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423BC Aristophanes writes Clouds
422BC Aristophanes writes Wasps
421BC Aristophanes writes Peace
414BC Aristophanes writes Birds
411BC Aristophanes writes Lysistrata
411BC Aristophanes writes Thesmophoriazusae
317BC Menander writes The Grouch
234–184 BC Plautus writes The Pot of Gold, Amphytrion, The Haunted House, Miles Gloriosus, The Menaechmus Twins, and Pseudolus
166BC Terence writes the Girl from Andros
165BC Terence writes The ...

Finished reading John Ford's Tis Pity She's a Whore today. I was unimpressed by the action, characterization, and story in general. Incest really isn't my thing, and I can't say it peaks my curiosity. But the play was saved by the excellent quality of the verse. While not as fine as Marlowe or Shakespeare's it was still quite good. The lines were smoother, more natural and flowing than either of the former writer's but without the same power in most cases. I wish I knew more about poetry so I could ...

A week ago, it occurred to me that I could model a given writer's chances of producing masterpieces using the r/K selection theory of evolutionary biology. It shows the reproductive behavior of different types of species. Some species produce a number of offspring very quickly. They do not care for them well, and most of them die fairly quickly. But some of them find a niche in the environment and live to maturity. Other animals, often larger species, produce relatively few young but then they care ...

I finally finished The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. I can't say that I enjoyed it, so I'm glad that it is over. The Analects of Confucius, and The Maxims of La Rochefoucauld were the same sort of thing but much better. There were two parts I did like though:

Book II. 17. In human life time is but an instant, and the substance of it a flux, and the perception dull, and the composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and ...