Someone once said that translation is its own form of art, and the principle behind this statement can be easily demonstrated. To do this, we will use the famous words that Louis XIV may or may not — most likely not — have said:

The reader who chiefly knows the King Arthur legend through the work of Thomas Malory — or, worse, through any of the large number of lesser derivatives — does himself a great disservice. The original in this case — as is often the case — is the best, and it does, in fact, feature — in Chretien de Troyes — one who is perhaps the most underrated author in the entirety of the Western Canon.

Now that the twentieth century is twenty-five years in the rear-view mirror, we have crystallized for us the enduring question of the time’s art (post-WII, at least).

The first three chapters to Kate Chopin’s The Awakening offer an easy-to-see and instructive example into showing without telling. The point of these opening chapters is to get across to the reader the idea of turmoil beneath the apparently idyllic, and Chopin cleverly begins with the veneer.

Below is the first twenty-three lines to the first in a series of poems about Philip Bunyan — better known as Welterweight Phil — the younger brother to Paul and Peter Bunyan. This first piece tells of Phil’s youth; how he, born in 1850s Maine, grew up middle-sized to his oversized and undersized brothers; how he, being a protective, pugnacious youth, fought for their reputations; and how he, even before beginning upon his life of victorious conquests, won for himself the nickname ‘Welterweight Phil.’

Philip K. Dick’s Penultimate Truth strikes one as an example of science fiction that Dickens would have been a reader of, though that Great would, of course, feel himself compelled to edit as he went along. In particular, the opening chapters are a wonderful example of an author who well knows what authorship is supposed to be, one who can perfectly mask a very deep and very important criticism of society behind the veneer of fictional entertainment.

Asimov’s Full Future is a title that can be applied to a wider series of novels that is itself made up of three initially independent book series by Isaac Asimov. Despite this original state of being unconnected, the three series were weaved together into one by the author in his later works, and they form for us now one gigantic series of science fiction that represents one of the highest achievements of literature in the second half of the twentieth century.

With all the progress daily made in the modern world, it is important, I find, to always keep one’s head on a swivel; otherwise, that progress might make a sudden leap forward while passing in its stride that which should come along with it. It is for this reason of responsibility that it must be here demonstrated the social unacceptability of the National Football League’s Minnesota Vikings, which need but swim in the wake of the determined same of the former Washington Redskins.

A few nights ago, during the pursuance of some particular thought, I happened to forget the name of the stadium for the Seattle Mariners. This forgetfulness, of course, occurred while I was thinking of the baseball stadium itself, and not being able to recall the place’s current name held up my entire thought. I was, in other words, unable to continue in my mental progress until remembering the corporate term by which I am supposed to at-will apply to the superstructure of steel located at 1250 First Avenue South, Seattle, Washington.

I give a fuck about the Oxford Comma, and the reason is none other than that it is reasonable to do so. For the unaware, “Oxford Comma” is the name given to that final comma so often neglected in lists—an example of its being left out can be seen in the sentence: My favorite colors are yellow, blue and red. For the nonusing, it bears stating that the following proof will require the assumption that pieces of punctuation, such as commas, of which the Oxford Comma is a type, are intended for the reader rather than the writer. One example will be all that is needed in order to clear up the issue and provide the above-mentioned proof, and we can begin by examining the following sentence, which includes the use of the Oxford Comma:

In the canvassing of the past for what might be of use to the present, one finds in the case of Hugh Henry Brackenridge, chaplain to General Washington’s army as well as one of the University of Pittsburgh’s earliest lights, a few words requiring nothing more than republication. The advice in question can be found in his novel Modern Chivalry, a book that has never, despite its quality, achieved anything resembling true readership. The words are:

From a letter from Thomas Jefferson dated November 24, 1808, at a time when he was nearing the end of his second term as President, directed to the man’s grandson, then aged sixteen, who was also named Thomas: