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 […]
Tag Archives: Inferno
Lit as a Survival Toolkit
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Bluest Eye, Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Bruno Bettelheim, childhood trauma, Dante, Junot Diaz, King Lear, sexual abuse, sexual assault, Toni Morrison, William Shakespeare Comments closed
The Meaning of Hell
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 Uncategorized Also tagged "Seneca a Fragment", Charlotte Bronte, Christopher Marlowe, Dante, Doctor Faustus, hell, Jane Eyre, John Wilmot Comments closed
Dante’s Place for GOP “Moderates”
Dante has a place in inferno for people like current Republicans “moderates” who talk a good game but refuse to stand up to Trump.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Dante, immigrant children separation, Susan Collins Comments closed
Mike Pence=Elmer Gantry + Uriah Heep
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 Uncategorized Also tagged Charles Dickens, Dante, David Copperfield, Elmer Gantry, Julius Caesar, Mike Pence, Sinclair Lewis, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Lit for Survivors Lost in a Dark Wood
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 Uncategorized Also tagged Bluest Eye, Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Child Abuse, Dante, Junot Diaz, PTSD, Toni Morrison, trauma, trigger warnings Comments closed
Irma as Milton’s & Dante’s Infernos
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.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Dante, Divine Comedy, Hurricane Irma, hurricanes, John Milton, Paradise Lost Comments closed
Flattering Trump Is Like Wallowing in S***
Donald Trump is surrounding himself with flatterers. Dante has a graphic account of where such people end up in Inferno.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Anthony Scaramucci, Dante, Divine Comedy, Donald Trump, flattery Comments closed
