Tag Archives: Henry Fielding

Knives Out and the American Dream

By Robin Bates | Published: January 13, 2020

The movie “Knives Out” is satisfying but leaves unquestioned the American Dream.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Vanity of Human Wishes", American Dream, Anne Sexton, Cinderella, Knives Out, Samuel Johnson, Tom Jones | Comments closed

Caution against Purity Policing

By Robin Bates | Published: February 24, 2019

Monday One of my conservative readers wrote me recently asking me how I felt about leftist insistence that Virginia governor Ralph Northam resign for having posted a racist picture in his medical school yearbook years ago. After all, hasn’t Northam lived a fairly exemplary life since then? The reader also sent me a Quillette article […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Aphra Behn, Merchant of Venice, Oroonoko, purity policing, Tom Jones, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Henry Fielding Explains Witness Flipping

By Robin Bates | Published: September 21, 2018

Fielding shows a classic case of a witness flipping on his boss in “Tom Jones.” As a magistrate, he knows what he’s talking about.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, Michael Flynn, Mueller investigation, Paul Manafort, Robert Mueller, Russia investigation, Tom Jones | Comments closed

If Fielding Had Written about Trump

By Robin Bates | Published: October 6, 2017

Henry Fielding would have had a field day writing about America’s president.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trump, Historical Register for the Year 1736, Jonathan Wild the Great, Tom Jones | Comments closed

Update on My Heart Condition

By Robin Bates | Published: September 29, 2017

I now have a possible explanation for last week’s heart episode. Henry Fielding’s “Tom Jones” helped lead me to it.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Tom Jones | Comments closed

Dying of a Broken Heart

By Robin Bates | Published: January 1, 2017

Two 18th century items: Henry Fielding believed that it was possible to die from a broken heart, which some speculate explains actress Debbie Reynolds’s death after her daughter Carrie Fisher died. And prankster Jonathan Swift has a characteristic list of New Year’s resolutions.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, dying of a broken heart, Jonathan Swift, New Year's resolutions, Tom Jones | Comments closed

Defending Homer against Plato

By Robin Bates | Published: October 4, 2016

Plato’s attacks on Homer have to do with the bard’s focus earthly concerns rather than higher ones. Following Plato’s prescriptions, however, will not produce very interesting poetry.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Homer, Odyssey, philosophy, Plato, Republic, Tom Jones | Comments closed

Ted Cruz as Lucifer, “Squat Like a Toad”

By Robin Bates | Published: May 1, 2016

After John Boehner compared Sen. Ted Cruz to Lucifer, I went looking through “Paradise Lost” to find passages that would apply. I found a particularly good one but, if you ask me, Cruz more resembles Blifil, Tom Jones’s nemesis.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Bram Stoker, Dracula, John Boehner, John Milton, Julius Caesar, Lucifer, Paradise Lost, Peter King, politics, Presidential Primaries, Satan, Senate, Ted Cruz, Tom Jones, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Detecting the Person behind the Poetry

By Robin Bates | Published: June 18, 2015

What we find when we look for the person behind the literary work.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged authorial criticism, Charles Dickens, death of the author, intentional fallacy, James Joyce, Lucille Clifton, New Criticism, Roland Barthes, Structuralism, Tom Jones, Ulysses, Wimsatt and Beardsley | Comments closed