Tragedy, it turns out, is a powerful literary form for dealing with posttraumatic fear.
Tag Archives: Aristotle
Got a Problem? Call a Poet
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aeschylus, Agamemnon, Angus Fletcher, bibliotherapy, catharsis, literary technique, Oedipus, philosophy, posttraumatic fear, PTSD, Rhetoric, Sigmund Freud, sophists, Sophocles, Wonderworks Comments closed
Lit’s Neurological Benefits
In his neurological study of fiction’s impact, Angus Fletcher looks at various literary elements.
Johnson: Read the Bard, Not Tom Jones
I share the Samuel Johnson chapter from my book-in-progress.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Clarissa, Henry Fielding, Horace, Plato, Republic, Samuel Johnson, Samuel Richardson, Tom Jones, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Greek Tragedy & the Fragility of Goodness
Martha Nussbaum contents that Aristotle’s use of Greek tragedy gave him a particularly rich vision of how to lead a good life.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Euripides, goodness, Greek tragedy, Hecuba, Martha Nussbaum, Plato, Poetics, Republic Comments closed
How Tragedy Made Greek Lives Better
Aristotle saw Greek tragedy as teaching citizens the process of deliberation.
Is Old Age Becoming Overrated?
A “New Yorker” article on aging turns to literature to debunk the notion that aging is a good thing.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Vanity of Human Wishes", "Sailing to Byzantium", "Tithonous", Aging, Alfred Lord Tennyson, As You Like It, Ecclesiastes, Geoffrey Chaucer, Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift, King Lear, Merchant's Tale, old age, Plato, Rasselas, Samuel Johnson, Ulysses, William Butler Yeats, William Shakespeare Comments closed
My Brief Flirtation with Lyndon LaRouche
Wednesday Here’s a story that most people missed but that registered with me: Lyndon LaRouche died last week at 97. I was never a “LaRouchie,” but for a few months as a graduate student I took his ideas seriously. That’s until I discovered he was a fanatic. I learned about LaRouche from a friend who […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged empiricism, Idealism, Lyndon LaRouche, Neo-Platonism, Platonism Comments closed
My “Last Lecture”
I share here my “last lecture” from my retirement ceremony. (But rest assured: I will not be retiring from this blog.)
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Bertolt Brecht, Chinua Achebe, Divine Comedy, Goethe, Heart of Darkness, Horace, Huckleberry Finn, integration, Jane Austen, Joseph Conrad, Mark Twain, Martha Nussbaum Wayne Booth, Matthew Arnold, Percy Shelley, Plato, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Samuel Johnson, segregation, Sir Philip Sydney, Terry Eagleton, W. E. B. Du Bois, Wayne Booth Comments closed
Theories about Lit’s Impact
A transcript of a talk given at the University of Ljubljana on “how literature changes lives.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Bertolt Brecht, Chinua Achebe, Frederick Engel, Horace, Karl Marx, Martha Nussbaum, Matthew Arnold, Percy Shelley, Plato, Rachel Blau du Plessis, Samuel Johnson, Sir Philip Sidney, Wayne Booth Comments closed
