Douglas Clark wrote:
> And the LRB just came through the door and Marjory Perloff
> has cancelled her subscription in fury at Mary Beard's casual
> observation that one view in the UK is that the Americans got
> what they deserved. But the Mary is a classicist, working-class
> by her accent.
I've met Mary Beard, who is a fine classicist. I know nothing about her
class origins, only that she's very smart and well-educated. We talked about
the Spice Girls, as I recall. She has a rather dry sense of humor, and I can
well imagine her reporting such a comment unselfconsciously rather than
casually. You don't make the context exactly clear, Douglas, but with
respect to your tone in this context (which, as you know, includes many
Americans and relatively few classicists), I wonder why you posted this
apparently irrelevant observation along with your nice comments on David's
poems(?).
Candice
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