Archive
The complete Open Letters Monthly Archive.
He toadied to a succession of emperors and trembled at the mere thought of being mugged -- on the surface, it looks odd to cast Pliny the Younger as a detective. A new mystery novel takes that chance.
Read MoreWhen he was banished for life from Rome, Ovid was trying to alter his artistic forms with his Metamorphoses. Trace the transformations in Steve Donoghue’s final “Year with the Romans”
Read MoreHe was everybody’s friend, and his poetry breathes with life even today. He was Horace, and “A Year with the Romans” makes his acquaintance.
Read MoreStatesmen, philosophers, and serial killers turn to the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, but what was the emperor himself like? Frank McLynn’s Marcus Aurelius tells, and in this month’s “A Year with the Romans,” Steve Donoghue assesses.
Read MoreThe only surviving full-length biography of Alexander the Great was written by a Roman. Steve Donoghue looks at Quintus Curtius Rufus as “A Year with the Romans” continues.
Read MoreNo one had ever written about love - in its infinite and profane variety - the way the Roman poet Catullus did; its explication by a scholarly schoolmistress might seem paradoxical - but Edith Hamilton knew something about love herself.
Read MoreSteve Donoghue’s “Year with the Romans” turns its eye upon Titus Livius, who either wrote poetical history or historical poetry, depending on who you ask.
Read MoreVirgil’s Aeneid has been attracting translators for centuries, and Sarah Ruden’s rendering is notable in more ways than one. (She calls him Vergil, for one thing, but that’s just the start.) Steve Donoghue regards her efforts in the latest “A Year with the Romans.”
Read MoreHe was a slave who wrote his way to freedom – unless he wasn’t, and unless he didn’t. Steve Donoghue’s “A Year with the Romans” looks at the great comic playwright Terence.
Read MoreIn the 6th Century, Boethius wrote a little tract that has been a guide and touchstone to writers, poets, politicians, and pundits ever since. David Slavitt has produced a new translation of The Consolation of Philosophy; Steve Donoghue explores the world of Boethius in this latest installment of “A Year with the Romans.”
Read MoreAmong the Nora Roberts and J.D. Robb, Steve Donoghue unearths a rare secondhand treasure in Ovid’s difficult, underrated Fasti. And he celebrates.
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