Tag Archives: Joe Biden

Eeyore Sums Up the Modern GOP

By Robin Bates | Published: November 19, 2020

Eeyore delivers a cutting judgment that applies to how the GOP is enabling Trump in undermining the presidential transition.

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Biden’s Love for James Joyce

By Robin Bates | Published: November 15, 2020

Joe Biden’s favorite poet is Seamus Heaney, his favorite fiction writer James Joyce. While he expresses admiration for “Ulysses,” I think he might prefer “Dubliners.”

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Heaney and Biden, Two Great Souls

By Robin Bates | Published: November 12, 2020

Joe Biden’s fondness for Seamus Heaney indicates a man who is “patient, reasonable, and full of unmistakable human compassion.”

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Seamus Heaney’s Healing Vision

By Robin Bates | Published: November 8, 2020

Seamus Heaney’s “Cure at Troy” points toward a country’s possibility for healing, a powerful vision as America emerges from the Trump presidency and a contentious election.

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Our New President Understands Suffering

By Robin Bates | Published: November 7, 2020

America has elected a president who understands suffering. A passage from Aeschylus’s “Agamemnon” seems right.

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2020: Wandering between Two Worlds

By Robin Bates | Published: November 4, 2020

A witty riff on a T. S. Eliot line and an illusion to a Matthew Arnold poem neatly capture the 2020 election results.

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Hope for a Great Sea-Change

By Robin Bates | Published: November 1, 2020

The Seamus Heaney poem that Biden quotes in a new ad is itself taken from Heaney’s verse translation of Sophocles’s “Philoctetes.” It’s perfect for the current moment.

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Do Not Let Your Anger Drown You

By Robin Bates | Published: October 28, 2020

Many Trump supporters are consumed by anger. Dante shows how they construct their own hells in the process.

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Biden-Trump Invites Dickens Comparisons

By Robin Bates | Published: October 19, 2020

If one thinks of the 2020 election in Dickensian terms, several novels come to mind.

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