For April Fools’ Day, check out Goldsmith’s “Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog,” which ends with a wonderful comic reversal. Also for today: war plans group chat from Mordor.
Tag Archives: Mark Twain
An April Fools’ Day Poem
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged April Fool's Day, Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog, Houthi Group Chat, MAGA Christians, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oliver Goldsmith, Paula White-Cain, Pete Hegseth, Rappaccini's Daughter Comments closed
Good Night, Dear Heart
My brother died yesterday. This Mark Twain lyric gets at some of what I’m feeling.
The U.S. Ignored Kipling’s Cautionary Tale
Would the USSR and the USA have saved themselves a lot of blood and money in Afghanistan by reading Kipling’s “The Man Who Would Be King” before going in.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "White Man's Murden", Afghanistan, Edward Said, Huckleberry Finn, Man Who Would Be King, Orientalism, Rudyard Kipling Comments closed
A New Trump Is Like a New Pap Finn
Will a softer Trump emerge after the shooting? It’s as likely as Pap turning over a new leaf in “Huckleberry Finn.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Adentures of Huckleberry Finn, Donald Trump, Trump shooting Comments closed
Caste in a Multicultural Democracy
To grapple with Wilkerson’s understanding of racism as a caste system, I turn to Langston Hughes, Twain, and Arundhati Roy.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Ku Klux", Arundhati Roy, Caste, Dalits, God of Small Things, Huckleberry Finn, Isabel Wilkerson, Langston Hughes, Origins, racism Comments closed
Lit that Features the N-Word: What to Do
Now to teach White literature that employs the n-word? Balance with Black literature.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Absalom Absalom!, Beloved, Huckleberry Finn, n-word, racism, Song of Solomon, To Kill a Mockingbird, Toni Morrison, William Faulkner Comments closed
When News Resembles an Onion Headline
A recent case of an American man arrested for parodying a police department elicited a supportive brief from “The Onion.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged conspiracy theories, Jonathan Swift, Modest Proposal, Onion, parody, satire Comments closed
Poems about Charles I and II
With the ascension of Charles III to the throne, I look back at poems that mention the two previous Charleses.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland", Andrew Marvell, British monarchy, Charles I, Charles II, Charles III, Elizabeth II, John Wilmot, Prince and the Pauper Comments closed
Why I Think the Way I Think
I survey my intellectual history, especially the evolution of my thinking about literature’s impact on human behavior.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Antonio Gramsci, Beowulf, Carl Jung, Carleton College, Hans Robert Jauss, Harper Lee, Huckleberry Finn, intellectual history, J. Paul Hunter, J. R. R. Tolkien, Jerome Beaty, Karl Marx, Literary Theory, Madame Bovary, New Criticism, Norman Holland, Percy Bysshe Shelley, racism, Reader Response Theory, reception theory, Sigmund Freud, Terry Eagleton, To Kill a Mockingbird, Tobias Smollett Comments closed
