Two narratives clash on Super Bowl Sunday: the return of the king vs. the aging king that must be overthrown. Is Peyton Manning Odysseus and the Panthers the suitors? Or is he the dragon who must yield to the next generation?
Tennyson, responding to Paris massacres in the 1840s, asserts his faith in love and in social truth. Our challenge is to continue to believe this in the wake of the recent terror attacks.
Love is in the May air. As I look at the College students hand in hand, I think of the men as Chaucerian squires, the women as Tennysonian May queens.
Roger Feder, like Tennyson’s “Ulysses,” braved time and fate and came up just short.
Battling Russian troops 110 years ago in the Crimea, the British light brigade inspired Tennyson. Expect no doomed charge from the West this time.
Peyton Manning was not Homer’s Odysseus but Tennyson’s Ulysses.
The Philadelphia Eagles bring to mind Tennyson’s eagle, falling like a thunderbolt.
The GOP hostage takers resemble the Light Brigade, as well as the kidnappers in “Ransom of Red Chief,” “Fargo,” and “Ruthless People.”
