Having taught British Fantasy Literature for the first time last semester, I need to think back on it before it becomes a distant memory. By reflecting publicly, I can share some of the insights I gained from the course. Two major things I learned are that (1) fantasy is an oppositional genre—by which I […]
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Kubla Khan", "La Belle Dame sans Merci", "Lady of Shallot", Alfred Lord Tennyson, Alice in Wonderland Alice through the Looking Glass, Carl Jung, Charles Dickens, Christina Rossetti, fantasy, Geoffrey Chaucer, Goblin Market, Grimm Brothers, Hans Christian Andersen, Hard Times, Hero with a Thousand Faces, Idylls of the King, J. R. R. Tolkien, James Barrie, John Keats, Joseph Campbell, Jungle Books, Kenneth Grahame, Lewis Carol, Man and His Symbols, Midsummer Night's Dream, Rider Haggard, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, She, teaching, The Lord of the Rings, The Wind in the Willows, William Shakespeare | I was rereading Rudyard Kipling’s entertaining story The Man Who Would Be King the other day, and it got me thinking about some of the Tea Party candidates for Senate, like Sharron Angle in Nevada and Rand Paul in Kentucky. Allow me to explain. Kipling’s 1888 work is about two enterprising good-for-nothings, Dravot and Carnehan, […]
Film Friday Henceforth I will devote my Friday posts to something I like almost as much as literature–which is to say, movies. Film is, after all, a narrative art form, and I teach film history and theory as well as literature at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Although I may, at times, look at intersections between […]
Last week I gave a list of my favorite children’s books when I was young. My father, who is a poet along with being a French professor, read us poetry as well as fiction (each night, one story or chapter and one poem for each of my three brothers and me), so I thought I’d […]
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged A. A. Milne, Alfred E. Noyes, Alice in Wonderland, Cat in the Hat, Cautionary Tales for Children, children's poetry, Dr. Seuss, Edward Lear, Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog, Goden Treasury of Poetry, Gunga Din, Highwayman, Hilaire Belloc, James Whitcomb Riley, Lewis Carroll, Little Orphant Annie, Louis Untemeyer, Mother Goose, Nonsense Verse, Now that I'm Six, Oliver Goldsmith, Song of Sherwood, The Listeners Tales for Children, The Raggedy Man, Walter De La Mare, When We Were Very Young | William Kristof, the much traveled Pulitzer Prize winning columnist for the New York Times, wrote recently about the disturbing way that children’s IQ scores often drop over summer vacation. The cause is lack of intellectual stimulation. The problem is more severe with poor than it is with middle class kids. As an antidote, Kristof offered […]
Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged A. A. Milne, Alexander Dumas, Alice in Wonderland, Around the World in 80 Days, Arthur Conan Doyle, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, C.S. Lewis, Cecil Day-Lewis, children's books, E. Nesbitt, Francis Hodgson Burnett, Freddy the Pig, George MacDonald, Hardy Boys, Homer, Iliad, J.R.R. Tolkien, Jules Verne, Jungle Books, Just So Stories, Knights of King Midas, Lewis Carroll, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Lost World, Mistress Masham's Repose, Narnia Chronicles, Otterbury Incident, Paul Berna, Scarlet Pimpernel, summer reading, T.H. White, The Lord of the Rings, The Princess and Curdie, The Secret Garden, Three Musketeers, Treasure Seekers, William Kristof, Winnie the Pooh, Would Be Goods | An exhilarating and exhausting week at Wimbledon has come to an end with an exhilarating and exhausting match between Swiss player Roger Federer and American Andy Roddick. Roddick was once my favorite player and Federer is my current favorite so I felt torn as I watched the longest match in grand slam history. It came […]
