Daily Archives: August 7, 2026

Top Tens – Poetry & Literature: Top 10 Literature (Special Mention) (7) H.L. Mencken – “The Anglo-Saxon” (1923)

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Cover of The Vintage Mencken, published by Knopf in 1991 – one of the Mencken collections (along with A Mencken Chrestomathy) I own (fair use)

 

 

(7) H.L. MENCKEN –

“THE ANGLO-SAXON” (1923)

 

“No one in this world…has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby”

The “Sage of Baltimore” and the “American Nietzsche” – writer, journalist, essayist, critic, satirist, “acerbic critic of government, religion, and popular culture”, “one of the most influential American writers and stylists of the early 20th century as well as one of its leading cynics and sceptics”.

In other words, one of those great gadflies whom I like so much – and for whom sacred cows make the best hamburger.

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”

There’s a certain art to being a provocateur like Mencken – one has to be a consummate prose stylist. Prose style counts for a lot with me. I always admire a good prose stylist, even when I don’t agree with them – and Mencken was one of the best, famous for his “caustic wit and bitingly sardonic prose”, or in other words, mastery of snark.

“The term Menckenian has entered multiple dictionaries to describe anything of or pertaining to Mencken, including his combative rhetorical and prose styles”.

If that wasn’t enough to endear him to you, “Mencken viewed the freedom to drink as critical liberty and considered alcohol as one of humanity’s greatest inventions” – of which, I add, margarita is the pinnacle of human achievement.

“His humor and satire owed much to Ambrose Bierce and Mark Twain”, with turns of phrase that “evoked the erudite cynicism and rapier sharpness of language displayed by Ambrose Bierce in his darkly satiric The Devil’s Dictionary”.

There’s much to choose from for Mencken but if anything was the peak of his provocations and prose stylings, it was his essay “The Anglo-Saxon” skewering the contemporary pretensions of the Anglophone nations, notably Britain and the United States. It takes a certain skill to take all three of Britain, the United States and the Confederate States of America in their various wars on opposing sides where at least one of them fought their way to victory – and still lambast them all for their cowardice and military inferiority.

Top Tens – Mythology: Top 10 Odysseys (7) Atheniad & (8) Penelopiad

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Zendaya as Athena in the trailer for Nolan’s 2026 Odyssey film (fair use)

 

 

(7) ATHENIAD

 

As I said, now we’re moving to the narrative or thematic odysseys I tease out from within the Odyssey as a whole – except now moving away from Odysseus as protagonist, although he remains fundamental.

Hence, I present the Atheniad, as Athena plays the decisive moving role in Odysseus’ return and homecoming, effectively as his divine patron – and where he is essentially her champion, embodying the intellectual prowess that was one of her divine aspects.

Yes, he’s on his own in his fantastic voyage from Troy to the cattle of Helios he narrates in Books 9-12, but for all his survival by his own wits, he simply would not have been able to return home without her.

Her decisive moving role in the Odyssey is from the very outset in Book 1, where she successfully petitions Zeus to compel Calypso to release Odysseus from his captivity, albeit captivity with benefits, through to the conclusion in Book 24, where she intervenes to broker peace from blood feud by the families of the slain suitors.

She not only guides and protects Odysseus, but also his son Telemachus through Books 1-3 of the Telemachy, even taking human guise to help Telemachus as Mentes and Mentor, the latter lending his name as the source for our use of the term mentor.

She critically intervenes in the end of Odysseus’ wanderings in Books 5-8 to secure his release from Calypso, appear in a dream to Princess Nausicaa, and guide him among the Phaeacians for their aiding him to return to Ithaca.

And she doesn’t stop when Odysseus is back in Ithaca, appearing in almost every book of his homecoming in Books 13-24 to lend him and Telemachus critical assistance to defeat the suitors, again taking human guise when needed.

 

 

Anne Hathaway as Penelope in the trailer for the Nolan 2026 Odyssey film (fair use)

 

 

(8) PENELOPIAD

 

Yes, it’s the title of a novella by Margaret Atwood adapting the events of the Odyssey from Penelope’s perspective, but I’m claiming it as its own genuine part within the Odyssey – Penelope’s odyssey as it were.

Penelope might be absent from Odysseus’ fantastic wanderings within the Odyssey, for obvious reasons that the whole point of his wanderings was to return home to her, but she is very much present in the prelude with Telemachus (the Telemachy, in Books 1-2 and 4) and for his homecoming in Books 16-24 – indeed, giving Odysseus one final test, literally for their matrimonial bed.

Ultimately, all of Odysseus’ efforts in the Odyssey, even with Athena’s divine intervention, would have been for naught without Penelope’s steadfast fidelity to him and her cunning at keeping the suitors at bay.

Sadly, it might be noted that Odysseus didn’t reciprocate Penelope’s fidelity – cough Circe and Calypso cough” – although he cried about it a lot for the seven years he spent on Calypso’s island.

There was a variant legend that Penelope did sleep with all her suitors, giving birth to the god Pan, but not in my Odyssey – not my Odyssey, not my Penelope!