Tag Archives: pandemics

Secret Garden, Perfect Pandemic Reading

A “Paris Review” writer makes a great case that we should reread “Secret Garden” during the pandemic.

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On Rereading During a Pandemic

In three articles on rereading great literature during difficult times, two discuss how it reassures them and the third that literature isn’t meant to reassure.

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Making Charn Great Again

How does one capture Trump’s disastrous handling of Covid? I invoke Jadis in “The Magician’s Nephew” destroying Charn.

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Students as Beowulf vs. Covid

Through describing their essays on “Beowulf,” I recount how five students are responding to the Covid crisis.

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Sci-Fi Provides Pandemic Guidance

Our society is currently split on the value of scientific expertise. That split goes back at least as far as Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein.”

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The Bard Answers Pestilence’s Challenge

In Emily St. John Mandel’s dystopia “Station Eleven,” people turn to Shakespeare in a world that has been devastated by pandemic.

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The Courage to Face the Darkness

In “IT” Stephen King shows how Americans close their eyes to horrific truths. Certain Americans have been closing their eyes to COVID19, showing King to know what he’s talking about.

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Illness in 19th Century Lit

19th century literature is filled with images of illness. Reading it should make us grateful to the advances in medical science.

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It’s a Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall

For those of us living in the lull before the COVID-19 storm, Swift’s “Description of a City Shower” captures what we’re experiencing–and about to experience.

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