Note: If you wish to receive, via e-mail, (1) my weekly newsletter or (2) daily copies of these posts, notify me at [email protected] and indicate which you would like. I promise not to share your e-mail address with anyone. To unsubscribe, send me a follow-up email. Wednesday My faculty reading group has plunged into Hamlet, and our engagement […]
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Does Hamlet Speak for Generation Z?
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged 2024 election, America's youth, Donald Trump, Generation Z, Hamlet, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Biden and Auden’s Unknown Citizen
Auden’s “Unknown Citizen” looks better now than when the poet wrote the poem.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Unknown Citizen", Donald Trump, Election 2024, Joe Biden, MAGA, W. H. Auden Comments closed
Our Country, a Land of Poverty
Blake calls out those who claim to be Christians while mistreating the poor.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "Holy Thursday", Donald Trump, MAGA, paaradise on earth, poverty, William Blake Comments closed
Expressing Thanks Is Its Own Reward
Thanks giving is not (as Milton’s Satan) contends, a burdensome debt but the key to deep joy.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Dante, gratitude, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Paradiso, Thanksgving Comments closed
A Wordsworth Thanksgiving Poem
In which I read Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” as a Thanksgiving poem.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Dorothy Wordsworth, Nature, Thanksgiving, Tintern Abbey, William Wordsworth, Wye River Comments closed
Clifton on JFK’s Assassination
In “november 21, 1988,” Clifton looks back at JFK’s assassination and sees it as a day when history changed forever.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged "november 21 1988", American violence, John F. Kennedy, Kennedy assassination, Lucille Clifton Comments closed
Austen’s Revolutionary Style
Austen may have innovated a way to blend satire with romance as a way to protect us from heartbreak.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Emma, Emma Bovary, free indirect style, Geoffrey Chaucer, Gustave Flaubert, Henry Fielding, Horace, ironic romance, Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility, Tom Jones Comments closed
Rom-Coms, Defense against Heartbreak
One way of seeing “Tom Jones” is as “valentine armor,” alternating between romance and light satire. As such, it saves us from broken hearts.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Comedy, Don Quixote, Henry Fielding, Miguel de Cervantes, Pamela, Romantic Comedy, Samuel Richardson, Shamela, Tom Jones Comments closed
