A number of poets have written poems about the apocalypse. But it’s always figurative, never literal.
Tag Archives: Dunciad
The End of the World As We Know It?
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Hellas", "Second Coming", "Stanzas from the Grand Chartreuse", Alexander Pope, Apocalyptic literature, Between the Acts, Matthew Arnold, Mayan Apocalypse, Virginia Woolf, William Butler Yeats Comments closed
And Universal Darkness Buries All
Yesterday I talked about irresponsible political commentators and politicians and how they reminded me of the scribblers that John Dryden was worried about in the 1680’s. In the 1740’s Alexander Pope was even more pessimistic about the threat they posed. In The Dunciad he imagines an inevitable cultural slide until “universal darkness buries all.” Harold […]
Enough Already, Rush, Glenn, Shadwell!
Last week when I complained about Christopher Hitchens, I think I was reacting as much to the incessant chatter of pundits as to Hitchens himself. At present there appear to be non-stop voices competing with each other to see who can make the most outrageous claims or confrontational statements, whether on talk radio, cable television, […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Alexander Pope, Glenn Beck, John Dryden, Mac Flecknoe, politics, Rush Limbaugh, satire, Talk Shows Comments closed
Using Twilight to Teach Antigone
Having compared Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight yesterday with Frances Burney’s Evelina, I feel I owe my readers an apology and an explanation. The apology is that I violated one of my principles for the website and judged the book by the movie. All I’ve read of Twilight is the excerpt on amazon.com. If I sell the […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged adolescence, Alexander Pope, Antigone, Father-daughter conflict, Sophocles, Stephenie Meyer, teaching Comments closed
