Monthly Archives: May 2011

Bin Laden’s Sunset, Elegant Hedgehogs

By Robin Bates | Published: May 13, 2011

Bin Laden in his mansion conjures up images of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. And Muriel Barbery’s Elegance of the Hedgehog gives a perspective on eclectic film tastes.

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Faustus, Case Study of a Depressive

By Robin Bates | Published: May 12, 2011

Today I share the story of a student making the case that Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus is a case study of a depressive.

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Lit Beats Psychology Any Day

By Robin Bates | Published: May 11, 2011

In addition to giving us psychological insights, literature also trains us to become better people. By engaging in the act of reading, Susan Cain says in a Psychology Today article, we increase our ability to empathize.

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Bartleby and the Missing Professor

By Robin Bates | Published: May 10, 2011

One of the strangest reading stories I have ever encountered involves an English professor who mysteriously disappeared and Melville’s novella Bartleby the Scrivener.

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Bullying in Twelfth Night

By Robin Bates | Published: May 9, 2011

Although I’ve been teaching for over 30 years, students continue to provide new insights into works that I thought I knew. Sophomore Wick Eisenberg did so recently with a Twelfth Night essay in which he examined an issue that has become a national concern: bullying.

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The Green of Jesus Is Breaking the Ground

By Robin Bates | Published: May 8, 2011

According to the church calendar, we are still in the Easter season,and the hope of the resurrection continues to be mirrored in beautiful May days. Lucille Clifton intermingles the spirituality of religion and the sensuality of life as well as any poet I know. Here’s a poem in her Jesus series. As far as she’s concerned, there’s no conflict between religious ecstasy and the sights and sounds of spring or the wonderful smells emanating from people’s kitchens and the music from their radios.

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Derby Day: We Galloped All Three

By Robin Bates | Published: May 7, 2011

It’s Derby Day so here’s a horse racing poem with galloping anapests (three-beat poetic feet, unstressed, unstressed, stressed). Unfortunately, two of the horses don’t make it to the finish line. At least the third horse is suitably rewarded. This 1834 Robert Browning poem is not based on an actual event, but it’s a lot of fun.

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The Godfather Takes Out Bin Laden

By Robin Bates | Published: May 6, 2011

My first thought when hearing how Bin Laden was killed was that it sounded like the plot out of an action adventure movie (only without a heroine). There are also a number of parallels with Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather.

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The Witch that Walks in the Fields of Spring

By Robin Bates | Published: May 5, 2011

Here’s a poetic warning that my wife directs to those who close their eyes to the miracle of May that is exploding all around us.  Maybe we miss out on spring because we are plugged into our iPods or talking on our cell phones or texting.  Or for that matter, blogging. Ignoring spring requires a […]

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