Tag Archives: Samuel Johnson

Fathers & Sons: He Goes His Way, I Mine

By Robin Bates | Published: May 21, 2019

Wednesday The talk with my son that I described in Monday’s post reminded me of talks with my own father where I was sure he was wrong. I’ve since concluded that I was not as right as I thought I was and that our disagreements came down to our different life arcs. Our arguments came […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Alfred Lord Tennyson, Blaise Pascal, Jean Paul Sartre, Rasselas, Samuel Beckett, Ulysses, Westword Ho! | 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, Plato, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, 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, Plato, Rachel Blau du Plessis, Sir Philip Sidney, Wayne Booth | Comments closed

Implore His Aid, in His Decisions Rest

By Robin Bates | Published: July 30, 2016

The famous passage from Ecclesiastes–“All is vanity”–inspired a great poem by Samuel Johnson. Johnson’s final conclusion is that we can find happiness only in prayer.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Vanity of Human Wishes", death and dying, greed, Prayer, Suffering | Comments closed

Johnson: The Bard Instructs by Delighting

By Robin Bates | Published: November 3, 2015

Although today we are sometimes suspicious when literature seeks to instruct us, Samuel Johnson considered this to be literature’s primary aim. He held up Shakespeare as proof.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged consumer capitalism, Horace, King Lear, Preface to Shakespeare, utilitarianism, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Peter Wimsey vs. Oklahoma Executions

By Robin Bates | Published: January 16, 2015

With Oklahoma resuming its executions yesterday, we need the reminders that Dorothy Sayers and Oscar Wilde give us about holding on to our humanity.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Ballad of Reading Gaol", "Eclogue for the Marriage of the Earl of Somerset", Busman's Honeymoon, Charles Warner, death penalty, Dorothy Sayers, John Donne, lethal injection, Oscar Wilde | Comments closed

In Defense of the English Major

By Robin Bates | Published: August 30, 2013

Adam Gopnik makes a spirited defense of the English major in a recent “New Yorker” article.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged English major, Goethe, reading | Comments closed

No More Privacy–And We Don’t Care

By Robin Bates | Published: July 17, 2013

We no longer fiercely guide our privacy, as did the worlds of Austen, Trollope, Thoreau, and Melville.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Anthony Trollope, Barchester Towers, Henry David Thoreau, Herman Melville, James Boswell, Jane Austen, Life of Johnson, Pride and Prejudice, privacy, surveillance | Comments closed

Life as a Stage Coach Ride

By Robin Bates | Published: March 25, 2013

America is in many ways like the stage coach rides described by Samuel Johnson and Henry Fielding.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Adventurer, Henry Fielding, Obamacare, politics, Tom Jones | Comments closed