Monday My wife Julia alerted me to an intriguing although somewhat frustrating article in Atlantic about the end of time. Drawing on Frank Kermode’s 1967 The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction, Megan Garber wrestles with an issue recently raised by The Washington Post: how do we live with constant reminders […]
Posted in Shakespeare (William), Yeats (William Butler) | Also tagged "Dover Beach", "Second Coming", endings, Frank Kermode, King Lear, Matthew Arnold, modernism, post-apocalyptic fiction, Samuel Beckett, Sense of an Ending, William Butler Yeats, William Shakespeare, world weary ennui | Thursday I share today the introduction to my upcoming book, which is still in draft form and whose title I keep changing. Latest title: Read to Resist: Classic Lit Provides Tools for Battling Trump and Trumpism. I’m still not entirely satisfied with that and so will keep tinkering. In any event, here’s my first attempt […]
Posted in Beowulf Poet, Lee (Harper), Milton (John), Pope (Alexander), Wells (H. G.) | Also tagged Beowulf, Donald Trump, Dunciad, Go Set a Watchman, H. G. Wells, Harper Lee, Invisible Man, John Milton, Leo Tolstoy, Othello, Paradise Lost, To Kill a Mockingbird, Trump resistance, War and Peace, William Shakespeare | “National Inquirer” is in trouble for having conspired to bury article critical of Donald Trump. Alexander Pope described such publications in “The Dunciad.”
Pope’s “a little learning” seems dangerous at first glance but the alternative is not entirely attractive.
Roseanne Barr and Samantha Bee gave their fans a quick high with their foul language, but such language does little substantive.
Celebrity culture contributed to the Aziz Ansari scandal and the commotion it has caused. Alexander Pope sets forth the dynamics in “Rape of the Lock.”
Book IV of Pope’s “Dunciad” captures the triumph of Trumpism. In Pope’s poem, the goddess dullness (stupidity) has conquered the world.
In my “Restoration and 18th Century Couples Comedy” class, my students paired old rom-coms with contemporary films, including “Ten Things I Hate about You,” “How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days, “Friends with Benefits,” and others.
Posted in Austen (Jane), Behn (Aphra), Cowley (Hannah), Goldsmith (Oliver), Sheridan (Richard), Wycherley (William) | Also tagged 10 Things I Hate about You, Aphra Behn Country Wife, Austenland, Belle's Stratagem, Brave, Crazy Stupid Love, Don Jon, Friends with Benefits, Hannah Cowley, He’s Just Not That into You, How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days, Jane Austen, Mean Girls, Oliver Goldsmith, Rape of the Lock, Richard Sheridan, Rivals, Rover, Say Anything, Sense and Sensibility, She Stoops to Conquer, William Wycherley | Recently a student reported me for using sexist language in the classroom. (This while teaching a Kingsolver novel and Euripides’s “The Bacchae.”) The language did not reflect my own views, but the complaint made me realize that I need to be more careful with this generation of students.
Posted in Euripides, Gay (John), Kingsolver (Barbara), Kingston (Maxine Hong), Pope (Alexander) | Also tagged Bacchae, Barbara Kingsolver, Donald Trump, Euripides, Flight Behavior, Maxine Hong Kingston, Rape of the Lock, Sexism, sexual harassment, Title IX, Woman Warrior | 
