Thursday Normally I would be delighted with a New York Times article that matched up presidential candidates with works of literature, such as Ted Cruz with Beowulf, Hillary Clinton with Persuasion, and Bernie Sanders with Around the World in 80 Days. This piece, however, strikes me as so uninformative that it’s all but useless. I’ve tried […]
Tag Archives: Charles Dickens
Cruz as Beowulf? Try Grendel
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Around the World in 80 Days, Beowulf, Bernie Sanders, Carla Fiorina, Democrats, Donald Trump, Election 2016, GOP, Hillary Clinton, Huckleberry Finn, Jane Austen, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Jules Verne, Mansfield Park, Marco Rubio, Mark Twain, Mike Huckabee, Oliver Twist, Persuasion, politics, Rand Paul, Tale of Two Cities, Ted Cruz Comments closed
Can Lit Also Be a Force for Evil? A Debate
The classics are capable to doing great good but can they also do harm? Even as they powerfully open up the mind to new possibilities, can they also close it down? A debate.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Anabelle Lee", Aristotle, Bridge to Terabithia, Earth Sea Trilogy, Edgar Allan Poe, George Eliot, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Jane Austen, Katherine Paterson, Middlemarch, Old Curiosity Shop, Percy Shelley, Plato, Pride and Prejudice, Sir Philip Sidney, Twelfth Night, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ursula Leguin, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Swimming with the Water Babies
Swimming with my granddaughters put me in mind of Charles Kingsley’s “Water Babies.” Kingsley helped us enter into the rich imaginative lives of children.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Charles Kingsley, Childhood, Edward Lear, Lewis Carroll, swimming, Water Babies, William Blake Comments closed
Why Baltimore Blacks Are Down and Out
Black poverty in Baltimore has racial causes that are invisible to most people. Dickens would understand.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Baltimore, black underclass, Hard Times, poverty, race relations, white working class Comments closed
GOP Budget Proposes Gruel Cuts
Mean-spirited legislators who seek to cut food stamps and other programs for the poor bear more than a little resemblance to the workhouse authorities in “Oliver Twist.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged food stamps, GOP, GOP budget, Medicaid, Oliver Twist, Paul Ryan, poverty, Scott Walker, Tom Cotton Comments closed
The Return of Debtor Imprisonment?!
The fleecing by authorities of the Ferguson Black community, including imprisonment for debt, puts one in mind of Charles Dickens’ “Little Dorrit.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Department of Justince, Ferguson, Little Dorrit, voting Comments closed
Dickens Understood Resentment Well
When resentment threatens to hijack our politics, we would do well to turn to Dickens’ “Little Dorrit.”
