Monthly Archives: May 2016

Crohn’s Disease and the Mariner’s Agony

By Robin Bates | Published: May 21, 2016

A student with Crohn’s disease found a kindred soul in Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner.

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Trollope & Trump’s Willing Enablers

By Robin Bates | Published: May 19, 2016

Trollope describes gentry who enable to a scandalous financier in “The Way We Live Now.” Parallels can be drawn with those members of the GOP who are reconciling with Donald Trump.

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Lily, Achilles, Bertha & Ishmael on Vacation

By Robin Bates | Published: May 18, 2016

Lily Bart, Bertha Mason, Achilles, Ishmael and Queequeg all go on vacation. Where do they go?

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Trump’s Use of the Homeric Epithet

By Robin Bates | Published: May 17, 2016

Donald Trump is making regular use of “the Homeric epithet.” He doesn’t use it as well as Homer, however.

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Nature and “My Babe So Beautiful”

By Robin Bates | Published: May 16, 2016

I saw my latest grandchild for the first time yesterday. Although it was beautiful spring day, Coleridge’s beautiful “Frost at Midnight” came to mind. That’s because the poet imagines “the great universal teacher” imparting a spirit of inquiry to his infant son.

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How To Pin Down Protean Donald Trump

By Robin Bates | Published: May 15, 2016

Trying to pin down Donald Trump is like trying to pin down Proteus. But maybe that means that reporters can use the same tactics that Menelaus does to capture the sea god.

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How Trump Is Changing the Discourse

By Robin Bates | Published: May 12, 2016

Adam Gopnik of “New Yorker” and Andrew Sullivan of “New York” are very, very frightened by the rise of Trump. As they explain why, they quote Tom Stoppard, Sinclair Lewis, Mark Twain, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Plato.

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Crown My Head with Ample Square-Cap

By Robin Bates | Published: May 11, 2016

Christopher Smart’s “On Taking a Bachelor’s Degree” is deliberately excessively self-congratulatory. Still, students should feel proud of themselves for graduating.

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#NeverTrump! Never! Never! Never! Never?

By Robin Bates | Published: May 10, 2016

Many who vowed NeverTrump are backing away from the word “never.” “Never” is an important word in “King Lear” and Lear, unlike Lear’s opponents, doesn’t back away from it.

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