One way of seeing “Tom Jones” is as “valentine armor,” alternating between romance and light satire. As such, it saves us from broken hearts.
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Tag Archives: Tom Jones
Rom-Coms, Defense against Heartbreak
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Comedy, Don Quixote, Henry Fielding, Miguel de Cervantes, