Author Archives: Robin Bates

Austen: Romance without Words

By Robin Bates | Published: February 13, 2025

Jane Austen never directly reports a protagonist saying “yes” to a marriage proposal. For Valentine’s Day, I explore why.

By Robin Bates | Published: February 13, 2025

Julia and I spent the last week in a series of visits such as one encounters in Jane Austen novels.

By Robin Bates | Published: February 11, 2025

A Wall Street Journal columnist argues that Rousseau is responsible for today’s lost youth. That and not reading classic lit.

By Robin Bates | Published: February 10, 2025

Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” is all too applicable to the Musk administration’s attempts to destroy America.

By Robin Bates | Published: February 9, 2025

When I was growing up as one of four boys, we thought of ourselves as Dumas’s musketeers. We have now lost one of our number.

By Robin Bates | Published: February 8, 2025

Mary Oliver makes a Eucharistic feast out of a fish she has caught, bringing to mind Jesus’s injunction to become “a fisher of people.”

By Robin Bates | Published: February 7, 2025

If Chaucer’s created a timeless and transcendent character in the Wife of Bath, it is because he listened–really listened–to women.

By Robin Bates | Published: February 5, 2025

My brother died yesterday. This Mark Twain lyric gets at some of what I’m feeling.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged death, Mark Twain | Comments closed

By Robin Bates | Published: February 4, 2025

Trump and Musk are current-day Macbeths, out to murder American democracy.