Tag Archives: Jungle Books

Kobe: The Lone Wolf Going Down

By Robin Bates | Published: January 21, 2015

Kobe is both like and unlike Akela, the Lone Wolf in “The Jungle Books.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged aging superstars, Kobe Bryant, NBA, Peyton Manning, Rudyard Kipling, Sports | Comments closed

Mowgli, a Tea Party Libertarian?

By Robin Bates | Published: April 11, 2014

Although Kipling’s “Jungle Books” sometimes read like a rightwing fantasy, there’s a progressive element as well.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Ayn Rand, progressive fantasies, reactionary fantasies, Rudyard Kipling, social Darwinism, Tea Party | Comments closed

Peyton Manning as Moby Dick?!

By Robin Bates | Published: January 7, 2011

Sports Saturday In anticipation of football’s “Wild Card Weekend,” which begins today, I see that a sports writer has invoked Herman Melville’s masterpiece. Dan Graziano believes that Indianapolis Colt quarterback Peyton Manning has become Rex Ryan’s Moby Dick. He has beaten the New York Jets coach so many times that Ryan has become obsessed with […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Fuzzy-Wuzzy", Alfred Lord Tennyson, East of Eden, Football, Herman Melville, John Steinbeck, Moby Dick, Rudyard Kipling, Sports, Ulysses | Comments closed

What Fictional Fantasy Means

By Robin Bates | Published: January 6, 2011

Having taught British Fantasy Literature for the first time last semester, I need to think back on it before it becomes a distant memory. By reflecting publicly, I can share some of the insights I gained from the course. Two major things I learned are that (1) fantasy is an oppositional genre—by which I […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Kubla Khan", "La Belle Dame sans Merci", "Lady of Shallot", Alfred Lord Tennyson, Alice in Wonderland Alice through the Looking Glass, Carl Jung, Charles Dickens, Christina Rossetti, fantasy, Geoffrey Chaucer, Goblin Market, Grimm Brothers, Hans Christian Andersen, Hard Times, Hero with a Thousand Faces, Idylls of the King, J. R. R. Tolkien, James Barrie, John Keats, Joseph Campbell, Kenneth Grahame, Lewis Carol, Man and His Symbols, Midsummer Night's Dream, Rider Haggard, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Rudyard Kipling, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, She, teaching, The Lord of the Rings, The Wind in the Willows, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Environmental Revenge Fantasy

By Robin Bates | Published: March 5, 2010

Film Friday Henceforth I will devote my Friday posts to something I like almost as much as literature–which is to say, movies. Film is, after all, a narrative art form, and I teach film history and theory as well as literature at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Although I may, at times, look at intersections between […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Avatar, Environmentalism, James Cameron, James Fenimore Cooper, Last of the Mohicans, Nature, Rudyard Kipling | Comments closed

The Magic World of Children’s Lit

By Robin Bates | Published: July 7, 2009

William Kristof, the much traveled Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the New York Times, wrote recently about the disturbing way that children’s IQ scores often drop over summer vacation. The cause is lack of intellectual stimulation. The problem is more severe with poor than it is with middle class kids. As an antidote, Kristof offered […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged A. A. Milne, Alexander Dumas, Alice in Wonderland, Around the World in 80 Days, Arthur Conan Doyle, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, C.S. Lewis, Cecil Day-Lewis, children's books, E. Nesbitt, Francis Hodgson Burnett, Freddy the Pig, George MacDonald, Hardy Boys, Homer, Iliad, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jules Verne, Just So Stories, Knights of King Midas, Lewis Carroll, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Lost World, Mistress Masham's Repose, Narnia Chronicles, Otterbury Incident, Paul Berna, Rudyard Kipling, Scarlet Pimpernel, summer reading, T.H. White, The Lord of the Rings, The Princess and Curdie, The Secret Garden, Three Musketeers, Treasure Seekers, William Kristof, Winnie the Pooh, Would Be Goods | Comments closed