Ulla Dydo, the preeminent Gertrude Stein scholar of our time, died on September 10, 2017 in New York.
Ursula Elisabeth Eder was born in Zurich on February 4, 1925. Her mother was Jeanne Eder-Schwyzer (1894–1957), a Swiss women’s rights activist and president of the International Council of Women. Her father was Professor Robert Eder (1885–1944). Dydo is survived by her wife, new music pianist Nurit Tilles (whom she met more than a decade ago); a son, Malcolm, from her first marriage to economist John Stephen Dydo (1922–2004) (whom she married in Manhattan in 1963 — the marriage dissolved within a decade); and a grandaughter.
Dydo attended the University of Zurich (1944–45), where she majored in English, as well as University College, London (1946) and received an MA at Bryn Mawr in 1948. She attended the University of Wisconsin, Madison, from 1948 to 1952, getting her PhD in 1955. Her dissertation was on the poetry of Allen Tate.
The de-versification of Lucretius -- treating it as prose -- is an unintended theme of the most famous contemporary account of Of Things' Nature, Stephen Greenblatt's The Swerve: How the World Became Modern (2011). Greenblatt begins The Swerve with an account of his youthful discovery of Lucretius through Martin Ferguson Smith's excellent prose translation. Greenblatt pretty much sticks to citing this prose version throughout his book, despite his nod to Dryden as the best for conveying Lucretius's "ardor" and also noting that he consulted all the translations.
I am interested in the way Croll’s account of the anti-Ciceronian or Baroque prose can be related to critiques of the “plain style” of expository prose that took force in his time and remains powerful in some ideologies of “composition.” The contrast of “plain style” or tight/correct expository “sentence” is the “loose” period (aka “libertine” thought of Montaigne and Ralais).
Morris Croll (1872–1947)
I am interested in the way Croll’s account of the anti-Ciceronian or Baroque prose can be related to critiques of the “plain style” of expository prose that took force in his time and remains powerful in some ideologies of “composition.” The contrast of “plain style” or tight/correct expository “sentence” is the “loose” period (aka “libertine” thought of Montaigne and Ralais).
Kaper Bartczak and Małgorzata Myk edited this issue on American poetry for the Polish Journal of American Studies: Ashbery, Peter Gizzi, Eileen Myles, Susan Howe / David Grubbs, Schuyler, Rankine, Christian Bök, McCaffery. Full text here.
PennSound is happy to announce a major expansion of our Richard Foreman page edited by Jay Sanders. The page for Foreman, for me the greatest visionary theater director of the period, includes the full production films and videos of many of his productions.
I am interested in the way Croll’s account of the anti-Ciceronian or Baroque prose can be related to critiques of the “plain style” of expository prose that took force in his time and remains powerful in some ideologies of “composition.” The contrast of “plain style” or tight/correct expository “sentence” is the “loose” period (aka “libertine” thought of Montaigne and Ralais).
