Tag Archives: Angus Fletcher

How Quixote Hones Problem-Solving Skills

By Robin Bates | Published: April 10, 2024

Works that employ meta-fiction to break down the boundaries between the real and the fantastical teach us how to think outside the box.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Aristophanes, breaking the fourth wall, counterfactual thinkiing, Don Quixote, Lysistrata, Miguel de Cervantes, Plautus, Pseudolus, Wonderworks | Comments closed

Lit’s Invention of “The Second Look”

By Robin Bates | Published: February 12, 2024

One of the literary “inventions” featured in Fletcher’s “Wonderworks” is the second look, partly invented by Akutagawa in “Rashomon.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged alienation effect, Julius Caesar, second look, William Shakespeare, Wonderworks | Comments closed

Horror Fiction, Anecdote to Fear

By Robin Bates | Published: December 17, 2023

Full immersion in fear can lead to bad health outcomes. Shelley’s meta-narrative horror work “Frankenstein” allows us to turn psychic distress into something positive.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Frankenstein, Hans Selye, horror genre, May Shelley, stress, Wonderworks | Comments closed

Soliloquies Changed Us Fundamentally

By Robin Bates | Published: December 10, 2023

Hamlet’s soliloquies changed the way we see ourselves and others and led the way to the novel.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Charlotte Bronte, Hamlet, Harold Bloom, Harper Lee, Huckleberry Finn, humanism, Jane Eyre, Le Cid, Pierre Corneille, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robinson Crusoe, Shakespeare, soliloquies, Sorrows of Young Werther, To Kill a Mockingbird, transcendentalism, Wonderworks | Comments closed

Beowulf’s Lessons in How to Grieve

By Robin Bates | Published: December 7, 2023

Hamlet, Beowulf, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight each show us powerful ways to grieve.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Beowulf, death and dying, grieving, Hamlet, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, William Shakespeare, Wonderworks | Comments closed

George Eliot’s Humanism

By Robin Bates | Published: December 3, 2023

George Eliot’s “Middlemarch” was instrumental in developing a new humanism.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged George Eliot, humanism, Ludwig Feuerbach, Middlemarch, sense of duty, Wonderworks | Comments closed

Hamlet Taught Us a New Way to Grieve

By Robin Bates | Published: November 29, 2023

In “Hamlet,” Shakespeare taught the world a powerful new way to grieve.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Beowulf, grieving, Hamlet, W;t, William Shakespeare, Wonderworks | Comments closed

My Brilliant Friend, Cure for Loneliness?

By Robin Bates | Published: November 15, 2023

The child perspective in Ferrante’s “My Brilliant Friend” creates a special bond with the reader.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Charlotte Bronte, Childhood, Company We Keep, Elena Ferrante, Emily Bronte, first person point of view, Hamlet, Jane Eyre, John Knowles, My Brilliant Friend, opera, penny dreadfuls, Separate Peace, Wayne Booth, William Shakespeare, Wonderworks, Wuthering Heights | Comments closed

Stream of Consciousness’ Healing Powers

By Robin Bates | Published: November 7, 2023

In “Wonderworks” Fletcher explains the therapeutic effects of stream of consciousness, Virginia Woolf’s especially.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Henry James, James Joyce, Marcel Proust, Mrs. Dalloway, stream of consciousness, Ulysses, Virginia Woolf, Wonderworks | Comments closed