My wife (who is currently out of town) has just responded to my last post with a story that expands my conversation about the Beowulf approach to societal rage. In the story related in Julia’s post, a woman takes a principled and courageous stand in an ugly situation and finds herself, against all expectation, making […]
Monthly Archives: June 2009
A Modern Grendel on the Rampage
We have a Grendel problem in today’s United States. The troll that invades our special halls has many different names—Scott Roeder, who killed Dr. George Tiller; James W. von Brunn, the Holocaust Museum attacker; Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, who killed an army recruitment officer; gun lover Richard Poplawski, who shot three Philadelphia police officers; Jim David Adkisson, […]
Roger Federer and the Cavalier Poets
I’m going to put off my follow-up post to Twelfth Night until Monday because I just came across an interesting article that invites a timely response. As a tennis player and fan of Roger Federer, I am still vibrating over his having won at the French Open this past Sunday. After his archrival Rafa Nadal […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Cavalier poets, Sir John Suckling, Sports, tennis, To Althea from Prison, To Lucasta Going to the Wars Comments closed
Shakespeare’s Cross-Dressing Fantasies
When I was a child, I was fascinated by works containing characters of ambiguous gender. Specifically, I was drawn to images of boys who either looked like girls or who were, unbeknownst to them, actually girls. I was also drawn to images of girls (and women) who passed themselves off as guys. The prevailing culture […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged cross dressing, gender, Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Clarence Thomas and Native Son
The focus in this week’s posts is on Supreme Court justices and literature. I notice that, in his New York Times column today, moderate conservative David Brooks endorses Sonia Sotomayor for just that restrained balance that we discussed yesterday as we explored her early love for Nancy Drew novels. Today I’m going to talk about […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Ayn Rand, Clarence Thomas, Eldridge Cleaver, Everybody's Protest Novel, James Baldwin, Nancy Drew, Native Son, politics, Richard Wright, Sonia Sotomayor, Soul on Ice, The Fountainhead Comments closed
Sonia Sotomayor and Nancy Drew
This week, with Sonia Sotomayor still in the news (although the firestorm that greeted her nomination has gone into temporary remission), I thought I’d devote my posts to supreme court justices and literature. This was inspired in part by an excellent New York Times article over the weekend on Sotomayor and Clarence Thomas (in which […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Carolyn Keene, children's classics, Clarence Thomas, detective fiction, Edward Stratemeyer, Franklin Dixon, Hardy Boys, Hillary Clinton, Issac Asimov, John Roberts, Laura Bush, Meghan O'Rourke, Nancy Drew, Native Son, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Samuel Delaney, Sandra Day O'Connor, Sonia Sotomayor Comments closed
Sendak and Dr. Seuss to the Rescue
In my last entry I mentioned the key role that books can play in the lives of children. I’d like to follow that up here, officially adding the category of “children’s classics” to the “great literature” to which this website is devoted.There is artistry to many of the children’s stories that we remember fondly. When […]
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged children's classics, Dr. Seuss, Go Dog Go, Green Eggs and Ham, Hand Hand Fingers Thumb, In the Night Kitchen, Maurice Sendak, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, reading to childrens, Sendak, Sigmund Freud Comments closed
