidentally an ancestor of our beloved Kit