To mourn our 800,000+ covid dead, America needs a good poetic elegy.
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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.
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
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
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
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”
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
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.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Mock on, "Mont Blanc", "To Science" John Keats, Edgar Allen Poem, Lamia, Richard Dawkins, William Blake Comments closed