Tag Archives: Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Welcoming in May with a Dance

By Robin Bates | Published: April 30, 2023

In Hardy, Mayday dancing is a way of connecting with ancient roots

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Spring", May Day, maypole dancing, Return of the Natve, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy | Comments closed

When Fiction Trumps Truth

By Robin Bates | Published: May 28, 2019

Wednesday Writing last week for the New York Times’ “What Is Power?” series, Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari argued that fiction is a more powerful force than truth in politics. I extend the discussion to literature (which Harari does not discuss) because of its reliance upon fabrication in the service of a higher understanding. Camus, […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Geoffrey Chaucer, Lying, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy, Wife of Bath, William Shakespeare, Yuval Noah Harari | Comments closed

Literature Has Paul Ryan’s Number

By Robin Bates | Published: April 12, 2018

Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, Chinua Achebe, John Milton, and Thomas Hardy see through men like departing Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "How Doth the Little Crocodile", Alice in Wonderland, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, Charles Dickens, Chinua Achebe, Hard Times, John Milton, Lewis Carroll, Oliver Twist, Paradise Lost, Paul Ryan politics, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Things Fall Apart, Thomas Hardy | Comments closed

Tess, More Relevant Than Ever

By Robin Bates | Published: November 14, 2017

Students find Hardy’s “Tess” to be only too relevant In the age of Trump, Weinstein, and Roy Moore.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trump, Henry James, Robert Louis Stevenson, Roy Moore, sexual assault, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy | Comments closed

Literature as a Public Event

By Robin Bates | Published: August 7, 2016

In my Theories of the Reader senior seminar, I will have my students study a literary work that became a public event. In today’s post I list a number of possibilities.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged censorship, English Teacher, Lily King, literature as an event, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy | Comments closed

Speaker Paul Ryan in Literature

By Robin Bates | Published: November 4, 2015

I’ve written a lot about Paul Ryan and his aspiration to be a John Galt figure. Now that he is Speaker of the House, I review other literary parallels I’ve drawn over the years.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Alice in Wonderland, Ayn Rand, Chinua Achebe, GOP, Hard Times, Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, Lewis Carroll, Oliver Twist, Paul Ryan, politics, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Things Fall Apart, Thomas Hardy | Comments closed

Bloodless Criticism Undermines Lit

By Robin Bates | Published: June 17, 2015

Literature can function as an evasion as well as a guide. But only if we talk about it in evasive ways.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Leda and the Swan", English Teacher, Lily King, Lord Gordon Byron, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy, Thorn Birds, William Butler Yeats | Comments closed

The Complex Inner Life of Teachers

By Robin Bates | Published: June 16, 2015

Lily King’s “The English Teacher” is filled with literary lllusions, most of them thematically important.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Voice", Annabelle Lee, Beowulf, Edgar Allen Poe, Homer, Huckleberry Finn, Love Song of J. Alfred Pruforck, Mark Twain, Odyssey, Othello, Rose for Emily, T. S. Eliot, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy, William Faulkner, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

An English Teacher as Tess

By Robin Bates | Published: June 15, 2015

Lily King’s novel “English Teacher” is a profound meditation on how a trauma victim may view “Tess of the d’Urbervilles.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged English Teacher, Lily King, Rape, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy, trauma | Comments closed