Monthly Archives: September 2021

Letting Go of Summer

By Robin Bates | Published: September 20, 2021

Poet Borowicz doesn’t want to let go of summer until she remembers her great-grandmother.

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Longing for Consequences

By Robin Bates | Published: September 19, 2021

Reading “Washington Square” made me realize how hungry I have been for misbehaving politicians to pay for their bad behavior.

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Like an Ocean Thundering to the Moon

By Robin Bates | Published: September 18, 2021

In “Prayer” Nims desperately calls out to God to fill the emptiness within.

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Getting to Know Henry James

By Robin Bates | Published: September 16, 2021

I’m on a Henry James kick and am enthralled with “Daisy Miller” and “Washington Square.”

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The Great Books as Assimilation Manual

By Robin Bates | Published: September 15, 2021

Phuc Tran’s “Sigh, Gone” describes how great literature helped him negotiate a difficult immigrant experience.

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Surveying Great Thinkers about Lit’s Power

By Robin Bates | Published: September 14, 2021

I share an excerpt from my book about what can be learned by surveying what great thinkers have said about literature’s impact upon readers.

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Biden as Dryden’s Ideal Leader

By Robin Bates | Published: September 13, 2021

Biden’s suspense wearing thin on vaccine resistance reminds me of King David in Dryden’s “Absalom and Architophel.”

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On Grendel, a Boston Bar, and a Texas Law

By Robin Bates | Published: September 12, 2021

A case involving a Boston bar (Grendel’s Den) may be invoked in legal challenges to the new Texas abortion ban. What would Beowulf do?

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Let These Weak Feet Tread in Narrow Ways

By Robin Bates | Published: September 11, 2021

Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s poem “Get Thee Behind Me Satan” shows the poet turning away from soaring ambition.

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