Monthly Archives: November 2019

The Thick Honey of This Good Life

By Robin Bates | Published: November 9, 2019

Jane Hirshfield’s “Bees” explores how we find deep meaning in our lives–and why we sometimes opt for routine instead.

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Giuliani, a Kiplingesque Fortune Hunter

By Robin Bates | Published: November 7, 2019

Rudy Giuliani resembles the fortune hunters in Kipling’s “The Man Who Would Be King.”

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Desire vs. Law in Shakespeare, Euripides

By Robin Bates | Published: November 6, 2019

If a play turns comic or tragic often depends how how the clash between law and desire is negotiated.

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Trump’s Transcript & the Ministry of Truth

By Robin Bates | Published: November 5, 2019

Trump tells us to “read the transcript,” as if it exonerates him rather than condemns him. It’s a Big Brother move.

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Will Trump Turn Us into Goodman Brown?

By Robin Bates | Published: November 4, 2019

The disillusion of Hawthorne’s Young Goodman Brown may prove to be America’s in a post-Trump world.

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Verbal Barbs in Comedies of Remarriage

By Robin Bates | Published: November 3, 2019

Screwball comedies in the 1930s and 1940s conveyed sexual attraction through verbal battles.

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Standing Beside Us, Even As We Grieve

By Robin Bates | Published: November 2, 2019

In a sonnet written for All Souls’ Day, Malcolm Guite writes that, when we grieve, we are supported by all who have passed on, who reflect Christ’s light.

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