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1Lit - The Literary Ezine
Friday, February 1, 2002
Issue XIV
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You don't love a woman because she is beautiful, but she is beautiful because you love her.
Anon.
In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing.
Mignon McLaughlin
Introduction
We begin this month's 1Lit with an apology. As you must have noticed, we didn't send out a January issue of the ezine. It is easy to offer excuses, but things truly are coming to a head with regards our online business. For those of you that don't know, the team behind this publication run a network of small commercial Web sites and have been using the revenue from them to subsidise this ezine.
As those of you who are versed in economic matters may be aware, all technological revolutions tend to follow well-established trends. In terms of the web, we are currently in the second stage of the cycle when mainstream offline companies are beginning to use their economic muscle to enter and dominate their respective online fields.
It has become nigh-impossible to run a network of Web sites and hope they will continue to generate a profit when outfits with far more money can dominate those sectors. Just in the last month Yahoo has started asking for $300 per annum to have a site listed in their directory. Peanuts for Ford and McDonalds, but a lot of money for smaller operators like us. Last week MSN joined most of the other major search engines by offering the top few search result positions to companies which are willing to line their coffers. Do a search for superbowl and most of the top positions have now been bought by multi-million dollar corporations.
Running a global e-business and promoting it now requires enormous resources and deep pockets; this was not the case two or three years ago. It means we have been forced to rethink our strategy. We've had to take the painful decision to close down some of our Web sites and realign our operations to focus on one major site. And this, our dear readers, is where... the good news for you comes in. CrazyAboutLove.com, our dating site, is no more, InvestmentBug.com, a financial portal, too is history, but 1Lit.com will now become our main focus.
We have had to skip a couple of issues in the last few months because, believe it or not, even closing down Web sites is hard work! Before we knuckle down to improving 1Lit.com, we've had complex structural adjustments to make. Thankfully, most of the work is now done and we will soon be able to give this ezine and the 1Lit.com Web site our full attention.
For the reasons explained above, this issue will be slimmer than usual and has prompted us to temporarily rename it '1Lite' rather than '1Lit' for this month. Bear with us, and this ezine should be better than ever from the spring onwards.
Incidentally, if anybody is interested in purchasing the domain names of our defunct sites, they should write to us at as soon as possible.
We hope you enjoy this month's all-new, slimmer and sexier '1Lite'!
The 1Lit.com Team,
New York
CONTENTS:
1. News: Gender neutral Bible, King announces retirement, and more
2. Quotations: Classic love poems
3. Poetry: Andrew Marvell's To His Coy Mistress
4. Competitions: Monthly prize draw winner
============ NEWS ============
 New Bible will be Gender Neutral
Fox News revealed on Wednesday that the newest version of the Bible published by the International Bible Society will be gender neutral. Although the new edition contains other changes as well, it is this feature that has drawn the most attention and criticism from the public.
They are calling the new version Today's New International Version or TNIV. The New Testament goes on sale in April, but readers have to wait until 2005 for the complete version. Their original effort (entitled the New International Version) will remain on the market.
What kind of ammendments can be expected in the new translation? Things like changing "sons of God" to "children of God" in Matthew 5:9, and "a man is justified by faith" to "a person is justified by faith" in Romans 3:28.
A publicity release related to the new Bible emphasizes that seventy percent of the changes in the new version do not relate to gender. Terms that refer to God and Jesus Christ also remain unchanged. Evangelical translators created both the old and the new offerings from the International Bible Society. The books seem to be most popular in conservative, Protestant sectors of America's Bible market.
Randy Stinson is the executive director of the Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, based in Kentucky. He is representative of many groups by what they see as the latest attempt to alter and undermine text they believe was written by God Himself. They worry that changing the text may alter word meanings and cause the truth of the scripture to be lost.
The Vice President and Publisher at Zondervan insists that the changes that have been made have been done "only to reflect the original meaning of the text" and that there is no social agenda at work here.
Some might see this as the International Bible Society going back on sacred word. Previously, they had announced plans to publish a "gender inclusive" version of the Bible in the United States but dropped the idea after a storm of protest arose from the Southern Baptist Convention and James Dobson of the well-known "Focus on the Family" regime.
