Arnold’s “Dover Beach” describes our own world but also provides us with a way forward.
Tag Archives: Terry Eagleton
Ignorant Armies Clashing by Night
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Dover Beach", "Dover Bitch", Anthony Hecht, Culture and Anarchy, Matthew Arnold, Study in Poetry Comments closed
Getting to Know Henry James
I’m on a Henry James kick and am enthralled with “Daisy Miller” and “Washington Square.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Daisy Miller, Henry James, Martha Nussbaum, Washington Square Comments closed
Teachers as Literature’s Missionaries
If literature teaches foundational social values, then teachers can be seen as missionaries.
Why I Think the Way I Think
I survey my intellectual history, especially the evolution of my thinking about literature’s impact on human behavior.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Antonio Gramsci, Beowulf, Carl Jung, Carleton College, Hans Robert Jauss, Harper Lee, Huckleberry Finn, intellectual history, J. Paul Hunter, J. R. R. Tolkien, Jerome Beaty, Karl Marx, Literary Theory, Madame Bovary, Mark Twain, New Criticism, Norman Holland, Percy Bysshe Shelley, racism, Reader Response Theory, reception theory, Sigmund Freud, To Kill a Mockingbird, Tobias Smollett Comments closed
Does Lightweight Lit Do Damage?
I look at how thinkers over the centuries have viewed so-called popular or lightweight literature.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Alexander Pope, Dunciad, Feminism, Frankfurt School, Frederick Engels, Herbert Marcuse, Jaws, John Dryden, Karl Marx, lightweight literature, Lovers' Vows, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, Percy Shelley, Persuasion, Peter Benchley, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, W.E.B. Du Bois, Wayne Booth Comments closed
My “Last Lecture”
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, Samuel Johnson, segregation, Sir Philip Sydney, W. E. B. Du Bois, Wayne Booth Comments closed
Nazis and the Classics
Do the classics make us better people. F. R. Leavis thinks so while Terry Eagleton disagrees and cites as an example concentration camp commandants who read Goethe.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged book burnings, Fascism, Goethe, Nazis, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Can Lit Help Build an Egalitarian World?
Neo-Marxist literary theory calls for us to see literature as relevant to building an egalitarian society.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Frederic Jameson, Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift, Literary Theory, Literary Theory: An Introduction Comments closed
