Status Updates From We moeten het over de klass...

I don't study the Greeks and Romans because I love them (any more than virologists love viruses, or astronomers love black holes). I study them because they are sometimes a pleasure, often destabilising, regularly surprising, but most of all unfailingly eye-opening and interesting.

I have always been struck by the story of the Bengali poet (and composer of the Indian national anthem), Rabindranath Tagore, bursting into tears on first seeing the ruins of the Parthenon in Athens, overcome not by its aesthetic grandeur or grace but by its 'barbarian ugliness'.

Ainda a pessoa mal chegou às 10 páginas e já Mary Beard se põe a traduzir Hispânia por Espanha. Que ódio de estimação terá a senhora por este cantinho à beira-mar plantado???

I thought I would be getting more talk about classics than I would talk about Mary Beard. If you're going to make a memoir, put something on the cover or summary about it being a memoir. (Can you tell I'm not a big memoir fan?)