european

This is a review of "De Oratore" books I-II and "De Oratore" book III in the Loeb Classical Library.

Marcus Tullius Cicero may not have been the greatest trial lawyer of ancient Rome, but he is the best remembered. He wrote much on many subjects, and some of his private correspondence also survives. He did his best writing in the field of rhetoric. Although he was not an original thinker on the subject of rhetoric, "De Oratore" shows him to have had an encyclopedic practical knowledge of oratory in general and criminal trial advocacy in particular.

Cicero wrote "De Oratore" as a dialog among some of the preeminent orators of the era immediately preceding Cicero's time. The occasion is a holiday at a country villa, and the characters discuss all facets of oratory, ceremonial, judicial, and deliberative. They devote most of the discussion to judicial oratory, and their discussion reveals the trial of a Roman lawsuit to be somewhat analogous to the trial of a modern lawsuit. You have to piece it together from stray references to procedure scattered throughout the work, but it appears that a Roman trial consisted of opening statements, the taking of evidence, and final arguments. Modern trial advocacy manuals devote most of their attention to the taking of evidence, but Cicero dismisses the mechanics of presenting evidence as relatively unimportant compared to the mechanics of presenting argument.

"De Oratore" is divided into three books. The first speaks of the qualities of the orator; the second of judicial oratory, and the third of ceremonial and deliberative oratory. The modern trial lawyer would find the second book most interesting and most enlightening. A lot about trial advocacy has changed since Cicero's day (e.g. no more testimony taken under torture), but a lot hasn't.. Much of what Cicero says holds true even in the modern courtroom.

Trial lawyers cannot congregate without swapping "war stories," and Cicero's characters are no exception. They pepper their discussion with references to courtroom incidents which have such verisimilitude that they could have happened last week instead of 2,000 years ago. I have no doubt that Cicero, had he lived today, would have made a formidable trial lawyer.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of "De Oratore" consists of two volumes. Volume one contains Books I and II of "De Oratore," and volume two contains Book III along with two shorter philosphical works and "De Partitione Oratoria." "De Partitione" purports to be a discussion between Cicero and his son on oratory. "De Partitione" differs so much from "De Oratore," that many (myself included) doubt Cicero wrote it.

When I was in law school at the University of Florida back in the 70's, our student bar association raised money by selling "looms" on the law courses. Looms were the typed up notes of the students who made the highest grades in each of the classes. Looms were clear, concise statements of the essentials of a course without all the extraneous verbiage that creeps into didactic presentation.

"Rhetorica ad Herennium" reads like a loom. It states its points in clear, concise language without elaboration. The points are well made and highly relevant to the subject of persuasive oratory.

You might well describe "Rhetorica" as an ancient handbook on the subject of arguing a criminal case to a jury. At some trial advocacy school I attended sometime during my career as a lawyer, I learned a basic outline for delivering a final argument. You can imagine my amusement when I learned that this basic outline came from a 2,000 year old book. That isn't the only part of the book applicable to the modern courtroom.

The ancient rhetorician was to be skilled in five areas: 1. Invention: Deciding what to say. 2. Arrangment: Deciding what order to say it in. 3. Style: Saying it well. 4. Memory: Remembering what to say. 5. Delivery: The nonverbals that accompany speech.

"Rhetorica" consists of four books arranged as follows:

Books I & II cover Invention, especially as it relates to Judicial or Forensic Rhetoric, giving an analysis as timely as an article from last week's law journal. Although the technology of rhetoric has changed markedly since the days of Cicero, the general principles of rhetoric haven't changed much at all.

Book III takes up Ceremonial and Deliberative Rhetoric and also deals with Arrangement, Delivery, and Memory.

Book IV, which proves the most tedious, deals with Style.

I think this is one of the best books on public speaking I have ever read. It is clear and concise. The author lays out what you are to know and do very well. I would recommend Ad Herennium to anyone. I am really glad my 10th grade Rhetoric teacher made me read this!!!

