Thursday Friend and occasional guest blogger Carl Rosin alerted me to a heartfelt Commonweal article by an English professor describing how literature helped her confront and work through childhood abuse. Cassandra Nelson’s difficult history leads to some remarkable insights into trigger warnings, which she opposes. Nelson’s view on trigger warnings is pretty much my own […]
Posted in Dante, Diaz (Junot), Julian of Norwich, Morrison (Toni), Shakespeare (William) | Also tagged Bluest Eye, Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Bruno Bettelheim, childhood trauma, Inferno, Junot Diaz, King Lear, sexual abuse, sexual assault, Toni Morrison, William Shakespeare | 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 Bronte (Charlotte), Dante, Marlowe (Christopher), Milton (John), Uncategorized, Wilmot (John) | Also tagged "Seneca a Fragment", Charlotte Bronte, Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus, hell, Inferno, Jane Eyre, John Wilmot | Dante has a place in inferno for people like current Republicans “moderates” who talk a good game but refuse to stand up to Trump.
Columnist George Will calls Mike Pence a cross between Elmer Gantry and Uriah Heep. I see the two and raise to a Dante sycophant and Shakespeare’s Cassius.
Posted in Dante, Dickens (Charles), Lewis (Sinclair), Shakespeare (William) | Also tagged Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, Elmer Gantry, Inferno, Julius Caesar, Mike Pence, Sinclair Lewis, William Shakespeare | Monday Commonweal recently published a heartfelt article by West Point visiting English professor Cassandra Nelson on how literature can help trauma survivors recover. Nelson begins with an angry comment about a University of Chicago dean’s facile dismissal of trigger warnings, even though she herself opposes them. She, however, speaks from the vantage point of one […]
Posted in Dante, Diaz (Junot), Morrison (Toni) | Also tagged Bluest Eye, Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Child Abuse, Inferno, Junot Diaz, PTSD, Toni Morrison, trauma, trigger warnings | If one thinks of a hurricane “eye” as an anus, then the winds from hell take on a different resonance–especially when seen through Milton’s and Dante’s eyes.
Donald Trump is surrounding himself with flatterers. Dante has a graphic account of where such people end up in Inferno.
In this week’s poker essay by novelist Rachel Kranz, envy is described as the one deadly sin that gives no pleasure at all.
Solomon plays an important role in Dante’s “Paradiso” become he combines earthly sensuality and celestial wisdom. I find this to be a healthier vision than those who elevate the spirit over the body.
