Tag Archives: Plato

Is Old Age Becoming Overrated?

By Robin Bates | Published: November 26, 2019

A “New Yorker” article on aging turns to literature to debunk the notion that aging is a good thing.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Vanity of Human Wishes", "Sailing to Byzantium", "Tithonous", Aging, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Aristotle, As You Like It, Ecclesiastes, Geoffrey Chaucer, Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift, King Lear, Merchant's Tale, old age, Rasselas, Samuel Johnson, Ulysses, William Butler Yeats, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Love’s Wavering Image

By Robin Bates | Published: February 9, 2019

Spiritual Sunday I share a lovely Longfellow poem about gazing into dark waters, featuring the hypnotic rhythm and rhyme that we associate with the poet. The speaker recalls a time in the past when he was depressed and wished the tide would carry him away. He no longer feels that way but imagines others experiencing […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Bridge", Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, parable of the cave, Republic | Comments closed

Philosophy Needs Literature

By Robin Bates | Published: December 7, 2018

Friday The other day Eva Bahovec, a good friend who teaches in Ljubljana’s philosophy department, had me meet with two students preparing to write Women’s Studies dissertations. Although philosophy and Women’s Studies are not my areas of expertise, Bogdan Repič and Polonca Mesec want their studies to have a literary component, which is where I […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Ion, philosophy, Republic, Women's Studies | 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, Percy Shelley, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Samuel Johnson, segregation, Sir Philip Sydney, Terry Eagleton, W. E. B. Du Bois, Wayne Booth | Comments closed

Theories about Lit’s Impact

By Robin Bates | Published: March 12, 2018

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

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Aristotle, Bertolt Brecht, Chinua Achebe, Frederick Engel, Horace, Karl Marx, Martha Nussbaum, Matthew Arnold, Percy Shelley, Rachel Blau du Plessis, Samuel Johnson, Sir Philip Sidney, Wayne Booth | Comments closed

My Dinner with Mladen

By Robin Bates | Published: March 7, 2018

An account of a dinner with an old Slovenian friend and intellectual.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged intellectual conversations, Ion, King Lear, Mladen Dolar, Oedipus at Colonus, Pierre de Marivaux, Republic, Samuel Beckett, Sophocles, Wayne Booth, William Shakespeare, Worstward Ho | Comments closed

GOP Tax Plan and the Invisible Man

By Robin Bates | Published: December 4, 2017

If the GOP tax plan panders to the wealthiest Americans, maybe it’s because they are like H.G. Wells’s Invisible Man and believe they can act with impunity.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trump, GOP Tax Bill, H. G. Wells, Invisible Man, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, Republic | Comments closed

Aristotle Changed the Way Europe Thought

By Robin Bates | Published: January 11, 2017

In “Aristotle’s Children,” Richard Rubenstein gets us to rethink the Faith-Reason and Religion-Science splits. When Aristotle revolutionized the High Middle Ages, Church leaders and thinkers tried to reconcile the tensions. Knowing this has me rethinking Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Donne.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Aristotle, Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus, High Middle Ages, John Donne, scholasticism, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Defending Homer against Plato

By Robin Bates | Published: October 4, 2016

Plato’s attacks on Homer have to do with the bard’s focus earthly concerns rather than higher ones. Following Plato’s prescriptions, however, will not produce very interesting poetry.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Henry Fielding, Homer, Odyssey, philosophy, Republic, Tom Jones | Comments closed