According to the introduction of Jackson Mathews, translator, Valery saw everything from the point of view of intellect. He was preoccupied with the pursuit of consciousness. The conscious mind was his obsessive center. Valery reports he had a reckless desire to understand. He says that writing requires a sacrifice of the intellect. In the novel MONSIEUR TESTE it is stated that a superior man is a man who has deceived himself. The character tries to seek out inner masterpieces amid the brilliance of published discoveries.

My introduction to this work occurred years ago when I was a college student. I half understood the French in which the class was conducted. I struggled. I surmised the work was brilliant through the lecturer's description. I now ratify that judgment. The work MONSIEUR TESTE is filled with arresting ideas. The narrator in the story seeks to know Monsieur Teste, to copy him. He is careful not to classify him among the mad.

Monsieur Teste says that he is at home in himself. In his room there is not a book in sight. There is a strong impression of the ordinary. Valery portrays a great refusal similar to my mind of that undertaken by Marcel Duchamp who in the latter years of his life refused to practice his art and only played chess. In fact there is a reference to chess in this work. Valery's work dates from 1896, predating, of course, the shape of the artistic career pursued by Marcel Duchamp.

Madame Teste describes her husband's moods as uncertain. She reports that their priest has compassion for Monsieur Teste, for a man so isolated. He says the Monsieur Teste's faces are innumerable. He believes that Monsieur Teste is cut off from both good and evil.

In his log book Monsieur Teste notes that he is not made for novels or plays. His goal seems to be an individual regulated by his own powers of thought. It is observed that in Paris the French have stored all of their ideas in one enclosure. In Paris there is a great concentration of literature, the sciences, the arts and politics. The chaos of a multitude of minds is tiring. "[S]uperiority is merely a solitude situated at the present limit of a species." Monsieur Teste is the man who thinks continually.

Up until a rather mature age Monsieur Teste is not aware of the singularity of his mind. He states he is not turned toward the world. His face is to the wall. An intellectual's end is a funeral march of thought. A snap shot from the notebooks yields the notion that admiration for genius is due to attributing to it the power of working miracles without fatigue. Another thought set out is that of trying to describe a man camped in his life.

It is asserted that there is no perfect correspondence between feelings and the verbal-conceptual system. Monsieur Teste thinks his mind is partly instinctive, partly scientific. His quickness of thought is in accord with absention from action he observes. Intelligence is the power of substitution. The mind moves by images. Images and change are inseparable. Education leads to including onself with others.

The most agonizing punishment to be imposed on anyone is to treat him with rigorous objectivity. The brain, too much occupied internally, deals brutally with external things. Monsieur Teste is a mystic and a physicist of self-awareness. The statement that the isolated eye amuses itself gives a flavor of the book. Notes are found at the back of the book.

This book gives us what paul Valery thinks, and what he thinks is the forgotten basis of many thoughts

This book contains some of the most inspiring prose written in this century, in a truly incomparable translation. it doesn't get much better than this. READ IT

Having read all three parts of the Divine Comedy; then examining this reference book/work, i.e., The Dante Encyclopedia (Special - Reference) by Richard Lansing(Editor), Teodolinda Barolini(Editor) was a natural conclusion. The Encyclopedia is divided into 13 parts; starting with a well written and entertaining preface; then we have a few pages of abbreviations; which is followed by the list of contributors (which is a nice touch and shows the user, that undertaking this task , i.e., creating The Dante Encyclopedia (Special - Reference) by Richard Lansing(Editor), Teodolinda Barolini(Editor) was indeed a daunting task). Later with have maps and illustrations and then the encyclopedia starts. I was very interested in the chronology of the life of Dante and then there is a list of popes from 33-1334, followed by Roman and Holy Roman Emperors. Furthermore there are four quite interesting additions; these being, Recorded musical settings of the comedia, reference works, index of Italian and Latin proper names in Dante's Works and finally (and last but not least by any means or stretch of the imagination in any shape or form for that matter) is the general index. I would verily say, state and write that I was extremely pleased, impressed and satisfied with this encyclopedia, i.e., The Dante Encyclopedia (Special - Reference) by Richard Lansing(Editor), Teodolinda Barolini(Editor) and I do consider to be a must have for the learned man/scholar.

