Tag Archives: Aeschylus

Philip Pullman’s Unorthodox Afterlife

In “Amber Spyglass,” Pullman rebels against orthodox versions of the afterlife and creates his own.

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Got a Problem? Call a Poet

Tragedy, it turns out, is a powerful literary form for dealing with posttraumatic fear.

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Kundera Understood Authoritarianism

The late Milan Kundera understood the authoritarian mindset in a deep way. “Book of Laughter and Forgetting” and “Eternal Lightness of Being” capture the mindset.

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A Partial Defense of Plato’s Poet Ban

Perhaps Plato banished poets from his ideal society because he appreciated the destructive potential of stories. He’s relevant in light of today’s conspiracy theories.

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Our New President Understands Suffering

America has elected a president who understands suffering. A passage from Aeschylus’s “Agamemnon” seems right.

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Covid Costs Us Loved Ones’ Final Words

Among the many tragedies related to Covid is how family and friends are missing out on final words. Many literary works touch on the importance of this last encounter.

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Through Lit, We Learn Compassion

Tuesday My brother Sam, an enthusiastic Unitarian Universalist, gave me Karen Armstrong’s Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life for Christmas, and I was pleased that the author sees literature playing a major role. In today’s post I share how she draws on the ancient Greeks. Armstrong writes, “All faiths insist that compassion is the test […]

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#MeToo: A New Day for Cassandra

The prophetess Cassandra wasn’t listened to, but the #MeToo movement is changing that.

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Climate Scientists, Our Cassandras

Our climate scientists must feel like modern day Cassandras, as she appears in Aeschylus’s “Agamemnon” or Robinson Jeffers’s “Cassandra.” The prophetess knew what would happen but no one believed her. As a result, Troy fell.

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