The aim of this blog is to serve as a meeting point to those who study or have studied English philology and, more broadly, to all those who love literature and language.

27 Mar 2011

The Poetry Station


The Poetry Station website shows a collection of video recorded poems. Browsing through it for a while in the late hours of this Sunday evening, I've listened to some poems of varied styles and topics that, for some reason or other, have drawn my attention. These are three of them:

Listen Mr Oxford Don. I had read the poem before in Evolving English by David Crystal. This linguist chose this text to comment on the "ownership" of English.
"The reality is that anyone who has taken the trouble to learn English can be said to have a stake in it -- and that means around a third of the world's population."

The Rain It Raineth. I knew the song from an old record I bought years ago but I had never thought of its meaning. The Wikipedia interprets that the line "The rain it raineth every day" suggests that "every day brings some kind of misery". Other people read Feste's song as a statement that "even as a person goes through life, with its various ups and downs, he or she must remember that at any time one can end up in an unfamiliar place with a completely different life". Harold Bloom gives a slightly different explanation when he comments on it from a popular and erotic point of view.


A Lecture Upon the Shadow was entirely new to me. I liked the poem and the reading.

26 Mar 2011

Lit2Go: stories and poems to be read or listened to

Lit2Go is a collection of texts that can be read online or from a downloaded pdf document as well as listened to on the computer or from another type of mp3 player (all the audio files can be downloaded).

28 Feb 2011

MAP YOUR VOICE

The British Library fosters a project to collect audio recordings of a story and a set of six words in English from speakers all over the world. Map Your Voice allows visitors to listen to a variety of accents and to record their own version if desired.


Controversy Garage Neither Scone Schedule Attitude

27 Jan 2011

BOOKDRUM

Bookdrum provides background information about a good number of books. It is possible to find images and descriptions of the setting, summaries of the stories, reviews, biographical data of the authors, quotes, etc.

12 Jan 2011

LITERARY WORKS TO BE READ AND/OR LISTENED TO

LoudLit collects some public domain literary works that can be read page by page online while listening to its recording.

This is an example:



A Dream within a Dream

16 Dec 2010

JANE AUSTEN'S 235TH BIRTHDAY


Google reminds us today of Jane Austen's 235th birthday. A curious number to celebrate but nevertheless a good pretext to post this short entry.

"Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us."
Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 5

10 Dec 2010

EVOLVING ENGLISH

Evolving English is an exhibition on the English language (history, accents, influences, evolution...) open from 12th November 2010 to 3rd April 2011 at the British Library in London. Its website includes pictures and descriptions of some exhibits, a blog with additional information, and a quiz that can be useful for recalling some issues studied in Historia de la lengua inglesa, for testing our intuition regarding English etymology, or just for fun.

10 Nov 2010

QUIJOTE INTERACTIVO

La Biblioteca Nacional ha creado un sitio web dedicado al Quijote en la que se puede hojear una versión virtual de la primera edición de esta obra. Aquí se puede encontrar más información sobre el proyecto y desde este otro enlace entrar directamente en la página.

Vídeo de presentación:



Pero esta no es la única iniciativa para acercar el Quijote a través de los recursos de la Red. La Real Academia de la Lengua anima a hacer grabaciones en vídeo de pequeños fragmentos para completar la lectura de la obra completa. Se puede acceder a la presentación, modo de participar y galería de vídeos desde este enlace.