Prof. Richard Lansing's Dante Encyclopedia is a reference work of deep interest, wide scope, and unimpeachable authority. General readers, students, and scholars--especially those who are English-based--are bound to make this volume their Dante reference of choice. Hundreds of clear, intelligent, and up-to-date entries from today's best-respected Dante scholars discuss every person and place mentioned in Dante's works as well as a vast number of biographical, historical, and cultural topics. The encyclopedia will appeal to anyone who is looking for a better appreciation of the poet's background, achievement, and critical legacy.

The maps and schematic drawings at the beginning of the encyclopedia are the best of their kind. The text is interspersed with an abundance of fine photographs and illustrations. Appended to the work are a detailed and reliable chronology of the poet's life, useful lists of the popes and emperors, a chronology of musical settings of Dante's Comedy, a list of available recordings of these settings, a list of reference works (including electronic resources), a complete pronouncing index, with textual citations, of the Italian and Latin proper names used by Dante, and an exhaustive index of subjects and illustrations.

So big, so accurate and comprehensive, the Dante Encyclopedia completely supersedes its predecessors and promises to remain authoritative for many years. No college or university, no lover of poetry and world literature will want to be without it.

A fantastic accomplishment! As a longtime Dante enthusiast, I have been waiting for something in English (my Italian not being up to snuff yet) that combines breadth with depth.

As my own metric, I like to pick a topic that is not altogether esoteric and that is the subject of at least several competing theories. In studying Dante, that topic for me is numerology. I was especially pleased to read the article on numerology because the Dante Encyclopedia fairly explained the competing theories on the use of numerology by Dante. Never have I seen one source that provides the in-depth overview that this book does. For the serious student of the classics, this is a must-have! Gracie! And bravo!

The Inferno is a record of Dante the Pilgrim's first trip through hell. It was Virgil's second. This was my fifth trip through the Inferno, and having Musa along for the ride made it wonderful. Whether this is your first time through or not, you ought to have this critical edition as your guide. As another reviewer noted, Musa isn't nearly as fettered by the rhyme scheme as translators like John Ciardi and Robert Pinsky. Even Ciardi apologizes often for his liberties in the name of rhyme. Musa has gorgeous footnotes on lines that Pinsky and Ciardi neglect for the rhyme. If you have the great fortune to teach the Inferno, it makes great sense, of course to have multiple translations before you, but Musa's critical edition will be the most weathered edition in the end. Your students will gain a great understanding of the importance at looking at multiple sources as well.

Musa is a scholar, not a poet, at least not professionally. But the authenticities of his translation's thunder, juices, epiphanies, and whiffs would indicate that scholarship makes a successful move to a new language more probable than do poetic gifts. Dante, now, was a poet. The infinite riches of his simple simple lines glow from each line of Musa's. While the essential deep love for the poem glows from each line of his commentary. Pinsky, a very good poet, spent his powers on reproducing the virtually unreproducible--the never-ending aba bcb cdc terza rima rhyme scheme. And he did an expert job. But the poetry is the loser. It's in the back seat, trying to stay awake. The real surprise is how careless Pinsky's rhythms are. Musa's pound right along-a fairly consistent, and unobtrusive, iambic pentameter. Dante, of course, rhymes and rhymes and rhymes, but always to profoundest purpose. (It is said he wrote three lines a day. The deeper one goes into the Commedia the easier it is to believe this.) What rhymes with what was clearly something Dante cared a lot about. Take Inferno 34, 34-39. Dante's final six words (and I should point out that my Italian is very limited) for these six lines are: UGLY, EYEBROW, SORROW/ WONDER, HEAD, RED. Pinsky's are: beautiful, brows, well/ was, head, this. Musa's: foul, Maker, him/ up, faces, red. The parallels the rhymes convey, as I see it, are these. Lucifer, now UGLY, is the source of the world's SORROW. (Musa faithfully pairs "foul" and "all grief should spring from him." Pinsky pairs "beautiful" (reversing Dante's careful sequence of beautiful to ugly) with "then all sorrow may well" which depends on the next line to mean anything, which sort of weakens the parallel: Like saying 1 plus 1 = 1.2 and uh oh another eight tenths.) And the second parallel: Lucifer, whose fall to hell began with the raising of an insolent EYEBROW, has become hideous, a three-headed WONDER. From beautiful to UGLY, from the happiness of Eden to a world of SORROW. Musa's "Maker"/"looked up" is admittedly not terrific. Pinsky's "brows"/"How great a marvel it was" is more successful. But compare the two translations' net impact. If you saw what Dante saw, and he was very much writing so that you would, which set of lines below would better convey your reaction?

