Scalia attacking his fellow SCOTUS justices sounds like Pentheus excoriating Teiresias and Cadmus in “The Bacchae.” Unlike Scalia’s fellow justices, Teiresias gives as good as he gets.
Monthly Archives: June 2015
Justice Scalia, Blind Like Pentheus
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Antonin Scalia, Bacchae, Euripides, Same Sex Marriage, Supreme Court Comments closed
Poetry Enlarges the Moral Imagination
Shelley’s “Defence of Poetry” makes one of the strongest cases in history for how poetry changes the world.
Plato’s Warning: Beware of Poets
While Plato advocated banning poets from the ideal republic, his censure works as an indirect testimony to literature’s power.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Ion, passions, philosophy, Plato, reason, Republic, Socrates Comments closed
The Fear of Not Reading All We Should
Many readers have they anxiety that they haven’t read all the books they should have. Bibliotherapists claim that they can offer relief.
Prescribing Lit for What Ails Us
I had mixed feelings about a recent article in “The New Yorker” on bibliotherapy.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Anne Elliot, bibliotherapy, Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf Comments closed
Puck’s Summer Magic
“Midsummer Night’s Dream” dips into ancient British legends about the mystical aspects of midsummer.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged A. S. Byatt, Children's Book, E. Nesbit, Midsummer Night's Dream, Midsummer Night's Eve, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, summer, summer solstice, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Milton’s Satan Invades Charleston
Once again, light has attracted darkness in America with the Charleston church killings. John Milton describes how this dynamic works in “Paradise Lost” and Leslie Marmon Silko does so as well in “Ceremony.”
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Ceremony, Charleston killings, domestic terrorism, Dylann Storm Roof, Emanuel AME Church, John Milton, Leslie Marmon Silko, mass killings, Paradise Lost, racism, white supremacy Comments closed
