Dante’s beautifully tragic account of Paolo and Francesca captures–as many great works do–the dangers of total absorption in a relationship.
Tag Archives: Charlotte Bronte
Does Lit Lead to Illicit Sex?
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Adultery, Christopher Marlowe, Dante, Doctor Faustus, Goethe, Inferno, Jane Eyre, Paolo and Francesca, passionate love, Romeo and Juliet, Samuel Johnson, Sorrows of Young Werther, Stephenie Meyer, Twilight, William Shakespeare 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, Charles Dickens, 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
Standing Up to a Bully President
Pelosi standing up to Trump with an impeachment inquiry is reminiscent of Jane Eyre standing up to her bullying cousin John Reid.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Donald Trump, impeachment, Jane Eyre, Nancy Pelosi Comments closed
Rich Bullies in the Admissions Scandal
Tuesday Several weeks ago I came across an insider’s account of the college admissions scandal from an English-teacher-turned-college counselor. In sharing her view of prep school parents, Caitlin Flanagan cited Jane Eye and Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. Although Flanagan doesn’t report on any illegal behavior from the ambitious parents she encountered, she daily saw the […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged college admissions scandal, Daphne du Maurier, Jane Eyre, Rebecca Comments closed
The Meaning of Hell
Spiritual Sunday Stephen Greenblatt, the world’s preeminent Shakespearean, has an article about hell in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books that has me thinking about a subject I generally avoid. It’s a smart piece but fairly grim. For the most part, my view of hell is the one set forth in […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Seneca a Fragment", Christopher Marlowe, Dante, Doctor Faustus, hell, Inferno, Jane Eyre, John Wilmot Comments closed
Bronte on Eye Plucking, Hand Severing
One of Jesus’s most graphic images serves Jane Eyre in a moment of supreme testing.
Is Sexist Lit Gaslighting Women?
A Guardian article argues that critical praise for sexist male authors valorizes patriarchal attitudes.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Donald Trump, Ernest Hemingway, Feminism, Hillary Clinton, Human Stain, Jane Eyre, Lolita, MeToo, Norman Mailer, Philip Roth, Saul Bellow, Sexism, Vladimir Nabokov Comments closed
Literature’s Revolutionary Power
The concept of “unleashing,” used to explain much of today’s upheaval, can also be applied to literature that changes lives.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Cass Sunstein, Elizabeth Rigby, Ezra Klein, Jane Eyre, unleashing Comments closed
Jane Eyre on Caring for the Sick
As I support people who are sick and aging, I turn to Jane Eyre as a model of one who considers such activity to be, not a self-sacrifice, but a gift to herself.