Despite their claim at that time to "abandon all plans for gender-related changes in future editions", they insist that the new version doesn't violate their promise. Why? Because they are not removing their more traditional version, only adding the one as an additional choice for readers to purchase.
Other Literature-Related News Stories:
Stephen King ready to close book as writer? - The Master of Horror reveals that he is about to retire
Pippi Longstocking author dies - Astrid Lindgren, the world's most famous children's writer before J. K. Rowling passed away on Monday
UCLA acquires Susan Sontag archive - Literary figure's work is purchased for $1.1 million
Amazon turns its first profit - it's cost $10 bn to achieve it, but the online bookseller has made a profit at last
============= QUOTATIONS =============
We've compiled some quotations from classic love poems. Why not write out your favorite one in calligraphic style and give your Valentine a surprise by placing it in his or her pocket or handbag?
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
William Shakespeare (1564�1616), from 'Sonnet 18'
As a lily among brambles,
so is my love among maidens.
As an apple tree among the trees of the wood,
so is my beloved among young men.
attr. King Solomon (tenth century B.C.), from the 'Song of Solomon'
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach . . .
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806�1861), from 'Sonnets from the Portuguese'
Wild nights! Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!
Emily Dickinson (1830�1886), from 'Wild Nights'
Ah love is bitter and sweet,
but which is more sweet
the bitterness or the sweetness,
none has spoken it.
Hilda Doolittle (1886�1961), from 'Eros'
Before you kissed me only winds of heaven
Had kissed me, and the tenderness of rain�
Now you have come, how can I care for kisses
Like theirs again?
Sarah Teasdale (1884�1933), from 'The Kiss'
. . . for me there lies,
Within the lights and shadows of your eyes,
The only beauty that is never old.
James Weldon Johnson (1871�1938), from 'Beauty That Is Never Old'
At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.
At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Li Po (700?�762)
from 'The River Merchant's Wife: A Letter', translated by Ezra Pound
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle:�
Why not I with thine?
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792�1822),
from 'Love's Philosophy'
All right. I may have lied to you and about you, and
made a few pronouncements a bit too sweeping,
perhaps, and possibly forgotten to tag the bases
here or there,
And damned your extravagance, and maligned your
tastes, and libeled your relatives, and slandered a
few of your friends,
O.K.,
Nevertheless, come back.
Kenneth Fearing (1902�1961), from 'Love 20� the First Quarter Mile'
--------------------------- Sponsor ------------------------
2001 Picks - Amazon.com editors' and customers' picks of the best books of the year
Charity products - publishers, artists, and authors are donating the profits or proceeds from the products listed to relief efforts relating to the September 11 attacks
--------------------------- Sponsor ------------------------
============ POETRY ============
What better way to celebrate the festival of l'amour that is Valentine's Day than to give Andrew Marvell's most frequently anthologized lyric To His Coy Mistress an airing? Here it is in the original Olde English:
To His Coy Mistress
Had we but World enough, and Time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime.
We would sit down and think which way
To walk, and pass our long Loves Day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges side
Should'st Rubies find: I by the Tide
Of Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood:
And you should if you please refuse
Till the Conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable Love should grow
Vaster than Empires and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine Eyes, and on thy Forehead Gaze.
Two hundred to adore each Breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest.
An Age at least to every part,
And the last Age should show your Heart.
For Lady you deserve this State,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I alwaies hear
Times winged Chariot hurrying near:
And yonder all before us lye
Desarts of vast Eternity.
Thy Beauty shall no more be found;
Nor, in thy marble Vault, shall sound
My echoing Song: then Worms shall try
That long preserv'd Virginity:
And your quaint Honour turn to dust;
And into ashes all my Lust.
The Grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hew
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing Soul transpires
At every pore with instant Fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our Time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapt pow'r.
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one Ball:
And tear our Pleasures with rough strife,
Thorough the Iron gates of Life:
Thus, though we cannot make our Sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
Click on the names below to hear poets read the above lyric at the Atlantic Online Web site (in RealAudio):
For a brilliant exposition of carpe diem poetry including To His Coy Mistress go to this page at the University of Oregon's Web site.
========== COMPETITIONS ============
Monthly Subscriber Prize Draw
Our winner this month is
Wai Ping Ipp, a 24 year old literature student from Bakersfield in southern California. She'll receive the top ten
bestselling books at Amazon.
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