"If he was truly once as beautiful / As he is ugly now, and raised his brows / Against his Maker--than all sorrow may well /

Come out of him. How great a marvel it was / For me to see three faces on his head: / In front there was a red one; joined to this, /

. . . "

"If he was once as fair as now he's foul / and dared to raise his brows against his Maker, / it is fitting that all grief should spring from him. /

Oh, how amazed I was when I looked up / and saw a head--one head wearing three faces! / One was in front (and that was a bright red)."

The Inferno is a book that everybody should read (if they can even read). Mark Musa translates Dante's original pros. into a cloak wheel which is very easy for almost anybody understand. The poetry is lost(as with any translation), but the story Dante will tell shall live forever.

helen luke is dead now but i wish she wasn't. this
is the best book i ever found about dante. if dante's
comedy seems a mystery to you, if it seems hard to
reach, or if it seems like it has nothing to say to us
now, you need this book. helen luke used dante's poetry
to write a magnificent jungian deconstruction of growth
and love. it makes everything simple. it is magnificent.
i was interested to see that she liked dorothy sayers'
translations (of all the dante translations that there
are) the best. if you have this book, you don't need
any other growth book, you don't need any other literary
analysis of the comedy. she knew dante very well.

This marvellous book opens up Danteland for the contemporary reader. Helen Luke's masterful guidance on the paths of Dante's three-tiered cosmos not only helps us to reenter and relish the Divine Comedy - the towering literary achievement of the medieval imagination - but to use it to enter deeper levels of reality through meditation and active imagination. I have based deeply moving group meditations on this, along the lines of those decribed in my own book "Dreamgates", and we have found that Dante's gates can actually take us into imaginal realms that people appear to inhabit after physical death. As the life dreamer she was, Helen Luke reminds us of the way the radiant guide keeps calling the seeker through dreams, which are so often ignored or forgotten until the BIG moment of spiritual trial and eventual initiation. I would recommend using the middle section of the book in tandem with W.S.Merwin's excellent recent translation of the "Purgatorio", which is more readable than the older versions quoted by Ms. Luke.

The moment I saw the references to Charles Williams and Dorothy L. Sayers I was hooked. Culturely familiar with, but never having studied, Dante's poem, I had always understood it as an allegory of life after death. Wrong! The intersections between Dante's journey as portrayed by Helen Luke and portions of my spiritual journey were intense, meaningful, detailed -- and totally unexpected. The reality of the passage through Hell and Purgatory in this life points to the hope of a portion of the feast to come also in this life. It is not an easy read, but I found myself unable to put it down -- except when the power of a passage would so resonate in me I had to pause to mark it and reflect on it.

At the end of the Nineteenth Century, the theme of decadence, decay and perversion permeated the literature. Was it a reflection of a society gone soft, or were artists commenting on a deeper, more insidious type of rot? Thomas Mann used a tuberculosis sanitorium as a setting for a novel that symbolized a moribund society soon to be wracked by the death throes of the Great War. In England, Oscar Wilde celebrated the perverse and in the US, Poe explored the world of death and excessive mourning, rather like our current "goth" fad.

In France, a number of writers used the same themes of decay and decadence to comment on the world. In this collection of 12 novellas and short stories, editor Asti Hustvedt collects significant but minor works that illustrate the obsessions of the Fin-de-Siècle. Some of the works are obscure but worthy, and a few are stunning in their craft. Each work is introduced by the translator, with notes and commentary.

