by Richard Subber | Oct 26, 2025 | Book reviews, Books, Books Commentary, Joys of reading
Spread the word
Book review:
History in English Words
Owen Barfield
Hudson, NY: The Lindisfarne Press, 1953
240 pages
I have found a beautiful book, and I want to share it with you. Indulge me.
Owen Barfield, an Oxford graduate who loves language even more than I love it, wrote History in English Words. In his Foreword, W. H. Auden calls this delicate, powerful work “a weapon in the unending battle between civilisation and barbarism.” All foes of barbarism should procure a copy immediately.
This is not an easy read, but it’s easy to keep reading it. Barfield brings his remarkable erudition to nearly every page; the reader learns much about words—in English, Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, and the Indo-European protolanguage—and learns much about history, philosophy, religion, literature, culture, mind, and the deep structures of consciously human society. I’m not kidding. This book is unique in my experience.
Here’s a casual teaser:
“…it has been said that there are more [new words] in Shakespeare’s plays than in all the rest of the English poets put together.”
Examples of the Bard’s imagination:
advantageous, amazement, critic, dishearten, dwindle, generous, invulnerable, majestic, obscene, pedant, pious, radiance, reliance, sanctimonious
Throughout 240 pages, Barfield implicitly emphasizes a dynamic point: new words are created continuously in all languages by all peoples, and old words continuously acquire new meanings in all cultures.
The way we think and express our thoughts and feelings today could not have been done—in the fullness of our modern meanings and understandings—as little as 100 years ago.
Take a minute and speak three carefully considered sentences about three topics that you think are important or exciting. Almost certainly, no human being has ever before experienced your exact thought processes and used precisely your words to express them.
Spread the word.
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Book review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
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My first name was rain: A dreamery of poems with 52 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Oct 23, 2025 | American history, Human Nature, Politics
good habits, bad habits…
Lincoln feared that
“democracy required habits of behavior
that people simply could not sustain.”
from:
Our Ancient Faith: Lincoln, Democracy, and the American Experiment
Allen C. Guelzo
New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2024
247 pages
p. 142
Right now I’m not aware of a lot of good news.
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Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Saint Joan
by George Bernard Shaw
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many waters: more poems with 53 free verse poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Oct 21, 2025 | My poetry, Reflections
dancing is part of it…
one, two
I count the lives.
I count my own,
I will live another life today.
Future far is blank
and almost void,
today is near and full
and dances to new tunes.
Come dance with me,
we two can make one life
for at least today,
we count the steps,
we step to one more life,
we count the lives.
July 13, 2025
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
A poet is a “maker”
…and it doesn’t have to rhyme…
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Seeing far: Selected poems with 47 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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by Richard Subber | Oct 18, 2025 | Human Nature, Theater and play reviews
Frankie could marry your sister…
Movie review:
Million Dollar Baby
Clint Eastwood and Hilary Swank
You think Clint Eastwood can’t be a heart-throb sensitive guy, the kind of guy who you wouldn’t mind at all if he married your sister?
Million Dollar Baby (2004, rated PG-13, 134 minutes) is a bona fide tearjerker about a world class, down-on-her-luck lady boxer who ultimately brings out the best in her very reluctant trainer and surprises no one by becoming the love of his life.
Hilary Swank is Maggie, the wannabe boxer who can’t afford her own speed bag but has the spirit and the right moves that make her a world champion.
Eastwood is Frankie, who ekes out a low profile life as the owner of a broken down gym and disdains being a trainer for “a girl.” Maggie finally persuades him, and then love very slowly takes over.
There’s lots of action in the gym and in the boxing ring, but the real action is directed by the fat little cherub with wings and a bow and arrow.
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Movie review. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Six Plays by Henrik Ibsen
…his bleak insight into human nature
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Writing Rainbows: Poems for Grown-Ups with 59 free verse and haiku poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
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by Richard Subber | Oct 16, 2025 | Language, My poetry, Poetry
what are their names?
waiting
I wait.
The waiting.
The words take their time,
they tumble with my musing,
they taunt and tempt
and temporize,
the words can hide and peek,
they wait to be a gush,
I want to call to them
but I do not know their names,
each one in its own moment
quivers in the poem-to-be,
waits for me to grab the quill,
and I wait.
July 14, 2025
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My poetry. Copyright © Richard Carl Subber 2025 All rights reserved.
Book review: Mila 18
horrific truth by Leon Uris
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Above all: Poems of dawn and more with 74 free verse poems,
and the rest of my poetry books are for sale on Amazon (paperback and Kindle)
and free in Kindle Unlimited, search Amazon for “Richard Carl Subber”
Your comments are welcome—tell me what you’re thinking.
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