My book “Better Living through Lit” this past year was only one of several making the case that literature can be social dynamite.
Tag Archives: Homer
Lit Packs a Powerful Punch
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Beloved, Ben Jonson, Better Living through Literature, book bans, Christopher Marlowe, Dangerous Fictions, Harold Bloom, Hesiod, Iliad, Lyta Gold, Odyssey, Oscar Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray, Plato, Toni Morrison, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Trumpism and Penelope’s Suitors
Penelope’s suitors are like Trump and his supporters, looting the household and then calling other people lazy grifters asking for handouts.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged entitlement programs, Iliad, kleptocracy, Odyssey, Trumpism, welfare programs Comments closed
Why Books Banned? They Change Lives
Good lit can function like social dynamite, but it’s dynamite that’s needed for growth. Parents against growth therefore attempt to ban them.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged banned books week, Beloved, book bans, censorship, Odyssey, Plato, Toni Morrison, Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Homer and the Early Olympics
Watching the Olympics, I thought of the games in “The Odyssey.”
Why Fiction Terrifies People
I announce my forthcoming book and contrast it with a similar book–“Dangerous Fictions”–coming out soon.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Beloved, Ben Jonson, Better Living through Literature, book bans, Christopher Marlowe, Dangerous Fictions, Harold Bloom, Hesiod, Iliad, Lyta Gold, Odyssey, Oscar Wilde, Picture of Dorian Gray, Plato, Toni Morrison, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Literature in Time of War
Poetry has always been present in times of war but with mixed success at improving conditions.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged burning books, Ernest Hemingway, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Hitler, Iliad, King John, Louis Untemeyer, Modern American and British Poetry, Nadezhda Mandelstam, Osip Mandelstam, Robert Graves, Stalin, Uncle Tom's Cabin, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Cloud Cuckoo Land: The Power of Story
Doerr’s “Cloud Cuckoo Land” is testimony to the power of story to save us when we need saving.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged alternative facts, Anthony Doerr, Antonius Diogenes, climate change, Cloud Cuckoo Land, global warming, Odyssey Comments closed
A Vet Sees Himself in Odysseus
In Huey’s poem, a veteran who has seen combat frames his experience in terms of “The Odyssey.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "We Were All Odysseus in Those Days", Amorak Huey, Odyssey, Saving Private Ryan, Veterans, Veterans Day, war Comments closed
Homer, Virgil, Dante and the Afterlife
Literary afterlives, such as we encounter in Homer, Virgil, and Dante, are as much about this world as the next.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aeneid, Afterlife, Dante, death, Divine Comedy, Inferno, inner doubts, midlife crisis, Odyssey, Paradiso, Samuel Johnson, Virgil Comments closed
