Tag Archives: Percy Shelley

Does Lightweight Lit Do Damage?

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

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During Covid, Workers Must Unite

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.”

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13 Books That (Kind of) Changed America

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.

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Let My Words Turn into Sparks

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

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My “Last Lecture”

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

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When Science Clips an Angel’s Wings

Scientist and atheist Richard Dawkins disagrees with Keats and Poe in their attacks on science. I think he loses the argument.

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Theories about Lit’s Impact

A transcript of a talk given at the University of Ljubljana on “how literature changes lives.”

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Rachel Kranz, R. I. P.

When my best friend Rachel Kranz died yesterday. I turned to Shelley’s “Adonais” for comfort.

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A Dear Friend Is Made One with Nature

My dear, dear friend Kate Chandler died yesterday. I am turning to Percy Shelley’s, a poem she loved, as I mourn her.

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