Aeolic Greek ( /iːˈɒlɪk/; also Aeolian /iːˈoʊliən/, Lesbian or Lesbic Greek) is a linguistic term used to describe a set of dialects of Ancient Greek spoken mainly in Boeotia (a region in Central Greece), Thessaly, and in the Aegean island of Lesbos and the Greek colonies of Asia Minor (Aeolis).
The Aeolic dialect shows many archaisms in comparison to the other Ancient Greek dialects (Attic-Ionic, Doric, Northwestern and Arcadocypriot), as well as many innovations.
Aeolic Greek is most widely known for being the language of the writings of Sappho and Alcaeus of Mytilene. Aeolic poetry, the most famous example of which being the works of Sappho, mostly uses four classical meters known as the Aeolics, which are: Glyconic (the most basic form of Aeolic line), hendecasyllabic verse, Sapphic stanza and Alcaic stanza (the latter two so named after Sappho and Alcaeus respectively).
In Plato's Protagoras (dialogue), Prodicus labelled the Aeolic dialect of Pittacus of Mytilene as barbarian (barbaros), because of its difference from the Attic literary style:
Donald Robert Paul Roche (26 September 1916 – 30 October 2007) was a British poet, novelist, and professor of English, a critically acclaimed translator of Greek and Latin classics, notably the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Sappho, and Plautus. Born in Mussoorie, India, Roche was an associate of the Bloomsbury group, especially of painter Duncan Grant, whom he met in the summer of 1946 and who lived with Roche and his family until Grant's death in 1978.
He used his translation of Sophocles', Oedipus the King, to write a screenplay for a film version of the work released in 1968 with Christopher Plummer in the title role. Roche played a small role in the Greek chorus.
Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was an English American author and journalist whose career spanned more than four decades. Hitchens, often referred to colloquially as "Hitch", was a columnist and literary critic for New Statesman, The Atlantic, The Nation, The Daily Mirror, The Times Literary Supplement and Vanity Fair. He was an author of twelve books and five collections of essays. As a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits, he was a prominent public intellectual, and his confrontational style of debate made him both a lauded and controversial figure.
Hitchens was known for his admiration of George Orwell, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, as well as for his excoriating critiques of various public figures including Mother Teresa, Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger and Diana, Princess of Wales. Although he supported the Falklands War, his key split from the established political left began in 1989 after what he called the "tepid reaction" of the Western left to the Rushdie Affair. The September 11 attacks strengthened his internationalist embrace of an interventionist foreign policy, and his vociferous criticism of what he called "fascism with an Islamic face." His numerous editorials in support of the Iraq War caused some to label him a neoconservative, although Hitchens insisted he was not "a conservative of any kind", and his friend Ian McEwan describes him as representing the anti-totalitarian left.