If one thinks of the 2020 election in Dickensian terms, several novels come to mind.
Tag Archives: Charles Dickens
Biden-Trump Invites Dickens Comparisons
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged 2020 election, Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, Donald Trump, Hard Times, Joe Biden, Martin Chuzzlewit, Oliver Twist Comments closed
The Lit That Inspired Van Gogh
Writers like Stowe, Dickens, Hugo and Maupassant played a pivotal role in the evolution of Van Gogh as an artist.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Bel Ami, Christmas Tales, Guy de Maupassant, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Miserables, painting, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Victor Hugo, Vincent Van Gogh Comments closed
Illness in 19th Century Lit
19th century literature is filled with images of illness. Reading it should make us grateful to the advances in medical science.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Bleak House, Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Gaskell, epidemics, fathers and sons, Francis Hodgson Burnett, George Eliot, Illness, Ivan Turgenev, Jane Eyre, Little Women, Louisa May Alcott, Middlemarch, North and South, pandemics, Secret Garden Comments closed
Lit that Championed Chimney Sweeps
Watching modern chimney sweeps at work, I’m relieved that we’ve left behind the days of William Blake and Charles Dickens.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Chimney-Sweeper", chimney cleaning, chimney sweeps, Oliver Twist, William Blake Comments closed
Lit and Life: My Intellectual Trajectory
I’ve long held that great literature impacts history harder than lesser literature. I trace the evolution of my ideas in today’s post.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Denis Diderot, Discourse on Inequality, Feminism, Hans Robert Jauss, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Letter on the Blind, Martin Chuzzlewit, Marxism, post-colonialism, queer theory, reception theory Comments closed
Migrant Kids in a Dickensian Nightmare
Wednesday As the Trump administration’s treatment of children at the border continues to horrify the nation, Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist comes to mind. There you have another child caught up in a nightmare where ideology overwhelms basic humanity. Whereas most of us see the death of a child as overwhelmingly tragic, it serves the agendas […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Donald Trump, ICE, migrant children, Oliver Twist Comments closed
Dickens Anagrams
Friday For a change of pace, I offer up some title anagrams, generated by one Ross Daniel Bullen, who tweeted them out recently in honor of Charles Dickens’s birthday. I got all but one but must admit to semi-cheating. I’m familiar with all of his novels (with the exception of Dombey and Son) so I plugged the novels […]
How Deep Is Roger Stone’s Act?
Tuesday What are we to make of longtime Trump confidant Roger Stone’s flamboyant behavior following his arrest by Special Counselor Robert Mueller for lying to Congress about his contacts with Wikileaks? I think back to a passage from Herman Melville’s The Confidence Man that I applied to Trump during the campaign but which applies equally […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Confidence Man, Donald Trump, Herman Melville, Oliver Twist, Roger Stone Comments closed
Imagine Lit Characters in Reality TV
Thursday I came across this enjoyable tweet from one Ross Danniel Bullen, who imagines a Victorian version of the House Hunters television show: Host: I— Henry James: I should like a kitchen whose concept is – how shall I conceive of it – not closed, not in some way occluded, but bright, agape, unrestrained as […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Bachelor, Bachelorette, Hard Times, Henry James, House Hunters, Importance of Being Earnest, Jane Austen, Jeopardy, Lost, Oscar Wilde, Pride and Prejudice, reality television, Samuel Beckett, television shows, Waiting for Godot Comments closed
