Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
Four hundred and twenty years ago, on Wednesday 30 May 1593, Christopher Marlowe was famously killed under mysterious circumstances at the young age of 29. Test your knowledge on this enigmatic figure of history. Do you know when Marlowe was born? Who killed him and why? Find out answers to these and much more in our quiz. Good luck!
100 years ago, the world was shocked by, of all things, a ballet. Le Sacre du printemps (Rite of Spring), choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky and composed by Igor Stravinsky, caused a riot when it was first performed at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris on 29 May 1913. Stravinsky’s composition was revolutionary; it introduced dissonance in classical music.
By Keith Gandal
The New Yorker’s predictably elitist and conservative review of Baz Lurhmann’s new movie has David Denby concluding with the following: “Will young audiences go for this movie, with its few good scenes and its discordant messiness? “
Aaron Minsky is an award-winning composer who has made it his mission to persuade us that bowed stringed instruments (especially the cello) can be extremely effective in popular music. He began his career as a rock guitarist and then went on to study the cello with the finest classical teachers from The Juilliard School and other prestigious establishments. He has performed his works with orchestras around the world and on radio and television.
Arrested Development—the cult comedy set to rise from the dead on Netflix 26 May 2013—had its own distinctive language. It was a show of catchphrases: “I’ve made a huge mistake.” “No touching!” “I’m a monster!” “There’s always money in the Banana Stand.” “Steve Holt!” “Her?”
By Simon Wright
The issue and performance of previously unpublished musical works — juvenilia, early pieces, and even completions by others of music left by composers, for one reason or another, incomplete — always provokes interesting debate. Would the composer have wanted it? Does the newly presented work serve the best interests of the composer’s reputation? Does the music throw new (or even controversial) light on ‘the life and works’?
OUP recently partnered with The Poetry Archive to support Poetry by Heart, a new national poetry competition in England. Here, competition winner Kaiti Soultana talks about her experience.
By Dr. Robert V. McNamee
Spring 2013 marks two significant anniversaries for Alexander Pope, perhaps the most representative and alien English poet of the 18th century. Pope is memorialized both for the 325th anniversary of his birth, on 21 May 1688, and for the 300th anniversary of two significant literary acts: one a publication, the other a proposal to publish.
There’s never been a shortage of readers to love and admire Alexander Pope. But if you think you don’t, or wouldn’t, like his poetry, you’re in good company there too. Ever since his own day, detractors have stuck their oar in, some blasting the work and some determined to write off the writer. A noted poet and anthologist, James Reeves, wrote an entire book in 1976 to assail Pope’s achievement and influence.
The centenary of the 29 May 1913 premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring is being celebrated by numerous orchestras and ballet companies this year, which is always worth mentioning when that first performance incited a riot. The ballet (also performed as an orchestra piece) depicts a collection of pagan spring rituals involving fortune telling, holy processions, and culminating in l’élue (the elected one) dancing herself to death.
Audi now employs two generations of Spocks as spokesmen and Axe body spray hawks a space voyage sweepstakes to hormonal jocks with the promise that chicks dig astronauts. Tired of ninjas, pirates, robots, and zombies, edgy advertisers appear to have set their fad-hungry gaze on space as the current (if not final) frontier of Awesome—the somewhat-undefinable quality that high-fives our inner ten year-old.
The failures of leadership… the destructive power of beauty… the quest for fame… the plight of women… the brutality of war… Such themes have endured for over 2,700 years in Homer’s classic The Iliad — from the flight of Helen and Paris, to the fury of Menelaus and Agamemnon, to the fight between Hector and Achilles. We sat down with Barbara Graziosi and Anthony Verity, the writer of the introduction and translator respectively, to discuss the new Oxford World’s Classics edition of The Iliad.
By Annie Leyman
Love it or hate it, you can’t deny that the Eurovision Song Contest has a unique appeal. Although often seen as tacky, extravagant and occasionally politically controversial, that doesn’t stop around 125 million people around the world watching it each year! It has helped to launch careers, in the cases of ABBA and Bucks Fizz, as well as destroy them (cast your memories back to Jemini, aka ‘nul points’).
By Eric Cline
The Trojan War may be well known thanks to movies, books, and plays around the world, but did the war that spurred so much fascination even occur? The excerpt below from The Trojan War: A Very Short Introduction helps answer some of the many questions about the infamous war Homer helped immortalize.
I recently travelled with the band Victoire for a brief residency at the music school of a large university. As well as performing a concert, we spoke to the music majors there on the topic of “alternative career paths” in classical music. By “alternative” I mean career paths other than playing in an orchestra or teaching at an academic institution. In our case, the musicians of Victoire all work predominantly in the performance and composition of contemporary classical music.
By Alec Ryrie
I’ve been working on the ‘lived experience’ of early modern religion: what it was actually like to be a Protestant in 16th or 17th-century Britain. And I’ve become more and more convinced there’s a crucial element of the story almost completely missing from the standard accounts: children.