In particular, I found two of the works in this volume absolutely compelling. "Monsieur Vènus" written by Rachilde (pseudonym of Marguérite Eymery) is an exploration of sexual reversal, perversion and hints at BDSM. The fact it was written by a woman, one extremely young, is a shocking look into a mind formed with definite and individualistic sexual ideas in youth. The end is shocking.

J-K Huysmans is better-known. The editor includes a minor work of great artist skill "The Haven" explores decadent naturalism. The setting is a country chateau, and the main characters a Parisian couple, who are evading creditors and their peasant relations who offer then the haven at the farm and chateau while they regroup. But the wife is suffering from what is obviously later-stage syphilis and the hearty peasants make a living as parasites off the inept Parisians. While the superficial world is one of cattle, rustic café brawls and mud, the inner world is explored in a series of vivid nightmares, mixing sexual and necrophilic imagery. The internal state of mind of the main character is explored with amazing psychological detail and the end, though mundane and flat, leaves the reader wondering what horrors lie ahead for the hapless couple. The volume is worth having for this work alone.

I spent several months reading this fantastic collection of many previously hard-to-find texts, finally brought together in one nicely packaged volume. It's by far the best of its kind that I've seen yet, and there aren't many decadent collections out there -- Dedalus usually has the market cornered for that type of thing. For me, the highlight was "The Future Eve" by Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, a book I've been trying to get for ages. Finding a translation of this obscure, science fiction-decadent novel at all was a delight. Villiers writes of a fictional Thomas Edison who constucts an android for a young lord who finds that his lady love's soul doesn't match her beautiful exterior. However, the marvellously constructed and realistic android (which makes me think of Metropolis, but this was written 40 years earlier!) proves to be almost too 'real' for him as well...the decadent ideal for a woman, in this and other works, is always unobtainable; corpses and statues are easier to deal with.

Each book or collection of stories in this volume is prefaced by an informative, scholarly essay on topics ranging from fetishism to hysteria, including historical information revelant to the texts. Disease, murder, necrophilia, incest, decay, obsession, prostitution, occultism, cruel women, corrupted innocence...J.K. Huysmans remarked that the end of every century is the same, and as we watch another century turn these are all still relevant ideas that have the ability to shock and disturb. Although presented here in translation, the lush, ornate language is preserved -- I like that kind of thing, but if you prefer your literature spare and unadorned, the decadents probably seem very ridiculous.

One of the best things about this book is that it could serve as both as introduction to the genre, or a sourcebook for the completist who has read all the classics and wants to dig a little deeper into the dark world of decadence. If you've read Huysmans, Baudelaire, Mirbeau or any of the other writers whose works are usually still in print and want more...this is the book for you. If you've never heard of any of these writers, but the description sounds interesting -- this is the place to start!

This book is a fantastic buy, it's huge and many of the stories are rare and unlikely to be found anywhere else. Perhaps the best collection of pure evil literature, full of incest, drug addiction, criminals, murder, sexual deviants, perverts, and lots of mind-bending, disturbing imagery, it has it all. Following where Baudelaire left off, these writer's plunge deep down into pure, horrific perversity ; sinking to the very bottom, searching out the morbid, hidden depthes of the tormented soul ; and then, instead of shrieking hystericaly and running away, they actually embrace the diseased mind, and use depravity as the ideal weapon for fighting conformity and the upper-classes. They took pleasure in sickness. Anything un-natural and therefore different could be used as an antidote against the bourgeois position of complete homogenity. The ideas and subject matter is much like that found in Huysmans's novel 'Against Nature' , long considered the decadent bible, and in fact includes an excellent, little known novel by him - 'A Haven'. Be warned though, this is dangerous, subversive writeing at it's best ; as you read these stories your own mind might start to decay and fall off in putrid, foul smelling chunks. It also has contributions by Guy de Maupassant, Jean Lorrain, Octave Mirbeau, and many other important writer's. A MUST for any fan of great literature, reading these feverish, degenerate stories will test your sanity, and perhaps even pollute some soul's with it's depravity...

