An Atlanta article attacks utilitarian arguments for reading. I push back.
Tag Archives: Sorrows of Young Werther
Why Aren’t More Kids Reading?
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Adam Kirsch, Ars Poetica, Cervantes, Don Quixote, Goethe, Gustave Flaubert, Horace, Huckleberry Finn, John Stuart Mill, Judy Blume, Madame Bovary, Mark Twain, Martha Nussbaum, Paul and Virginia, Perks of Being a Wall Flower, Samuel Johnson, Tom Jones Leave a comment
Soliloquies Changed Us Fundamentally
Hamlet’s soliloquies changed the way we see ourselves and others and led the way to the novel.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Angus Fletcher, Charlotte Bronte, Hamlet, Harold Bloom, Harper Lee, Huckleberry Finn, humanism, Jane Eyre, Le Cid, Pierre Corneille, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Robinson Crusoe, Shakespeare, soliloquies, To Kill a Mockingbird, transcendentalism, Wonderworks Comments closed
Does Lit Lead to Illicit Sex?
Dante’s beautifully tragic account of Paolo and Francesca captures–as many great works do–the dangers of total absorption in a relationship.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Adultery, Charlotte Bronte, Christopher Marlowe, Dante, Doctor Faustus, Goethe, Inferno, Jane Eyre, Paolo and Francesca, passionate love, Romeo and Juliet, Samuel Johnson, Stephenie Meyer, Twilight, William Shakespeare Comments closed
The Dangers of Emotional Identification
In which I push back against an article warning about emotional identification with literary characters.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Age of Sensibility, Anne Radcliffe, Goethe, Hannah Arendt, Homer, Iliad, Jane Austen, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Namwali Serpell, Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility Comments closed
When Werther-Fever Upended Europe
Goethe’s “Sorrows of Young Werther” created a sensation in 1774, with a young cult following and older attackers.
