Tag Archives: politics

Workers of the World, Read! (Then Unite)

By Robin Bates | Published: June 29, 2016

A “Washington Post” article argues that the arts are key in counteracting economic injustice. While this is true, the arts must be accompanied by smart politics to achieve this end.

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Was T. S. Eliot a Key to Hillary’s Success?

By Robin Bates | Published: June 8, 2016

As a college student at Wellesley in 1969, Hillary Clinton made multiple references to T. E. Eliot’s “East Coker.” Now as we watch her become the presumptive Democratic nominee, we can see how Eliot has helped her along the way.

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Trump Sees Garbage and Rocks in Foes

By Robin Bates | Published: May 31, 2016

I’ve compared Donald Trump to Murakami’s villain in “Wind-Up Bird Chronicle.” Today I dig deeper into the comparison.

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Trump as a Haruki Murakami Villain

By Robin Bates | Published: May 30, 2016

Donald Trump has an uncanny resemblance to the villain Noboru Wataya in Haruki Murakami’s masterful novel “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” (1998). Both have a similar hollowness and both have the ability to separate people from the higher instincts and put them in thrall to their lower ones.

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Pope Foresaw GOP Capitulation to Trump

By Robin Bates | Published: May 24, 2016

Alexander Pope warned, in “Essay on Man” that vice loses its ugliness once it becomes familiar. This is the danger we face with the normalization of Donald Trump.

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Hillary Clinton as Emma Woodhouse

By Robin Bates | Published: May 23, 2016

Hillary Clinton shares certain characteristics with Emma Woodhouse. (And far fewer with Lady Macbeth.)

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Trump’s Use of the Homeric Epithet

By Robin Bates | Published: May 17, 2016

Donald Trump is making regular use of “the Homeric epithet.” He doesn’t use it as well as Homer, however.

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How Trump Is Changing the Discourse

By Robin Bates | Published: May 12, 2016

Adam Gopnik of “New Yorker” and Andrew Sullivan of “New York” are very, very frightened by the rise of Trump. As they explain why, they quote Tom Stoppard, Sinclair Lewis, Mark Twain, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Plato.

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#NeverTrump! Never! Never! Never! Never?

By Robin Bates | Published: May 10, 2016

Many who vowed NeverTrump are backing away from the word “never.” “Never” is an important word in “King Lear” and Lear, unlike Lear’s opponents, doesn’t back away from it.

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