See explosive Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin appear from nowhere brings to mind the Keats poem “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.”
Tag Archives: Sports
Jeremy Lin Speaks Out Loud and Bold
Eli, the Unpromising Youth of Fairy Tales
Eli Manning is like the unpromising younger brother in fairy tales who surprises his elders and takes home the gold.
Fired by Happy Valley, JoPa Is No Aeneas
Just as Rasselas questions Samuel Johnson’s Happy Valley, so do Penn State students find themselves questioning their own Happy Valley after the child abuse scandal. Coach Joe Paterno admired Aeneas, and many feel abandoned like Queen Dido.
Cardinals’ Victory Invokes Mythos of Spring
St. Louis’s improbable World Series victory corresponds to the mythos of comedy as described by Northrup Frye. Comedy’s improbably reversals symbolize the escape of life from the clutches of winter.
No Man Is an Island (Not Even Revis)
New York Jet Darrelle Revis may be single man island who can shut down any receiver who comes near, but ultimately he must acknowledge, like John Donne, that no man is an island.
Novels and Baseball Fans, Fixated on Time
As I watched the amazing day of baseball last Wednesday, I found myself thinking (being the literature nerd that I am) that the English novel was invented to do justice to reality when it got this dramatic and complex.
Fed, Rafa, Djoker–A Sibling Drama
Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic are like the brothers in a Dostoevsky novel or a Grimm Brothers fairy tale: the two older brothers focus on each other and then the unassuming younger brother comes in and takes over.
Après Peyton, le Déluge
News that Peyton Manning may be out for part or all of the upcoming football season puts me in mind of the future of the Geats after Beowulf’s death.

