Tag Archives: Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Sir Gawain through the Eyes of a Marine

One of the most interesting essays I received in my just completed early British Literature survey came from a young Marine. Jon Gott was fascinated by what he calls Camelot’s “band of brothers.” His essay was about how Gawain handles the tests that he is subjected to in the 14th century romance Sir Gawain and […]

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Expressing Gratitude for Nature’s Feast

  Thanksgiving may be my favorite holiday because it involves holding a feast in the face of on-coming winter.  I read this as a sign that we believe the harvest bounty can carry us through the hard times. To accentuate the symbolism, I like my Thanksgivings to be cold and even a bit wet. Sir Gawain […]

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Responding to Intruder Death

As we do every week, Julia and I visited our friends Alan and Jackie this past Sunday evening, Julia to administer Reiki massage and I to talk. Alan was tired from his chemotherapy treatments and in pain from a cracked rib (he doesn’t know how that happened). Nevertheless we talked about literature, including Sir Gawain […]

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The Perfect Game that Wasn’t

Armando Galarraga           Sports Saturday Even as we stand on the precipice of the World Cup—tragically I will be traveling cross country today when the U.S. is playing England—something has been happening in the world of baseball that invites comment.  Perfect games are breaking out all over. A pitcher pitches a perfect game if no runner […]

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Epic vs. Ironic Heroes

On Monday I described my friend Alan as an Odysseus figure for the way he has coming back, time after time, in his battle with his cancer.  He appreciated the article but was taken aback by the comparison and asked why I hadn’t compared him instead with someone like Holden Caulfield.  He said he didn’t […]

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Interpreting Lit Makes for Better Citizens

Eugene Robinson        Our Commencement speaker two weeks ago was the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson, 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner and one of my favorite columnists.  He delivered a message to our graduates with which I fervently agree:  THINK! Robinson told us that he is tired of seeing politics conducted with bumper sticker simplicity.  The real problems […]

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On Lent, Faustus, and the 7 Deadly Sins

Dr. Faustus, Rembrandt etching       Here we are in the midst of Lent with less than a month to go until Easter.  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight describes the season as follows: After Christmas there came the cold cheer of Lent, When with fish and plainer fare our flesh we reprove . . . The […]

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Gripped by a Mind of Winter

Snow is pounding us for the third time in two weeks and classes once again have been canceled.  Significantly enough, I have been forced once again to postpone Midsummer Night’s Dream.  “Where are the songs of spring?  Ay, where are they?” queries Keats (although he’s asking from the vantage point of autumn, not that of […]

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Sir Gawain and a Friend’s Cancer

Just as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight supported me as I grieved for my son, so is it supporting me now as I interact with a close friend, a philosophy professor, who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Alan’s tumors began in his neck and eyelid and have now migrated down to his lungs. […]

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