lone rhapsodist

Classics, literature, writing, rights. Personal blog: neon-rhapsodies. Poetry blog: rovin-robin. This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Profile pic: x. Header: x.

[echo-loves-flowerboy]

[discoursedrome]

The opposite of “the elephant in the room” is “the centipede in the room”: something that’s not actually an issue but everyone is freaking out about

[daemonwaters]

'You falsely claim to be Achilles' son: he never treated me, his enemy, with such disdain. When I appealed to him, he recognized my rights and kept his word, giving me Hector's corpse for burial and sending me unharmed back to my throne.' The old man weakly cast his feeble spear. It clanged against the bronze, a useless throw, and dangled from the surface of the boss. Pyrrhus said, 'Soon you will bring word of this down to the son of Peleus, my father. Remember to describe the shocking deeds committed by his Neoptolemus, the stain on his ancestral line. Now die.'

Neoptolemus may be awful, but you can't say Virgil doesn't give him great lines.

[hildegardavon]

Abraham Raimbach, 1776-1843 (Copy Smirke, 1752-1845)

[Medea] The Rape of the Golden Fleece, 1807, engraving on India paper, 20x13.3 cm. Publisher: Fry & Kammerer Associated

National Portrait Gallery, Washington Inv. AD/NPG.79.19.j

[hildegardavon]

M. Dujardin, 19th/20th Century

Combats of Amazons, 1881, engraving on laid paper, 4 3/8x6 7/8 in

Private Collection

[hildegardavon]

Circle of Jan van Neck, 1634-1714

A Bacchanal with Nymphs and Satyrs, n/d, oil on canvas, 50.1x67.8 cm

Private Collection

[thoodleoo]

[mutual one] friday afternoon there goes antigone to be buried alive

[mutual two] anyone else here reading about triremes

[mutual three] do you guys think marius and sulla ever explored each other's bodies

[mutual four] i miss her so much (linear b)

[mutual five] 5th century attic red figure kylix posting

[mutual six] do you guys think helen and aphrodite ever explored each other's bodies

[mutual seven] dionysus big naturals

[mutual eight] thesis-level content on the construction of aqueducts in the reign of vespasian

[mutual nine] anyone else think necromancy is kind of sexy

[mutual 10] something kind of gay about the assassination of caesar. like, why are you getting together with a bunch of your friends to stab a man?

[mutual 11] in the club reviewing my noun paradigms

[mutual 12] do you guys think the perfect and the aorist ever explored each other's bodies

[diggingthesecretgarden]

[cbk1000]

So, I lurk in some writer subreddits, and a frequent topic of discussion is prose: what constitutes good prose, how do you write it, how do you improve it, etc. And yesterday I stumbled across one topic about the difference between good descriptive prose, and purple prose. OP asks people to share some of their favourite authors who they think write beautiful prose without tipping into purple. No problem; people are happy to oblige.

One person says that Steinbeck is one of their favourite authors for prose, and then they share an example of what they would consider purple prose. It is so violetly awful that I think the poster must have written it themselves as a kind of parody of purple prose. Other people assumed the same.

But as it turns out, they are quoting from a book written by a YouTuber whose channel ia dedicated to talking about writing (namely, their own writing, which is genius, but often not comprehensible to the drooling plebs).

Naturally, I read the free sample of their book in awe and horror, and I'd like to share some screenshots with you. If you also have trouble defining or understanding what purple prose is, it's this.

Yes, every single fucking page is written like this.

[cbk1000]

Reading some more of the preview for this book, and I realise this is by far not the biggest problem, but I'm begging this guy to just use 'shadow' instead of 'umbra'. I promise I will not accuse you of being a philistine.

[cbk1000]

'Noctilucent orbs'. Even fanfic written by a 14-year-old wouldn't dare.

The author is a man in his 30s, btw.

[the-pen-pot]

*throws this in the face of everyone who has ever accused me of writing purple prose*

[neverwalka1one]

I thought the Amelia Peabody series was purple. I owe the author an apology. Uffda

[chelathy]

Hi Gilgamesh!

[viktorello]

The Iliad, Book 1: Apollo sends a plague upon the Greeks.

[finnivann]

first post here!!

[theoceanislikeyou]

Isis-Aphrodite

[katerinaaqu]

🏛 The wild beauty of Greece being beautifully artistically depicted in this masterful cartoon! 🏺

Why! Why can't more people nowadays show the same respect and appreciation? 😭😭😭

Cartoon name: "Heracles and Admetus", 1986, by Anatoly Petrov

[lilaclupin]

excavation muffins 💀🧁🦴

The archaeology people at my university are having a get-together so I made chocolate bone muffins for the buffet :) they were a hit at the last halloween party I went to so I hope the people there will like them too

[stellaluna33]

When somebody shares a quote by a famous author like it's something the author personally said and believed, but you know it was actually spoken by a character you're not supposed to like... 😐

[green-great-dragon]

one time I saw on Pinterest a cutesy little pink flowery image with the quote “‘as soon as I entered the house, I had singled you out as the companion of my future life’ -Pride and Prejudice” and like

ladies that is a mr collins quote 😭

[adventuresofwaverly]

My favorite example of this (not quite a character but a commonly misinterpreted quote) is Mary Oliver’s quote:

“He is exactly the poem I wanted to write.”

Often quoted as if it’s romantic. But here’s the thing

It was written by a lesbian. About a heron. She was writing about a large wading bird.

[starlightomatic]

[promethea-excelsior]

[callmealioness]

An excerpt from Comus (1634) by John Milton

I’m always fascinated by how people in the past millennium perceived and interpreted Greek mythology. This play is about its titular character, Comus, a very minor figure in ancient Greek religion. Milton imagined him as the son of Bacchus and Circe, who inherited his mother’s witchiness

“Bacchus that first from out the purple Grape,

Crush't the sweet poyson of mis-used Wine

After the Tuscan Mariners transform'd

Coasting the Tyrrhene shore, as the winds listed,

On Circes Iland fell (who knows not Circe

The daughter of the Sun? Whose charmed Cup

Whoever tasted, lost his upright shape,

And downward fell into a groveling Swine)

This Nymph that gaz'd upon his clustring locks,

With Ivy berries wreath'd, and his blithe youth,

Had by him, ere he parted thence, a Son

Much like his Father, but his Mother more,

Whom therfore she brought up and Comus nam'd […]”

Reject modernity (shipping Hermes and Circe) and embrace tradition (shipping Dionysus and Circe)