A “New Yorker” article on aging turns to literature to debunk the notion that aging is a good thing.
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Tag Archives: Geoffrey Chaucer
Is Old Age Becoming Overrated?
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Vanity of Human Wishes", "Sailing to Byzantium", "Tithonous", Aging, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Aristotle, As You Like It, Ecclesiastes, Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift, King Lear, Merchant's Tale, old age, Plato, Rasselas, Samuel Johnson, Ulysses, William Butler Yeats, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Fantasy Frees Us from Narrow Thinking
Friday I share today a new insight that I gained from my recent Lifelong Learning class about “Wizards and Enchantresses.” To set it up, I first share my theory of fantasy. As I see it, fantasy is always oppositional in its invocation of magic and the supernatural. If it flourished in the wake of the […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Enlightenment, fantasy, Fundamentalism, scientism, Wife of Bath Comments closed
Chaucer’s Friar and Abusive Clergy
Wednesday Like many, I had hopes that Pope Francis’s Vatican meeting on clergy sexual abuse would yield something substantial, and like many I have been disappointed. The pope, according to the New York Times, decided that the best way for the church to address the problem lay not in issuing an edict from Rome but […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Catholic Church, clergy sexual abuse, Friar's Tale, Pope Francis, Wife of Bath Comments closed
How I Make Literary Connections
Wednesday A friend the other day asked where my ideas come from, especially when I apply a passage from one century to incidents in another. Yesterday, for instance, I said that Trump confidant Roger Stone reminded me of a passage in Herman Melville’s Confidence Man. So how did that enter my head? To answer, let […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged blogging, Confidence Man, Herman Melville, Restoration comedies, Twelfth Night, Wife of Bath, William Shakespeare Comments closed
The L. A. Rams and Chaucer’s Miller
Tuesday I’m experiencing déjà vu after seeing the Los Angeles Rams in the playoffs. When I was a teenager and just becoming interested in football, my beloved Minnesota Vikings were always encountering the Los Angeles Rams in playoff games. Then the Rams became the St. Louis Rams, but now they’re the Los Angeles Rams again, […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Football, Los Angeles Rams, Miller's Tale, Sports, Super Bowl Comments closed
Teach Chaucer to Address Sexual Assault
Thursday I’ve been talking with Idaho English teacher Glenda Funk, who is proposing a panel for the upcoming NCTE convention (National Council of Teachers of English) on teaching literature in ways that make a tangible difference in students’ lives. After I mentioned how The Wife of Bath’s Prelude and Tale foreground issues of sexual assault, […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Laurie Halse Anderson, Rape, sexual assault, Speak, Wife of Bath's Tale Comments closed
Spirituality in Nature
John Gatta’s “Spirit of Place in American Literary Culture” explains why we find certain places, in nature and in civilization, to be infused with spirit.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aeneid, Denise Levertov, eco-criticism, Gary Snyder, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, sprit of place, Virgil, Wife of Bath Comments closed
Chaucer Invented St. Valentine’s Day
Chaucer may have invented St. Valentine’s Day as we have come to know it. “Parliament of Fowls” was written to celebrate the occasion, along with a royal wedding.