A medieval Celtic Easter poem throbs with nature images.
Monthly Archives: May 2025
Mystic Harvest of the Fields of God
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Easter Song", Celtic Christianity, Easter, Sedulius Scottus, Victoria Emily Jones Comments closed
Classics to the Rescue in Dark Times
In Trump’s first 100 days, Jill Lepore turned to 100 classics to survive.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "1914", "Fears in Solitude", "Nightingales Are Drunk", "Nose", "Story of the Bad Little Boy", "With Antecedents", Aesop, Antigone, classic literature, Dante, Eclogue II, Edith Wharton, Figure in the Carpet, Frogs Who Demanded a King, Grimm Brothers, Hafez, Henry James, Homer, Inferno, Jill Lepore, Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain, Matsuo Basho, Modest Proposal, Nikolai Gogol, Odyssey, Reckoning, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Six Servants, Sophocles, Virgil, Walt Whitman, Wilfred Owen, Yoshido KenkÅ Comments closed
MAGA’s “Get Out of Sin Free” Pass
Browning poem on the antinomian thinker Johannes Agricola helps us understand some of Trump’s Christian followers.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Johannes Agricola in Meditation", antinomianism, Christian nationalism, Donald Trump, Robert Browning, Trump's Christian supporters Comments closed
Understanding Murikami’s 1Q84
In which I explore the theme of toxic masculinity in Murakami’s “1Q84.”
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Dover Beach", 1Q84, Carl Jung, Haruki Murakami, Matthew Arnold, return of the repressed, Sigmund Freud, toxic masculinity, Trumpism Comments closed
Irony and the GOP’s Big Beautiful Bill
The GOP’s “big beautiful bill” is perfect in its rottenness–like William Carlos Williams’ rotten apple in “Perfection.”
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Hellas: A Chorus", "Ode to the West Wind", "Shine Perishing Republica", American decadence, Big Beautiful Bill, GOP, Percy Shelley, Perfection, Robinson Jeffers, William Carlos Williams Comments closed
On Those Who Fail to Honor the Fallen
In bitter satire, Siegfried Sassoon lashes those who cheer marching soldiers but ignore war’s victims. Imagine what he would have thought of Donald Trump.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Suicide in the Trenches", Donald Trump, Memorial Day, Siegfried Sassoon Comments closed
Religious Doubt in the Trenches
Looking ahead to Memorial Day, I share three Wildred Owen poems where he experiences significant religious doubt after spending time in the World War I trenches.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Le Christianisme", "Parable of the Old Man and His Son", "Soldier's Dream", religious doubt, Wilfred Owen, World War I Comments closed
1Q84 Provides Insight into MAGA
Murakami’s account of cult behavior in “1Q84” applies only to well to MAGA behavior in current day America.
Flannery O’Connor’s DEI Revelation
In Flannery O’Connor’s “Revelation,” we see the status anxiety that is driving many Americans towards reactionary politics.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Fascism, Flannery O'Connor, racism, Revelation, status anxiety Comments closed
