Friday, December 11, 2015

Ubi Fera Sunt: Where the Wild Things Are in Latin

Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers is proud to announce the arrival of Ubi Fera Sunt, the first published Latin translation (by Richard A. LaFleur) of the beloved children's story Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak. This lively translation faithfully and playfully recasts Sendak’s unique writing style into classical Latin. It includes the beautifully remastered images employed in the fiftieth anniversary edition. Where the Wild Things Are has been published in numerous other languages, including French, German, Spanish, Hebrew, and even Finnish, but never until now into classical Latin.

Richard A. LaFleur, a.k.a. Doctor Illa Flora, has provided resources to enhance the classroom experience for his Latin translation. "Why NOT a Latin Wild Things" offers insight as to why LaFleur decided to translate Sendak's work and his hopes that "this modern rendering of his . . . charming classic" will join the Latin canon alongside other children's classics such as Winne Ille Pu and Cattus Petasatus. LaFleur has also provided an "About the Translation" resource to explain his always correct, but at times "Sendakian," choices in Latin. "Pronouncing Latin" gives Latin readers a refresher on pronunciation, while it also serves as a great tool for those learning and new to Latin. Lastly, LaFleur offers a glossary of all the Latin words employed in his translation. These resources are all designed to make Ubi Fera Sunt as effective a classroom component as it is a fun one.

Thursday, December 03, 2015

Lucretius: The Nature of the Universe

G. B. Cobbold's The Nature of the
Universe is an accessible translation
 of Lucretius's De Rerum Natura.
Lucretius:The Nature of the Universe is now in stock! This prose translation of De Rerum Natura offers an accessible encounter with Lucretius, who is at pains to convince readers of one main point: that their fears of death and punishment in the afterlife cripple them in their daily lives, and these dark fears can only be conquered by the light of rationality he offers through the philosophy of his Greek predecessor, Epicurus. This work does not fit into any of our ideas of distinct disciplines of knowledge. Instead, it smashes boundaries: science and poetry, religion and philosophy all find their place here, as do the profound and the mundane: the many and varied properties of atoms; stories of gods, heroes, and monsters; vivid descriptions of rainspouts, sex, a mother cow lowing for her newly sacrificed calf, human evolution.

Reading Stephen Greenblatt’s The Swerve: How the World Became Modern with the ACL Book Club? Cobbold’s translation is an excellent way to encounter the work that influenced Galileo, Montaigne, Jefferson, Freud, Darwin, Yeats, Santayana, Einstein, and many others—including our late founder, Lou Bolchazy.

If you’re looking to experience Lucretius’s thought in the original Latin (which Cicero described as having “lights of genius”—lumina ingenii), check out Bonnie A. Catto’s Lucretius: Selections from De Rerum Natura, which features notes and vocabulary along with illustrative quotations from ancient as well as modern authors.