The poem that uses myth and literature to imagine the possibilities for action in the face of oppression.
Sign up for my weekly newsletter
Tag Archives: Oedipus
Using Poetry to Stand Up to Tyranny
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Chanson d'automne", “Sleepless Nights", Antigone, Bertolt Brecht, Galileo, Kimm Addonizio, Nelson Mandel, Paul Verlaine, Sophocles Leave a comment
McCarthy a Greek Hero? NOT!
Kevin McCarthy is no tragic hero. He does resemble a minor figure from “Julius Caesar,” however.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Ajax, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Kevin McCarthy, Sophocles, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Got a Problem? Call a Poet
Tragedy, it turns out, is a powerful literary form for dealing with posttraumatic fear.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aeschylus, Agamemnon, Angus Fletcher, Aristotle, bibliotherapy, catharsis, literary technique, philosophy, posttraumatic fear, PTSD, Rhetoric, Sigmund Freud, sophists, Sophocles, Wonderworks Comments closed
First They Came for Toni Morrison, Then…
In the right attacks Toni Morrison novels, does this mean that Homer, Dostoevsky, Milton, and Sophocles are next?
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Beloved, Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky, GOP, Homer, Odyssey, Sophocles, Toni Morrison Comments closed
The Afghan Debacle, a Greek Tragedy
There’s an element of Greek tragedy in the withdrawal from Afghanistan, starting with arrogance and ending with fate.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Afghan War, Afghanistan withdrawal, Joe Biden, Sophocles Comments closed
Freud: Lit Leads to Self Mastery
A Freudian analysis of why we are drawn to literature and what it does for us.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Bruno Bettelheim, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Interpretation of Dreams, Joseph Conrad, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sigmund Freud, Sophocles Comments closed
Post of the Year: Plagues in Literature
A survey of literature through the ages that has dealt with plagues.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aeneid, Albert Camus, COVID-19, Daniel Defoe, Emily St. John Mandel, Journal of the Plague Year, Katherine Anne Porter, Louise Erdrich, Margaret Atwood, Oryk and Crake, Pale Horse Pale Rider, plague, Sophocles, Stand, Station Eleven, Stephen King, Tracks, Virgil Comments closed
A Literary Survey of What Plagues Mean
A survey of how literary authors have grappled for meaning in times of pestilence bolsters our own search. I look at Sophocles, Virgil, Defoe, Porter, Camus, King, Mandel, Atwood, and Erdrich.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aeneid, Albert Camus, COVID-19, Daniel Defoe, Emily St. John Mandel, Journal of the Plague Year, Katherine Anne Porter, Louise Erdrich, Margaret Atwood, Oryk and Crake, Pale Horse Pale Rider, Pestilence, plague, Sophocles, Stand, Station Eleven, Stephen King, Tracks, Virgil Comments closed
Why Trump Is Not a Tragic Hero
Wednesday The strangest development in the Trump Ukraine scandal may be the way that Trump himself has given us the smoking gun—which is to say, the rough transcript of a phone call where he tries to shake down the Ukrainian president for dirt on the 2020 political opponent he most fears. Jon Meacham attributes Trump’s […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Donald Trump, Greek tragedy, hubris, Sophocles, Trump Ukraine Scandal Comments closed