How to Drink

2020. Vincent Obsopoeus. How to Drink: A Classical Guide to the Art of Imbibing. Princeton University Press. Translations: German, Turkish, Spanish. Pirated in Japan.

The world’s first guide to drinking. “Weirdly time-travelly” — The Daily Beast. What’s the buzz?

Is there an art to drinking alcohol? Can drinking ever be a virtue? The Renaissance humanist and neoclassical poet Vincent Obsopoeus (ca. 1498–1539) thought so. In the winelands of sixteenth-century Germany, he witnessed the birth of a poisonous new culture of bingeing, hazing, peer pressure, and competitive drinking. Alarmed, and inspired by the Roman poet Ovid’s Art of Love, he wrote The Art of Drinking (De Arte Bibendi) (1536), a how-to manual for drinking with pleasure and discrimination. In How to Drink, Michael Fontaine offers the first proper English translation of Obsopoeus’s text, rendering his poetry into spirited, contemporary prose and uncorking a forgotten classic that will appeal to drinkers of all kinds and (legal) ages.

Arguing that moderation, not abstinence, is the key to lasting sobriety, and that drinking can be a virtue if it is done with rules and limits, Obsopoeus teaches us how to manage our drinking, how to win friends at social gatherings, and how to give a proper toast. But he also says that drinking to excess on occasion is okay—and he even tells us how to win drinking games, citing extensive personal experience.

Complete with the original Latin on facing pages, this sparkling work is as intoxicating today as when it was first published.

(For a translation of the original preface, which was too long to include in the book, click here; for a translation of the second preface, also omitted, click here.)

• Overview and backstory: Cornell Chronicle
• Op-eds: USA Today; Psychology Today
• Bonuses and b-sides: The Best American Poetry I, II, III, IV (includes the preface), V. 中文: I, II, III, V. Epigram for Lucian’s Hermotimus
  • Liminary poems (omitted from the printed book): here.
  • Prefaces (omitted from the printed book): first edition; second edition
  • The history of drinking games: History Today, Time Magazine
  • Drinking games + “toxic” masculinity: The Times 1; 2; El Español; The Sun
  • The Art of Slander: Classical Wisdom Litterae (part 1; part 2)
  • Quarantini recipes: English, 中文
• High-octane webinar: Classical Wisdom
• Podcasts: American Scholar; Royal College of Psychiatrists; The Good Life
• Reviews: Wine Spectator; Forbes; The Daily Mail; Times Literary Supplement; The Spectator USA; Atlas Obscura (qui in Italiano); Jancis Robinson; Literary Review of Canada; Figs in Winter; Fortress of the Mind; Alexander Adams; The Brew Holder; Literary Review; Mr.&Mrs.Romance; The Mountain Democrat; The Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette; The Santa Barbara Independent; The Umami Factor; Washington Examiner; Múlt-Kor; Pennsylvania Literary Journal; The Daily Beast; Nossa UOL; The Daily Mirror; Mayéutica; scholarly reviews: Journal of Classics Teaching; Neo-Latin News; Classics for All

For scholars: In line 1.321, Maxwell Hardy suggests verae for vivae (cuius nulla sonant vivae praeconia laudis). This is obviously better than my own desperate suggestion of vitae, and probably right. I ask readers to make the correction in their copies. (Maxwell Hardy, “Notes on the Text of Lygdamus” in Philologus 2022, 166: 210–231.)