As one who specializes in 18th century British lit, I’m fascinated with how jigsaw puzzles represent order arising from chaos.
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Tag Archives: Alexander Pope
Jigsaw Order Out of Chaos
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Candide, jigsaw puzzles, Jonathan Swift, Moonstone, Voltaire, Wilkie Collins Comments closed
Are We Overanalyzing Trump?
Monday My son gave me a tough-love talk about my writing at a wedding reception this past Saturday afternoon. We were in Iowa together for my wife’s nephew and Darien took a few moments to express doubts about book he is helping me self-publish. While he is a big supporter of the blog, he worries […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Knight" Donald Trump, Arthur Conan Doyle, Death and the Compass, Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, Jorge Luis Borges, Study in Scarlet Comments closed
Do Endings Reveal Meaning of Life?
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 Uncategorized 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 Comments closed
Read to Resist: An Introduction
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 Uncategorized 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 Comments closed
National Inquirer, Political Sewage
“National Inquirer” is in trouble for having conspired to bury article critical of Donald Trump. Alexander Pope described such publications in “The Dunciad.”
How Dangerous Is a Little Learning?
Pope’s “a little learning” seems dangerous at first glance but the alternative is not entirely attractive.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College", colleges, Education, Essay on Criticism, Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde, Thomas Gray Comments closed
Pope Anticipated the Ansari Affair
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.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aziz Ansari, Celebrity culture, Rape of the Lock, sexual harassment Comments closed
Pope Describes Triumph of Stupidity
Book IV of Pope’s “Dunciad” captures the triumph of Trumpism. In Pope’s poem, the goddess dullness (stupidity) has conquered the world.