Monthly Archives: November 2015

Studying the Psychology of the Thriller

By Robin Bates | Published: November 8, 2015

Currently I am mentoring a English-psychology double major as she studies psychological thrillers that feature Antisocial Personality Disorders, such as “Psycho” and “Silence of the Lambs.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Arthur Conan Doyle, crime novels, Ed Gein, Edgar Allan Poe, Georges Simenon, Psycho, psychological thrillers, Robert Bloch, Silence of the Lambs, Ted Bundy, Thomas Harris | Comments closed

She Stood in Tears amid the Alien Corn

By Robin Bates | Published: November 7, 2015

The figure of the Biblical Ruth takes on new resonance when she makes an appearance in Keats’s “Ode to a Nightingale.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Ode to a Nightingale", John Keats, loneliness, Ruth, sadness | Comments closed

Happy Families Are All Alike?

By Robin Bates | Published: November 5, 2015

Tolstoy may seem to say that unhappy families are more interesting that happy ones in “Anna Karenina,” but the happy families that conclude “War and Peace” appear to contradict this.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Anna Karenina, families, husbands and wifes, Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace | Comments closed

Speaker Paul Ryan in Literature

By Robin Bates | Published: November 4, 2015

I’ve written a lot about Paul Ryan and his aspiration to be a John Galt figure. Now that he is Speaker of the House, I review other literary parallels I’ve drawn over the years.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Alice in Wonderland, Ayn Rand, Chinua Achebe, GOP, Hard Times, Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, Lewis Carroll, Oliver Twist, Paul Ryan, politics, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Things Fall Apart, Thomas Hardy | Comments closed

Johnson: The Bard Instructs by Delighting

By Robin Bates | Published: November 3, 2015

Although today we are sometimes suspicious when literature seeks to instruct us, Samuel Johnson considered this to be literature’s primary aim. He held up Shakespeare as proof.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged consumer capitalism, Horace, King Lear, Preface to Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, utilitarianism, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Child Heroines Who Die for Our Sins

By Robin Bates | Published: November 2, 2015

The child heroine who dies, a common trope in the 19th century, continues to fascinate us, appearing in “Bridge to Tarabithia” and “The Fault Is in Our Stars.” One of my students has this as a senior project topic.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged "Annabel Lee", Bridge to Tarabithia, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, Children, death and dying, Edgar Allan Poe, Feminism, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Jane Eyre, Katherine Paterson, Little Women, Louisa Mae Alcott, Old Curiosity Shop, Uncle Tom's Cabin | Comments closed

Jeb! Agonistes: An Unsettling Parallel

By Robin Bates | Published: November 1, 2015

Does Jeb Bush resemble at the moment Samson Agonistes? His rivalry with Marco Rubio also resembles any number of Shakespeare tragedies. There’s an Oedipus parallel as well.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 2016 election, GOP, GOP primary, Henry IV Part II, Jeb Bush, John Milton, Joseph Campbell, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Macbeth, Marco Rubio, Oedipus, politics, Samson Agonistes, Sophocles, William Shakespeare | Comments closed