No one who wants to have a fair outlook of the whole political reflexions of Machiavelli, might get it without reading "Discourses.." (Discorsi...). There the reader will find another kind of Machiavelli. Not The Prince's, but another thinker. Deeper and broader, the main topic rather than how to get the power (as along The Prince), is now how to stabilize it. Livy's work is just a motive for Machiavelli's analizes. So, the frequent reference to ancient Greek or Roman history, serves as comparative model regarding the actual Italian and the lager European exuberant political universe. Instead the prince needed to unify Italy and set it free from foreing powers, the central figure is a republic capable to keep liberty alive and a "virtuosa" social life, in terms of participation in the power exercise. Most of the conclusions keep still today a wise validity. That's why after "Discourses..." (albeit it seems The Prince was written in the middle of the former's one composition years) one can talk rightly about a "republican" Machiavelli. If he was not father, at least he was uncle (a bright one) of the since many years called "protective republicanism". In few words: the book put in evidence his very scope and stature. Doubtless, "Discourses..." show us another kind of Machiavelli. Different from the often known one. But still more, different than the ignored one (although ignorance never has been and impediment for many people to speak improperly about "Machiavelli", "machiavellism" and "machiavellic".)

The Romans believed that they had reached the pinnacle of development & the success of their Empire at its height certainly testified to that view. However, Machiavelli points out the strengths & weaknesses of their Political, Moral & Philosophical stance, stating where these pillars of their society shifted & how they contributed to its demise.

A careful translation, in modern English, of the Italian classic by Machiavelli. The translation strives for both accuracy and clarity, and the result is a modern English translation that never stoops to colloquial abstraction. The short introductory essay provides a helpful start for exploration of a complex work. The index of proper names, and the glossary (providing the translated Italian word beside the English) is thorough and very useful. In addition, the print quality of this book is delightful, particularly the visually appealing layout and typesetting, which makes the volume a pleasure to read, and a wonderful change from the paucity of visual design that goes into many versions of classics. This is a quality edition you'll want to add to your library, in either the hardcover or paperback versions. Recommended for anyone who would like to broaden their understanding of Machiavelli beyond The Prince.

For anyone interested in learning more or learning for the first time about the Aztecs, this book is highly recommended. As mentioned by the other reviewer, it is filled with so many high quality art pictures and is very effective in describing the history, beliefs and rituals of this great empire. Someone stole my book, but I'm going to buy it again. It's that good.

This a handy little book that can be taken with you anywhere, it is smaller than an average man's hand. It's an excellent source book for covering the the rise and fall of the Mexica(Aztec) civilization. The illustrations are wonderful reproductions of some of the most famous paintings of the conquest, including many from the murals of Diego Rivera. The paper is thick stock and fact filled with little commentary that is conjecture. The strength of this reference book is that it has many rarely seen pictures from an assortment of codexes and the reproductions are superb. Some are small but the quality remains so as to distinquish what you are looking at without any problem. The color in the illustrations is great and very much as the originals. Every page has at least one picture and most have numerous. It is visually stimulating to see as you read the history. Another strength of the book is that it has one third dedicated to documents. The conquest is retold, again, in a series of original documents, dating from the time period being discussed, most of which are primary documents. Anyone interested in Mexico and it's history will benefit from this book. Also anyone interested in art will enjoy the collection of illustrations throughout book. This is an excellent, little, wealth of information waiting for the student of Mexican history.

This was a very helpful book in understanding the Aztec civilization and culture, and the spanish conquest. The illustrations are very helpful and the judgements are sparse and generally fair.

Even though it lacks the details of bigger books such as Udi Levy's "The Lost Civilization of Petra" (a hardback book), it doesn't mean it lacks details altogether! I found this book to be a great source of information while I was travelling since it is small and stocked full of info on Petra, the Nabateans, and more.

This book is loaded with colorful well-photographed pictures and lithographs, and lively-written text which makes reading it a breeze. I fit this book in my back pocket while in Petra and pulled it out to get details on things like the great cisterns and the waterway through the main siq. The section at the end of the book on modern plans to try and preserve Petra's vulnerable sandstone is very interesting... Electophoresis?!?! Wow!

