Friday High school teacher Carl Rosin, whose Great Expectations class interviewed me by telephone yesterday, suggested that Donald Trump’s national shutdown is giving us our own versions of Dickens’s “toadies and humbugs.” For a while I’ve seen Vice President Michael Pence as candidate #1, but I must say that South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham is […]
In her account of the 2016 election aftermath, Hillary Clinton resolved not to become a Miss Havisham. This is testimony to her depth of soul.
Frank Bruni compares Donald Trump to Miss Havisham, forever fixated on November 8 before the rose lost its bloom. The GOP would do well to break free as Pip does.
Psychologists say that a strong sense of narrative identity can lead to the profound sense of happiness described by Aristotle. Literature helps us make sure we have available to us the best narratives.
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Aristotle, Brothers Karamazov, Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, Emma, eudaimonic well-being, Fyodor Dostoevsky, happiness, Jane Austen, King Lear, stories, William Shakespeare | Imagining literary characters using social media opens up new insights into a work.
Literature is filled with fetish objects that take on outsized significance to various characters.
Posted in Dickens (Charles), Fielding (Henry), Poe (Edgar Allan), Pope (Alexander), Proust (Marcel), Rushdie (Salman), Shakespeare (William), Sir Gawain Poet, Wycherley (William) | Also tagged Alexander Pope, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Emma, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, Marcel Proust, Prophet's Hair, Rape of the Lock, Salman Rushie, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Tell-Tale Heart, Tom Jones | Characters from Dickens novels reside so deeply within us as to become virtual lifelong friends.
“Great Expectations” is a perfect novel to teach high school students.
I had an interesting conversation with my two sons yesterday as we drove them and my daughter-in-law to the Portland airport, marking the beginning of the end of our summer vacation. The conversation began with me wondering why there weren’t works of literature that accurately capture the kind of father-son relationship that I feel that […]
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, Cormac McCarthy, Daniel Defoe, David Copperfield, fathers and sons, Hamlet, Henry IV, Homer, Human Stain, Lawrence Sterne, Nicholas Nickleby, Odyssey, Oedipus, Oliver Twist, Philip Roth, Road, Robinson Crusoe, Shakespeare, Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison, Tristram Shandy | 
