Mixed Media

Cornell classicist publishes new translation of 'Aeneid'

The Roman poet Virgil spent the last 11 years of his life writing the "Aeneid," an epic poem of a hero's journey from Troy to Italy, styled on Homer's "Odyssey" and "Iliad."

Frederick Ahl, Cornell professor of classics and comparative literature, has published a new translation for Oxford University Press, in an effort of labor that rivals Virgil's.

"It took me longer, actually -- I wasn't being supported by the emperor," Ahl said. "I just love the work and have ever since I was a child. But it's taken me most of my life to understand it."

What distinguishes this "Aeneid" is Ahl's use of Virgil's original meter and his line-by-line restoration of the poet's wordplay, an element often lost in translation.

"The Romans loved puns and anagrams, which translators tend not to translate," Ahl said. "In our thinking, if something is funny it cannot in any way be serious. But the ancients found that humor and earnestness went side by side. Almost all life contains the elements of the humorous and the pathetic and the touching -- and an epic poem certainly does."

Virgil created something like a symphony, Ahl said, except with "all the music notes for a score on one line."

"The wordplay, the puns and anagrams, are the pivotal chords that enable the poet to change register and to set up multiple resonances simultaneously. And if we ignore these multiple resonances then we are doing something akin to playing Beethoven on a tin whistle."

Ahl was committed to do justice to Virgil and his literary masterpiece.

Read the full article here.

Essayist Vivian Gornick at Ithaca College

Acclaimed essayist Vivian Gornick will give a free public reading at Ithaca College on Tuesday, April 1, at 7:30 p.m. in Beeler Hall in the Whalen Center. Her presentation is part of the Distinguished Visiting Writers Series, sponsored by the Department of Writing.

Among Gornick’s many books are the memoir “Fierce Attachments,” the story of her lifelong battle with her mother for independence; “Approaching Eye Level,” a collection of personal essays on solitude, isolation and loneliness; and “The End of the Novel of Love,” a collection of critical essays that explore the meaning of love and marriage as literary themes in the 20th century. Her essays and articles have appeared in the “New Yorker,” the “Nation,” the “New York Times Book Review” and “Bookforum,” among other publications.

Gornick currently teaches creative writing at the New School. For the 2007–2008 academic year, she is serving as a Radcliffe Institute Fellow at Harvard University, where she is conducting research for a biography of the anarchist Emma Goldman and working on a memoir about an emblematic friendship that is framed within the context of contemporary urban life. She holds a bachelor’s degree in literature from the City College of New York and a master’s degree in literature from New York University.

For more information, visit the Distinguished Visiting Writers Series website, or contact Jack Wang, assistant professor of writing, at (607) 274-3493 or wang@ithaca.edu.

Pulitzer Prize-winning poet at Ithaca College

The Ithaca College Department of Writing and School of Humanities and Sciences will welcome Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Yusef Komunyakaa to campus as part of the Distinguished Visiting Writers Series. He will read from his work on Tuesday, March 25, at 7:30 p.m. in Park Hall Auditorium. The reading is free and open to the public.

Komunyakaa is the author of 12 books of poetry, including “Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems,” for which he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1994. He has also been honored with the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize and the William Faulkner Prize from the Université de Rennes, while his “Thieves of Paradise” and “Talking Dirty to the Gods” were both finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

The subject matter of Komunyakaa’s writing ranges from the African-American experience through rural Southern life before the Civil Rights movement and his experiences doing a tour of duty in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War.

Komunyakaa served as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1999 to 2005. He has taught at the University of New Orleans, Indiana University and Princeton University. He is currently professor and distinguished senior poet at New York University.

Books by Komunyakaa will be for sale at the reading, which will be followed by a book signing opportunity. For more information, visit the Distinguished Visiting Writers Series website, or contact Jack Wang, assistant professor of writing, at (607) 274-3493 or wang@ithaca.edu.

Author Conor O'Clery to speak at Cornell

ITHACA, N.Y. – Author Conor O’Clery, one of Ireland’s most accomplished journalists and author of “The Billionaire Who Wasn’t: How Chuck Feeney Secretly Made and Gave Away a Fortune,” will deliver a public address Wednesday, Oct 24, at 4 p.m. at Uris Auditorium in Uris Hall on the Cornell campus. The address is free and open to the public.

A reception and book signing will follow in the Terrace Restaurant of Statler Hotel. 

O’Clery will discuss the life and work of Feeney ’56, the elusive yet committed philanthropist whose years of anonymous donations to Cornell have helped shape the university into the institution it is today.  

A correspondent and news editor of The Irish Times for more than 30 years, O’Clery has written for The New Republic and Newsweek International and has appeared often on the BBC, National Public Radio and CNN. He has twice been named Journalist of the Year in

Ireland

.

Fiction author to speak at mathematics colloquium

It's not every day that mathematicians and fiction writers invite each other to their respective department colloquia.

But math, says author David Leavitt, is at its heart an art form.

Leavitt, author of the new and highly acclaimed historical novel The Indian Clerk and co-director of the creative writing program at the University of Florida, will speak at Cornell's Center for Applied Mathematics' weekly colloquium Oct. 19 at 3:30 p.m. in B11 Kimball Hall. A book signing and refreshments will follow at 4:30 in 102 Thurston Hall.

Like other artists, mathematicians divide their time between two distinct worlds: the imagined and the real. The difference, Leavitt says, comes in the degree of separation between the two.

Click here to read the full story from the Cornell Chronicle.

If you would like to write a review of Leavitt's The Indian Clerk as a guest blogger for Mixed Media, contact editor Crystal Sarakas.