The book wraps up everything with a chronology at the end and a list of Nabataea's kings. A very enjoyable and informative read considering its small size... Big things do come in small packages!

Semitic name, Reqem or Raqmu, is said to mean 'striped,' or 'multicolored,' a reference to the extraodinary range of colors of its sandstone. Monuments carved into living rock may seem indesructible, yet the site is threatened by natural erosion nd by the neglect of centuries. Today, remedies are being explored to halt this deterioration."(Page 114). What a way to complete the most detailed history of Petra, by indicating the preservation needed to protect Petra for posterity.
Putting the "cart before the horse" I just have to marvel (before I neglect to mention) that this book includes a helpful chronology of events at the very back of the book.
"Petra...the name is said to come from the Greek word for stone, or rock, since the city itself was hollowed out of the rock. But it may just as well have come from the Arabic batara, meaning to cut or hew, since the city was actually carved from rock... perhaps this is even the better etymology, since this was a place cut off from the rest of the world. --Nabil Naoum, Le Chateau de la princesse (The Castle of the Princes), from Petra: Le Dit des pierres (Petra: The Stones Speak), edited by Phillippe Cardinal, 1993."(Page 96.)
The book begins with Petra emerging from obscurity with the first archaeological missions. The book comprises the history of Petras peoples; lengthy revelations of The Nabataeans (and their other cities, too); "location, location, location!"; part of the caravan route and its participation in international trade; nomadic to stationary living; city planning; housing; temples, sanctuaries; and anatomy of forms of architecture. "It is Petra's funerary architecture, most famous in its rock-hewn form, that best reflects this dual cultural identity, Eastern and Hellenistic. Interest has focused on the facades that mark the entry to a funerary chamber excavated directly into the rock. These can be understood as a monumental form of the nefesh, an erect stele that indicates the presence of a deceased, just as a baetyl indicates the presence of a divinity. The facade shows the importance of the deceased and of his or her family..."(Page 84). Such rich architectural fetes are revealed to us within the framework of this work! Do take time to study the water system of Petra.
"...due to a series of earthquakes, especially one in the 8th century, construction seems to have come to a halt there earlier than it did in regions farther to the north. We know little about Petra between the 7th and 10th centuries. By the Middle Ages, it may have been virtually deserted. We know that in the 12th century, one of the Crusader kings of Jerusalem, Baldwin I or II, built a castle at al-Wu'eira, in the Valley of Moses. Few medieval documents refer to the city, but a confused memory of its ancient rank as the capital of a far-reaching kingdom livd on. Oddly, traces of its old Aramaic and Babataean name, Arken or Reqem, meaning 'the Multi-colored,' survived. In 1217, a German pilgrim named Thetmar passed very close to a place he called 'Archim, formerly the metropolis of the Arabs.' The Arab chronicler Numeiri (1279-1332) gives a short description of the site as it was when the Mamluk Sultan Baybars I of Egypt and Syria saw it is 1276. He mentions the tomb of Aaron, the ruins of a fort, and the 'marvelous' ornate houses cut into the cliffs, but he does not name it. Neither writer says anything of its inhabitants. The Nabataeans themselves, and the Greco-Latin name Petra, remained lost until the rediscovery of the city by the first Western travelers of the 19th century. The enthusiasm aroused by this discovery has not faded, and the work of exploration and recovery is nowhere near to being finished. Nearly two hundred years of research, in fact, have raised more questions than answers. New avenues of investigation emerge daily. Most of the city still remains to be excavated and the civilization of Nabatea finally revealed." (Page 94-95).
Thank goodness the Jordanian people have someone like Queen Noor who can appreciate the importance of Petra, who as a patron of architecture, thanks to her background in this field, is a proponent to its preservation.
The staff of The Harry N. Abrams, Inc., publishing house have created a masterpiece in "Petra: lost city of the ancient world." The many books I have read with regard to Biblical architecture/archaeology, have seriously been lacking good arial photography, and the people at Abrams certainly satisfied my ravenousness desire for pictures of Petra!

