culture. education. literary studies.
In response to a recent question from several of my students, hereโs a grammar post about two confusing verbs: lie and lay. (Actually, itโs three verbs, but weโll come to that later.) TO LAY โTo layโ means to put something down. It is followed by a direct object, i.e. itโs a transitive verbโafter it we …
In this post weโll travel to the time of the English Renaissance, with a jolly little music piece written by Thomas Morley. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, Morley (1557โ1602) was a true Renaissance figure: a composer, organist, music theoristโฆ It was largely thanks to him that the Italian madrigals became so popular in England, adding …
Continue reading "‘Now Is the Month of Maying’ by Thomas Morley"
The poem presented in this post is titled โIn Aprilโ. Written by the celebrated Austrian poet Rainer Maria Rilke (1875โ1926), it was first published in 1902, in the collection of poems The Book of Images (orig. Das Buch der Bilder). Rainer Maria Rilke Rilke was known and is still much appreciated for his way with …
William Carlos Williams (1883โ1963) was one of the most important American poets of the 20th century: a modernist of the imagist kind, he was known for using simple and colloquial language to express his ideasโa feature many critics now consider typical of modern American poetry. This can be contrasted with the modernists such as T. …
Continue reading "‘Spring Storm’ by William Carlos Williams"
grammaticus 