In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle explores the meaning of a well-known expression Here’s a question for you: who first wrote the line, ‘good fences make good neighbours’? Although it was the American poet Robert Frost (1874-1963) who first used that particular wording, the sentiment, […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle analyses the origins of a famous phrase about human sympathy and mortality ‘Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.’ This phrase has become world-famous but its origins, and even its meaning, are often […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle explores the curious meanings of Julius Caesar’s ‘dying words’ Let’s kick off this week’s Secret Library column with a short quiz about those three famous words: ‘Et tu, Brute?’ Okay, if you’re ready … Question 1): Which famous Roman […]
In this week’s Dispatches from The Secret Library, Dr Oliver Tearle analyses one of the most famous lines from Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra ‘Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety’: these words are among the most well-known and oft-quoted from William Shakespeare’s late tragedy, Antony and Cleopatra, […]
‘The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing’ is a well-known phrase and a well-known fable. Most people would attribute the fable to Aesop, the master fabulist of classical times. However, was we will discuss later on in our analysis of this story, this is inaccurate.