Tag Archives: Percy Shelley

Read Lit, Then Fight for Freedom

By Robin Bates | Published: June 27, 2022

While literature may seem irrelevant to our political battles, it provides (as Shelley points out) an invaluable human compass.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged abortion debates, Azar Nafisi, Defence of Poetry, Reading Lolita in Tehran | Comments closed

Wanted: An Elegy to Mourn Covid Victims

By Robin Bates | Published: January 4, 2022

To mourn our 800,000+ covid dead, America needs a good poetic elegy.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Up Late", Adonais, death and dying, elegies, grieving, Nick Laird | Comments closed

Shelley on Commemorating Freedom

By Robin Bates | Published: July 1, 2021

Shelley’s “Hellas,” written in support of Greek independence, applies well to this year’s July 4th celebrations.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Hellas", "Grande Chartreuse", American Revolution, Democracy, January 6 insurrection, July 4, Matthew Arnold, Trumpism | Comments closed

Do Not Stand by My Grave and Cry

By Robin Bates | Published: May 1, 2021

As I remember my eldest son, this Clare Harner Lyon poem brings me peace.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Immortality", Adonais, Clare Harner Lyon, death and dying, Easter, Holy Spirit | Comments closed

Does Lightweight Lit Do Damage?

By Robin Bates | Published: March 1, 2021

I look at how thinkers over the centuries have viewed so-called popular or lightweight literature.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Alexander Pope, Dunciad, Feminism, Frankfurt School, Frederick Engels, Herbert Marcuse, Jaws, John Dryden, Karl Marx, lightweight literature, Lovers' Vows, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Peter Benchley, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Terry Eagleton, W.E.B. Du Bois, Wayne Booth | Comments closed

During Covid, Workers Must Unite

By Robin Bates | Published: April 30, 2020

On this International Workers’ Day, frontline workers are bearing the brunt on Covid-19 and public sector workers may not be far behind. Time for Shelley’s “To the Working Men of England.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Song to Men of England", COVID-19, Jungle, May Day, meat packers, Upton Sinclair, Working class | Comments closed

13 Books That (Kind of) Changed America

By Robin Bates | Published: December 11, 2019

I review Parini’s “13 Books That Changed America” and find his view of change to be limiting. For one thing, he excludes most of American literature.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged !3 Books That Changed America, Betty Friedan, Defence of Poetry, Feminine Mystique, Jay Parini | Comments closed

Let My Words Turn into Sparks

By Robin Bates | Published: September 28, 2019

In this Marge Piercy Rosh Hashanah poem, the poet asks how she has contributed to peace.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Ode to the West Wind", "Birthday of the World", Marge Piercy, peace, Rosh Hashanah | Comments closed

My “Last Lecture”

By Robin Bates | Published: April 16, 2018

I share here my “last lecture” from my retirement ceremony. (But rest assured: I will not be retiring from this blog.)

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Aristotle, Bertolt Brecht, Chinua Achebe, Divine Comedy, Goethe, Heart of Darkness, Horace, Huckleberry Finn, integration, Jane Austen, Joseph Conrad, Mark Twain, Martha Nussbaum Wayne Booth, Matthew Arnold, Plato, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Samuel Johnson, segregation, Sir Philip Sydney, Terry Eagleton, W. E. B. Du Bois, Wayne Booth | Comments closed