Originality
Have you ever had a moment’s inspiration, an insight that jangled the synapses between brain and mind, a patch of clarity in the fog of life, a eureka! that propelled … Continue reading
So far from home: Richard Francis Burton
Richard Francis Burton lived from 1821 to 1890, and for almost all of that time he seems to have been driven by a furious energy which prompted him to both … Continue reading
The sadistic marquis
The Marquis de Sade (or Compte de Sade, Donatien Alphonse François, 1740-1814) has been remembered for 200 years as the first sufferer of that perversion which takes sexual pleasure in … Continue reading
Myths about Shakespeare
A substantial publishing industry is founded on the name and works of William Shakespeare and each year more pours from the press: new editions of the plays; re-examinations of the … Continue reading
The forgotten Hitler
I recently wrote an essay on Leni Riefenstahl, notorious as the director of Triumph of the Will, a film made to celebrate the 1934 Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg. What … Continue reading
Mr and Mrs Oscar Wilde
THERE SEEMS to be a lot more to say about Oscar Wilde’s homosexuality than his 1895 prosecution as a kind of precursor to Bill Posters. I started by looking at … Continue reading
How I write
I’ve been watching how I write recently. I’m quite dissatisfied sometimes with the result, not because of my use of language but at the way I express my ideas. This … Continue reading
