Shakespeare
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The latest New Yorker reports the discovery of a long-lost manuscript by Beethoven. It's not a new piece, but an arrangement for piano, four hands, of the composer’s “Grosse Fuge,” or “Great Fugue,” — which is one of the most exciting and challenging pieces of music in the known universe. The manuscript was sold at…
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The caprice of phrasal verbs (formerly called verb-adverb combinations) came to my conscious attention sometime in the 1950s, when I first read Mansfield Park. Fanny Price, the heroine, is lying on a couch; her sailor brother William cries, "Poor Fanny!… how soon she is knocked up! Why, the sport is but just begun. I hope…
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In the narrowest definition, a "replacement child" is a being who is intentionally conceived because an older sibling has recently died. Such substitutes must endure the lifetime burden of competing with a lost and often idealized child. Because it is almost impossible for them to please their parents, they easily become confused and frustrated, or…