The Literary Shed is a very odd site. For "authors writing in sheds" - does any serious writer push the gardening tools aside and squeeze into a shed to put their stuff onto paper? In winter?!
It seems to be a one-person, rather personal project and it isn't very clear what the site is actually trying to achieve. It aims to celebrate "many of the things we love best – words, in any form, the arts, pop culture, food, travel, the sea and the occasional Literary Cat". But I really can't see how pop culture, food or travel have a direct connection with literature (other than as topics for writing of course). And are they what people love best? I have very mixed and somewhat cynical feelings about modern pop culture, whilst many people don't travel and have no interest in doing that either!
As for a "library of scents", that surely belongs to aromatherapy and alternative healing, no relevance to classic literature!
I'm being a bit critical I'm afraid, but I'm not comfortable with woolly-headed thinking and dreamy ideas, doesn't inspire my mind at all.
Hastings Forum
Literary events
Re: Literary events
Which all rather points to the need for a sensible platform rather than a rag-bag, hotch-potch of loose information, which has no structure as a useful entity.
Water water everywhere, Nor any drop to drink...
Water water everywhere, Nor any drop to drink...
Re: Literary events
Very much a hotch-potch, trying to do several different things at once. Not a very focused, effective way of going about things.
Re: Literary events
What inspires you seahermit?
What inspires any 'writer' for that matter?
A lot of literature (Poetry, Plays, Philosophy, Drama) seem to require a fair amount of 'inside knowledge' to interpret the message and it is seen that this can only be learned by some academic diligence.
Shakespeare's works are often examined in schools, in order to learn a fuller meaning and context and although numerous attempts have been made to make them more accessible and to show its 'relevance', they remain obscure and thus irrelevant to many.
Example: 'Verona' set on Venice Beach in Baz Luhrmann’s audacious retelling of Romeo and Juliet, with gang warfare using guns instead of swords, set partly in Miami.
If Literature has a message then we should pay attention but if it is too obscure or complex, then it may fall by the wayside.
Since the modern TV 'Soaps' are easily understood and relate to everyday concerns they command a lot of attention.
Perhaps many very early Greek audiences were able to relate to Plays and Drama, much like the modern 'Soaps' or was such 'Literary expression' just the preserve of the more intellectual few?
I suspect that Playwrights like Shakespeare indeed 'spoke' to the ordinary population at large, at the time they were staged, as did many of the early Greek Plays but that we have shifted in a cultural sense such that they now are seen as 'closed book', albeit with many lessons to be learned for those who can interpret them.
What inspires any 'writer' for that matter?
A lot of literature (Poetry, Plays, Philosophy, Drama) seem to require a fair amount of 'inside knowledge' to interpret the message and it is seen that this can only be learned by some academic diligence.
Shakespeare's works are often examined in schools, in order to learn a fuller meaning and context and although numerous attempts have been made to make them more accessible and to show its 'relevance', they remain obscure and thus irrelevant to many.
Example: 'Verona' set on Venice Beach in Baz Luhrmann’s audacious retelling of Romeo and Juliet, with gang warfare using guns instead of swords, set partly in Miami.
If Literature has a message then we should pay attention but if it is too obscure or complex, then it may fall by the wayside.
Since the modern TV 'Soaps' are easily understood and relate to everyday concerns they command a lot of attention.
Perhaps many very early Greek audiences were able to relate to Plays and Drama, much like the modern 'Soaps' or was such 'Literary expression' just the preserve of the more intellectual few?
I suspect that Playwrights like Shakespeare indeed 'spoke' to the ordinary population at large, at the time they were staged, as did many of the early Greek Plays but that we have shifted in a cultural sense such that they now are seen as 'closed book', albeit with many lessons to be learned for those who can interpret them.
Re: Literary events
Why do I write? Hmm... Been asked this before, this was once an answer I came up with.
Quirky Poet
Never meant to be a poet,
Wrote some limericks one night.
Drunken friends rolled up with laughter
And I thought “Well, that’s alright!”
So one verse lead to another,
Odes and ballads and the rest.
But I found when I was bitchy
That my jokes were at their best.
Now I scribble in the small hours
Getting hungry, getting dry.
Bloody writing’s my obsession
But there’s no sane reason why.
