Throughout the European Middle Ages and Renaissance, Latin was the language of learning and international communication. But in the early modern period, it was gradually displaced by French. By the eighteenth century, all the world - or at least all of Europe - aspired to be Parisian.

Michael Dirda
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More Quotes By Michael Dirda
  1. Despite the rising popularity of the downloadable e-text, I still care about physical books, gravitate to handsome editions and pretty dust jackets, and enjoy seeing rows of hardcovers on my shelves. Many people simply read fiction for pleasure and nonfiction for information. I often do...

  2. As with a love affair, the battered heart needs time to recover from a good work of fiction.

  3. Many readers simply can't stomach fantasy. They immediately picture elves with broadswords or mighty-thewed barbarians with battle axes, seeking the bejeweled Coronet of Obeisance .. (But) the best fantasies pull aside the velvet curtain of mere appearance.. In most instances, fantasy ultimately returns us to...

  4. Fiction is a house with many stately mansions, but also one in which it is wise, at least sometimes, to swing from the chandeliers.

  5. To my mind, 'Dear Brutus' stands halfway between Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' and Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine's 'Into the Woods'. Like them, it is a play about enchantment and disillusion, dreams and reality.

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