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Jalal al-Din Rumi
The latest news is that Beyoncé named one of her new babies after a Persian poet. Everyone is abuzz with discussions of who this man was and what exactly this means. Although the poetry was written in the 13th century, it has gathered popularity in the west beginning in the early 21st century. So who was Jalal al-Din Rumi? Jalal al-Din Rumi was born September 30, 1207 in the city of Balkh, which is is in present day Afghanistan. He lived with his family on this far eastern edge of the Persian Empire, and was raised in the tradition of his family as an Islamic jurist. His father Baha ud-Din…
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The Story Behind Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was not a children’s author. Not an author at all. He was a mathematician, and was more at home with numbers than words. Dodgson was a bachelor living in the college town of Oxford, England. In 1856, Christ Church, where he was a member, had a new dean appointed. Henry Liddell, a classical scholar of some renown, and his wife and children moved into town. Dodgson and the Liddells struck up a friendship, and was especially friendly with their children. Although he had none of his own, Dodgson seemed to have a way with children and charmed them with his ability to tell whimsical stories. One bright…
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The Epic of Gilgamesh
In the Epic of Gilgamesh, despite clear division between them, Humanity, the Wild, and the Divine are inextricably linked in a synergetic relationship. Throughout the text, a significant emphasis is made on the differences between this triad. However the events of the story itself only prove their strong inter-connectivity. In the text, Humbaba was a monster tasked to guard the home of the gods, incidentally a massive Cedar Forest where Enkidu grew up. So the environment, or the Wild as it is often referred to in the text, houses and protects the Divine from the prying eyes of Humanity. Humbaba, implicitly the avatar of the gods and from a certain…
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Romeo and Juliet – An analysis of Historical accuracy
So we all read Romeo and Juliet at High School, right? Shakespeare’s classic love story. Except it wasn’t, it was a tragedy. So knowing what we know about Tudor/Jacobean history, how accurate was the Bard in his portrayal of love gone awry? Does this story really reflect what we know or surmise about the period? Or is old Bill guilty of a bit of poetic licence in an attempt to convey his message? Let’s have a look. But before we get into it, let me just remind you, that these musings are purely my own interpretation of the play. You may think differently. So, Romeo is the only child of…
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Enheduanna- Princess, Priestess, Poet
There have been authors since the first person told a story around a fire. The first in history that we can call by name is Enheduanna. Enheduanna was born the daughter of Sargon of Akkkad, the first ruler to unite central and southern Mesopotamia. For this he went down in history as Sargon the Great and can be argued to be the world’s first emperor. Her mother was a Sumerian priestess. Sargon was a son of a priestess. He describes his life as “My priestly mother conceived me; secretly brought me to birth; set me in an ark of bulrushes; made fast my door with pitch. She consigned me to…