It’s a certain kind of madness,
Maybe doctors have a word.
I just have to vent my venom
Even if it’s never heard.
For we’re plagued by politicians,
Council goons and other pests,
Parking wardens like the Stasi,
Yet we somehow do our best
In this shambles of a country
To earn money and survive,
Though the bureaucrats and quangos
Tell us how to run our lives.
There are times when I am calmer,
Short on victims I can maul.
So I muse upon existence,
Themes that echo with us all.
But my verse, said smiley Tara,
Has a sort of quirky strain.
You may love my words regardless,
Others think I’m quite insane!
©AF
2018
Quirky Poet
Never meant to be a poet,
Wrote some limericks one night.
Drunken friends rolled up with laughter
And I thought “Well, that’s alright!”
So one verse lead to another,
Odes and ballads and the rest.
But I found when I was bitchy
That my jokes were at their best.
Now I scribble in the small hours
Getting hungry, getting dry.
Bloody writing’s my obsession
But there’s no sane reason why.
It’s a certain kind of madness,
Maybe doctors have a word.
I just have to vent my venom
Even if it’s never heard.
For we’re plagued by politicians,
Council goons and other pests,
Parking wardens like the Stasi,
Yet we somehow do our best
In this shambles of a country
To earn money and survive,
Though the bureaucrats and quangos
Tell us how to run our lives.
There are times when I am calmer,
Short on victims I can maul.
So I muse upon existence,
Themes that echo with us all.
But my verse, said smiley Tara,
Has a sort of quirky strain.
You may love my words regardless,
Others think I’m quite insane!
©AF
2018
Re: Literary events
Seriously though, there is a lot of literature which does not at all require inside knowledge to interpret - what mystery is there about Romeo and Juliet? It is a straightforward but powerful storyline, easy to understand and relevant to any era, for that reason it has been possible to re-interpret it in the form of modern musicals and some wonderful films.
Greek plays are not inaccessible - they are likewise fairly simple plots (though woven into powerful dramas) which were performed before large audiences of ordinary people (look at the great size of surviving amphitheatres), certainly not for an elite few.
The difficulty with Shakespeare, Greek plays and any other older literature from a previous era is of course the language and the inclusion of archaic terms. But it just requires a bit of effort and studying the meaning of the old words and phrases - I can't remember any time when i had a problem with Shakespeare, loved it and I still have a few favourite speeches which I can recite!
Unfortunately, a lot of people are somewhat lazy these days - that's why they are addicted to soaps, because the dialogue and the plots are so simple that audiences don't need to do any thinking for themselves. I hate soaps - a celebration of all that is trivial and mundane in life!
Greek plays are not inaccessible - they are likewise fairly simple plots (though woven into powerful dramas) which were performed before large audiences of ordinary people (look at the great size of surviving amphitheatres), certainly not for an elite few.
The difficulty with Shakespeare, Greek plays and any other older literature from a previous era is of course the language and the inclusion of archaic terms. But it just requires a bit of effort and studying the meaning of the old words and phrases - I can't remember any time when i had a problem with Shakespeare, loved it and I still have a few favourite speeches which I can recite!
Unfortunately, a lot of people are somewhat lazy these days - that's why they are addicted to soaps, because the dialogue and the plots are so simple that audiences don't need to do any thinking for themselves. I hate soaps - a celebration of all that is trivial and mundane in life!
Re: Literary events
Part of the problem is that some subjects are taught badly at school. History was too remote dull and boring for me but now pieces of it fit together better and become interesting.
Shakespeare is remote too and not always easy to understand, okay so Romeo and Juliet may strike a chord, tied up as it is with gang warfare between the Montague's and Capulet's and can easily be dramatized in more modem forms to suit a contemporary audience.
Others maybe not so.
As for Greek literature, this is dismissed out of hand by many seeing it as even more remote and left untouched by the vast majority of modern educational establishments, learning classics tends to be restricted to the privileged few.
Although there are many examples or ordinary people striving to learn about the Classics, as portrayed by Thomas Hardy's 'Jude The Obscure'.
Classical authors are numerous: Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics, Plutarch’s Lives, Homer, Hesiod, Virgil, Aeschylus’s Prometheus and Oresteia, Sophocles’ Oedipus, Euripides’ Medea, Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy and many more.
