A Time in Rome

A Time in Rome

by ElizabethBowen (Author)

Synopsis

Elizabeth Bowen's account of a time spent in Rome between February and Easter is no ordinary guidebook but an evocation of a city - its hisotry, its architecture and, above all, its atmosphere. She describes the famous classical sites, conjuring from the ruins visions of former inhabitants and their often bloody activities. She speculates about the immense noise of ancient Rome, the problems caused by the Romans' dining posture, and the Roman temperament, which blended 'constructive will with supine fatalism'. She envies the Vestal Virgins and admires the Empress Livia, who survived a barren marriage. She evokes the city's moods - by day, when it is characterized by golden sunlight, and at night, when the blaze of the moon 'annihilates history, turning everything into a get together spectacle for Tonight.

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 256
Edition: New e.
Publisher: Vintage Classics
Published: 06 Mar 2003

ISBN 10: 0099284952
ISBN 13: 9780099284956
Book Overview: 'A great writer...she is what happened after Bloomsbury...the link that connects Virginia Woolf with Iris Murdoch and Muriel Spark' Victoria Glendinning

Media Reviews
A still ludicrously underrated genius of 20th-century British-Irish writing -- Simon Schama
One of the last century's greatest woman writers * Guardian *
Her writings convey the flavour of literary London in the Thirties and Forties * Observer *
A matchless writer * Independent *
Author Bio
Elizabeth Bowen was born in Dublin in 1899, the only child of an Irish lawyer and land-owner. She travelled a great deal, dividing most of her time between London and Bowen's Court, the family house in County Cork which she inherited. Her first book, a collection of shorts stories, Encounters, was published in 1923. The Hotel (1926) was her first novel. She was awarded the CBE in 1948, and received honorary degrees from Trinity College, Dublin in 1949, and from Oxford University in 1956. The Royal Society of Literature made her a Companion of Literature in 1965. Elizabeth Bowen died in 1973.