Monthly Archives: November 2009

Bridging the 18th-Century Generation Gap

By Robin Bates | Published: November 4, 2009

Yesterday my 18th Century Couples Comedy class concluded our discussion of Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones. We spent a lot of time talking about how it was popular with youthful readers in the 18th century, an idea I owe to J. Paul Hunter, my dissertation director at Emory University. Paul explores the issue in Before Novels: […]

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Faced with Beauty, ‘Tis Folly to Be Wise

By Robin Bates | Published: November 3, 2009

Claude Lorrain,”View of La Crescenza” (1648-50)      Poetry enhances our lives in a host of little ways.  It did so in a walk I took around campus with my wife last week. It was a beautiful fall day and we work at a beautiful campus.  There is an incline at the edge of college that we […]

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Same-Sex Marriage, a Leap of Faith

By Robin Bates | Published: November 2, 2009

Rachel Kranz My novelist friend Rachel Kranz is currently in Maine campaigning with gay friends to save same-sex marriage against attempts to ban it. I mention this because her first novel, Leaps of Faith, is the most intelligent fictional exploration of same-sex marriage that I know. Among the differences between politics and fiction is the […]

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