It is true to say that many famous literary figures have used their skills in order to draw inspiration and make more accessible the works of Greek playwrights. Pope’s early 18th-century translations of the Iliad and Odyssey brought Homer to a far larger audience, including women, than ever had access to an elite education.
The Irish playwright Bernard Shaw chose Pygmalion as the title for his drama about a cockney girls shaped into a well-spoken lady from rough beginnings, loosely drawn from Ovid's Metamorphoses. The famous Greek legend, king Pygmalion, who was also a sculptor, carved a statue of his ideal woman and named it Galatea.
There are also numerous films based on Greek Drama:
Aeschylus (Oedipus Rex)
Sophocles (Elektra, Antigone)
Euripides (The Women of Troy, Medea, Phaedra, Dionysus)
Aristophanes (Daughters of Destiny)
Almost everyone will have heard the expression 'Cloud cuckoo land' without realising that it derived from Aristophanes, a Greek playwright, who wrote and directed a drama The Birds, first performed in 414 BC, in which Pisthetaerus, a middle-aged Athenian, persuades the world's birds to create a new city in the sky to be named Nubicuculia or Cloud Cuckoo Land , thereby gaining control over all communications between men and gods.
Shakespeare is remote too and not always easy to understand, okay so Romeo and Juliet may strike a chord, tied up as it is with gang warfare between the Montague's and Capulet's and can easily be dramatized in more modem forms to suit a contemporary audience.
Others maybe not so.
As for Greek literature, this is dismissed out of hand by many seeing it as even more remote and left untouched by the vast majority of modern educational establishments, learning classics tends to be restricted to the privileged few.
Although there are many examples or ordinary people striving to learn about the Classics, as portrayed by Thomas Hardy's 'Jude The Obscure'.
Classical authors are numerous: Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics, Plutarch’s Lives, Homer, Hesiod, Virgil, Aeschylus’s Prometheus and Oresteia, Sophocles’ Oedipus, Euripides’ Medea, Herodotus, Thucydides, Livy and many more.
It is true to say that many famous literary figures have used their skills in order to draw inspiration and make more accessible the works of Greek playwrights. Pope’s early 18th-century translations of the Iliad and Odyssey brought Homer to a far larger audience, including women, than ever had access to an elite education.
The Irish playwright Bernard Shaw chose Pygmalion as the title for his drama about a cockney girls shaped into a well-spoken lady from rough beginnings, loosely drawn from Ovid's Metamorphoses. The famous Greek legend, king Pygmalion, who was also a sculptor, carved a statue of his ideal woman and named it Galatea.
There are also numerous films based on Greek Drama:
Aeschylus (Oedipus Rex)
Sophocles (Elektra, Antigone)
Euripides (The Women of Troy, Medea, Phaedra, Dionysus)
Aristophanes (Daughters of Destiny)
Almost everyone will have heard the expression 'Cloud cuckoo land' without realising that it derived from Aristophanes, a Greek playwright, who wrote and directed a drama The Birds, first performed in 414 BC, in which Pisthetaerus, a middle-aged Athenian, persuades the world's birds to create a new city in the sky to be named Nubicuculia or Cloud Cuckoo Land , thereby gaining control over all communications between men and gods.
Re: Literary events
Maybe I was lucky but I don't remember teachers being particularly outstanding. They must have been competent because history always fascinated me - a lot of lessons to be learnt from the past, including that human nature hasn't changed one jot.
I'm afraid I loved the Classics too! Had a whole bookshelf of translations at home (some I had to study in the original Greek!). I read Herodotus several times - fascinating (and often funny) long anecdotes about the exploits of kings and peasants.
How Greek drama is presented to a modern audience has to be handled with great care. I once saw an Aeschylus play performed in an "authentic" manner, i.e. all the cast wearing masks (which is what used to happen) and the Chorus (group of male actors) chanting long passages in monotnous diatribes. I hated it, it didn't work at all, the meaning of the drama got buried by the archaic presentation and had no relevance to a modern era.
But look at the many films based on ancient Greek stories of heros and adventurers - a mixed bag and the less successful ones often have a slightly comic air about them! But some have been excellent with famous actors and have brought the past to a huge audience which otherwise would have enjoyed no experience of the historical or fictional past.