This book has been done in a style similar to a National Geographic magazine. It combines a history of the city and its excavations with exquisite photographs and drawings. This book was well researched and does an excellent job describing the ancient city which was carved entirely out of the cliffs which make Petra unique. I reccomend this book to anyone who has an interest in the history of the Fertile Crescent, Jordan, archaelogy, or the 7 wonders of the ancient world (This book asserts that Petra is considered to be an eighth wonder).

Although I consider the DUINO ELEGIES to be one of the world's greatest works of art, there are poems I love and cherish a bit more. None, however, has the power and intensity inherent in this cycle of ten.

According to Maria von Thurn und Taxis-Hohenlohe, at whose Castle Duino, near Trieste, on the Adriatic, where Rilke was a guest (translating Dante's gorgeous and limpid VITA NUOVA) , the Elegies were conceived on the morning of 21. January 1912, on a stormy and wind-swept cliff. They weren't completed until ten years later, at Chateau Muzot, in Switzerland's Canton Valais, which borders both Italy and France.

The DUINO ELEGIES capture the struggle of man to reconcile his inner torment with the torment of the outer world and to find his own place in that world. Although they don't answer the questions they ask, they do touch our soul, they connect us with something larger than ourselves and, in doing so, they have become timeless and yes, great.

While the DUINO ELEGIES contain much that is transcendent in the human spirit, they also contain much that conveys the pure torment and anguish of simply "being human" and anchored to the earth while not really being a part of it. For to be human, says Rilke, is to be more complex that the animals yet less divine than the angels.

The DUINO ELEGIES are a passionate and sometimes, tormented cry, to the angels and sky above us and to the earth and sea below, neither of whom Rilke believes hear our impassioned plea. We are trapped between a world of our own making and a world in whose conception we had no part. To be human, Rilke tell us, may mean paying the price of never being at peace with who and what we are.

In the DUINO ELEGIES, I think, Rilke asks what he knows can never be answered...at least not completely. But in that asking, he exposes the very core of "humanness" and the terrible anguish and pain that can accompany simply being alive.

If you don't read German, finding a really good translation of the DUINO ELEGIES is going to be a problem. Some of the newer ones, I feel, are too loose, not quite formal enough. They cause Rilke's magnificent poetry to lose some of its power, rendering it rather too mundane for my taste. These poems are difficult enough to read and comprehend fully; they consist of torrents of words, unleashed agony, and to "simplify" them with an "easy" translation is only doing them a great disservice. The First Elegy is, I think, one that is most often harmed by careless translations. I'm not a translator, so I can't recommend one translation over another, although I have a slight personal preference for both Leishman's and Snow's, even though they can be quite different (and Snow's is one of the "looser," more modern ones). I would, however, recommend buying a bilingual volume of the DUINO ELEGIES. German really isn't a difficult language for a native English-speaker to understand (after all, English is a Germanic language) and the extra effort put into reading the original German, along with the English translation (whichever you choose), will be well worth it.

I know many people who consider the SONNETS TO ORPHEUS to be Rilke's greatest work, eclipsing even the DUINO ELEGIES, but I prefer the Elegies. They are certainly the most impassioned cry of human anguish and imprisonment I have yet to encounter.

Yes, Rilke is a genius, whose poetry is abstract and disturbing yet also direct, concise and perfectly written.

Unfortunately, Snow's translation does not manage to capture Rilke's power in full flow, as other translators have managed to do so. The Picador edition is especially superior (although still flawed). By all means buy the Elegies, which are among the best pieces of literature of this century, and possibly the best collection of lyric poetry of all time - but if you buy this edition, you might not realise that.

Edward Snow is one of the most respected translators of Rilke. He's been working his way through Rilke's poetry and now offers a superb version of the "Duino Elegies," long considered the high point of Rilke's career.

There are many existing translations of Rilke's masterpiece, of varying quality. Snow's version reads quite well and compares favorably to acclaimed versions by Mitchell and others.