What the Greek tragedy Antigone can teach us about the dangers of extremism
In a Greek tragedy written in the middle of the fifth century B.C., three teenagers struggle with a question that could be asked now: What happens when a ruler declares that those who resist his dictates are enemies of the state, and that ruler has as many supporters as he has detractors?The story of Sophocles’ Antigone and the accursed royal family of Thebes belongs to the mythical pre-history of Greece.Greek tragedy portrays in broad strokes the cruelties that take place within families and cities, but keeps them in the safe distance of the mythical past. The mythical past p...
The magic of Pushkin’s verse comes alive in a new translation
Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found here. Alexander Pushkin thrived on confinement. At the start of his career, a friend’s elderly and obstinate valet once locked him into a room, saying he would release him only when he completed a narrative poem for which he had already b...
A History of Jewish Genius: Exploring the Contributions of Jews to Science, Medicine, and the Arts
Throughout history, Jews have made significant contributions to science, medicine, and the arts. Despite comprising a small percentage of the global population, Jews have won a disproportionate number of Nobel Prizes in these fields, and their contributions have had a lasting impact on the world.One of the earliest examples of Jewish genius can be found in the ancient world, where Jews made important contributions to science, mathematics, and medicine. For example, the mathematician Euclid, who is considered the "father of geometry," was of Jewish descent. In...
The Real Sherlock Holmes: The Story Behind Arthur Conan Doyle's Creation
In 1893, Sherlock Holmes was approaching the peak of his popularity when his creator, Arthur Conan Doyle, decided to do the unthinkable. He vowed to kill off his literary progeny. The method he would use came to him on a trip he made to Switzerland that summer—he would dispose of the world’s first and most popular consulting detective by throwing him over the beautiful Alpine Reichenbach Falls.Holmes’s apparent death was documented in "The Final Problem," published in The Strand Magazine in December 1893. Readers were inconsolable. Legend has it that a large number thronged around th...
Gilbert Burnet: An Ecclesiastical Historian and the Invention of the English Restoration Era
On the eve of the 1689 Revolution in England, Gilbert Burnet was best known as an ecclesiastical historian. Although he had had a noteworthy career as a Whigleaning cleric, who had gone into exile at the start of James II’s reign and had entered the household of William of Orange in the Hague, Burnet’s reputation had been based on his magisterial History of the Reformation. This had appeared in its first two volumes in 1678 and 1683, and had rapidly become the standard work on the religious changes of the Tudor age. Soon after the Revolution, Burnet also became notable as the ch...