I'm afraid I loved the Classics too! Had a whole bookshelf of translations at home (some I had to study in the original Greek!). I read Herodotus several times - fascinating (and often funny) long anecdotes about the exploits of kings and peasants.
How Greek drama is presented to a modern audience has to be handled with great care. I once saw an Aeschylus play performed in an "authentic" manner, i.e. all the cast wearing masks (which is what used to happen) and the Chorus (group of male actors) chanting long passages in monotnous diatribes. I hated it, it didn't work at all, the meaning of the drama got buried by the archaic presentation and had no relevance to a modern era.
But look at the many films based on ancient Greek stories of heros and adventurers - a mixed bag and the less successful ones often have a slightly comic air about them! But some have been excellent with famous actors and have brought the past to a huge audience which otherwise would have enjoyed no experience of the historical or fictional past.
Re: Literary events
I think that the lesson to be drawn from the Greeks, from their experiments with democracy, is that many parts of the current world are still existing under basic, ancient, tribal ruler-ship and that efforts to help them with 'humanitarian' aid and attempts to modernize them by the western world are doomed to failure.
A good 'Rule' is sometimes better than a 'democracy' thwarted by rigged Polls and threats of violence if the population attempt to vote for a Party that is seen as likely to usurp the rulers in power.
Saudi Arabia, among others, is a country that rules by no democracy at all.
Greek Plays and Drama and philosophy are all very well if their freedoms of expression are allowed but even if they are it is seen that many truly 'democratic' countries yet struggle to understand their contribution.
A good 'Rule' is sometimes better than a 'democracy' thwarted by rigged Polls and threats of violence if the population attempt to vote for a Party that is seen as likely to usurp the rulers in power.
Saudi Arabia, among others, is a country that rules by no democracy at all.
Greek Plays and Drama and philosophy are all very well if their freedoms of expression are allowed but even if they are it is seen that many truly 'democratic' countries yet struggle to understand their contribution.
Re: Literary events
Human nature does not change and history repeats itself.
The Greek democracies were destroyed in part by the realities of the outside world i.e. the power politics of a rising militant state, Macedonia, also by materialism and internal divisions. The same happens today. Modern democracies are under constant threat from other states with different political constitutions and a different set of moral principles.
Saudi Arabia is not actually the best example! For some years there has been a growing pressure for reform from within and without, some small but significant changes have already taken place and other promises made.for the future.
Part of the reason for the pressure is that the Saudi Arabian economy is under threat. Whilst there is plenty of wealth at present, oil income has plummeted, the state reserves have shrunk and the ruling family are well aware that, in the long run, economic woes would open the door to further political unrest and protest. Better for now to release a safety valve and allow some small freedoms .. but look at what happened in the USSR. Once you start going down that road, the pressure for change becomes unstoppable. There gave already been political upheavals and protests across the Middle East (albeit that for now the needle has swung back towards authoritarian rule in sone countries).
But nothing stands still and there will more protest in Egypt, Iran, Syria, Tunisia .. the Saudi Arabian rulers must have watched the upheavals of the last few years, in fear of an unexpected demand for political change bursting out overnight and changing everything.
The Greek democracies were destroyed in part by the realities of the outside world i.e. the power politics of a rising militant state, Macedonia, also by materialism and internal divisions. The same happens today. Modern democracies are under constant threat from other states with different political constitutions and a different set of moral principles.
Saudi Arabia is not actually the best example! For some years there has been a growing pressure for reform from within and without, some small but significant changes have already taken place and other promises made.for the future.
Part of the reason for the pressure is that the Saudi Arabian economy is under threat. Whilst there is plenty of wealth at present, oil income has plummeted, the state reserves have shrunk and the ruling family are well aware that, in the long run, economic woes would open the door to further political unrest and protest. Better for now to release a safety valve and allow some small freedoms .. but look at what happened in the USSR. Once you start going down that road, the pressure for change becomes unstoppable. There gave already been political upheavals and protests across the Middle East (albeit that for now the needle has swung back towards authoritarian rule in sone countries).
But nothing stands still and there will more protest in Egypt, Iran, Syria, Tunisia .. the Saudi Arabian rulers must have watched the upheavals of the last few years, in fear of an unexpected demand for political change bursting out overnight and changing everything.
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