An Atlanta article attacks utilitarian arguments for reading. I push back.
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Tag Archives: Tom Jones
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, Sorrows of Young Werther Comments closed
Rob Reiner’s 18th Century Sensibility
In which I honor Rob Reiner by looking back at “Princess Bride” and how I used it to teach Henry Fielding’s “Tom Jones.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Henry Fielding, Princess Bride, Rob Reiner, William Goldman Comments closed
My Life as Bildungsroman
Upon leaving college, I came to see literature more as a means of escaping my life than as a way of engaging with it more fully. That’s because I was unsatisfied with this life.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged bildungsroman, Don Quixote, Henry Fielding, Main Street, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Sinclair Lewis Comments closed
Laughter in the Presidential Campaign
Trump and Vance’s jokes are designed to beat down, not include. They elicit Hobbesian laughter, not Shaftesburian.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged blood libel, Caite Upton, Comedy, Donald Trump, Henry Fielding, Kamala Harris, Laughter, Leviathan, Mel Brooks, mysogeny Comments closed
On Comedy, Seinfeld, and Tom Jones
Seinfeld has complained that wokeness is ruining comedy. Similar complains show up in Henry Fielding’s “Tom Jones.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Brian Boone, Henry Fielding, Humor, political correctness, Seinfeld, wokeness Comments closed
Austen’s Revolutionary Style
Austen may have innovated a way to blend satire with romance as a way to protect us from heartbreak.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Emma, Emma Bovary, free indirect style, Geoffrey Chaucer, Gustave Flaubert, Henry Fielding, Horace, ironic romance, Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility Comments closed
Rom-Coms, Defense against Heartbreak
One way of seeing “Tom Jones” is as “valentine armor,” alternating between romance and light satire. As such, it saves us from broken hearts.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Comedy, Don Quixote, Henry Fielding, Miguel de Cervantes, Pamela, Romantic Comedy, Samuel Richardson, Shamela Comments closed