Review of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We

We has long been recognised as one of the most important, seminal works in modern science fiction. Written in or around 1920, it was not made available in its original form in Zamyatin’s homeland of Russia for decades and its overseas publication led to him seeing out his later years in western Europe. It is a dystopian novel and one which inspired 1984 among many other works. As such, it follows the tradition of Samuel Butler’s Erewhon and, subsequently, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and all the other dystopian visions that have been expressed.

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Review of John Banville’s Mefisto

John Banville is one of the great contemporary authors and his books are always fascinating and beautiful things to read, albeit that it is not always immediately clear what is really going on or with what freight of meaning the author has loaded the text. Mefisto is his adaptation of the Faustus legend to modern Ireland. A boy, Gabriel Swan, is a talented mathematician far beyond anything his small town parents and neighbourhood can understand or indeed accommodate.

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Review of Ursula K Le Guin’s Lavinia

In the Aeneid, that great pagan Vergil, saved by Dante from the Inferno, places the focus on his eponymous hero and shows how he creates the noble Roman state with humility and respect for the gods despite all of the difficulties he, his family, and his people faced. Not only was there the disaster of Troy and the victory of the Greeks but the seemingly endless maritime voyages also ground down the spirits. Ultimately, it appeared that Carthage would prove to be a safe haven and Aeneus established a relationship with its queen, Dido, with a view to symbolizing that union.

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Review of Norman Stone’s World War I: A Short History

In a world in which it appears that few people have any meaningful understanding of history beyond what is immediately presented to them (and presented almost inevitably through the mediation of ideology), it is not surprising that knowledge of the causes and effects of World War One is so limited. Yet that history is increasingly important in the modern world where it once again seems that new forms of imperial expansion are set to come into conflict with each other. It was imperial rivalry that brought about the war and the global nature of that rivalry meant that its effects spread all around the world with all of their baleful intensity intact.

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Poetry of Shakespeare: The Rape of Lucrece

The Rape of Lucrece is one of Shakespeare’s earlier completed works of poetry and one of the pieces that most established his reputation. The poem itself extends to 1,855 lines organised into the Rhyme (or Rime) Royal structure previously employed by Chaucer: that is, seven line verses in iambic pentameter with a rhyming scheme of ABABBCC.

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Romances of Shakespeare: Pericles, Prince of Tyre

Pericles, Prince of Tyre is one of Shakespeare’s late plays, which are usually grouped together under the term ‘romance.’ The romance plays are characterised by diverse events in numerous different locations and extreme reversals of fortune prior to an ultimate resolution which offers hope for the future, while not denying the misery that has been suffered in the past.

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Romances of Shakespeare: Cymbeline

Cymbeline is generally considered to be the first or at least one of the first of Shakespeare’s late plays which are included in the group of Romances. The Romances are not tragedies because they do not end with terrible events and deaths; however, they are not comedies either because they tend not to end with weddings and celebrations. Instead, they conclude with the resolution of problems and issues brought up by the dramatic action and a new resolve among people to do their best in the future.

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Tragedies of Shakespeare: Timon of Athens

Timon of Athens is a problematic Shakespearian play in that it appears to have been left unfinished and the thrust of its underlying thematic nature is contested. It may have been written at more or less any period of Shakespeare’s career, although its lack of linguistic elegance and complexity suggests an earlier rather than a later period (although this has persuaded some people that this is because it was written someone other than Shakespeare or by him in partnership with someone else). It is one of Shakespeare’s least known, least loved and least performed plays.

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Tragedies of Shakespeare: Coriolanus

Coriolanus is the last written of Shakespeare’s tragedies and the one which most clearly pits the struggle between different classes as being an important part of the reason why things change. In many ways, Coriolanus prefigures Marxist analysis of society and history in that it depicts the conflict between the working classes of Rome with the aristocratic class that Coriolanus depicts as being the reason why things happen.

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Tragedies of Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra

Of all of Shakespeare’s plays, Antony and Cleopatra is the one that probably divides opinions the most. Few people can be sure of whether the two protagonists behave in a defensible way, given that they appear willing to privilege their personal desires over the needs of the people of their nations and empires.

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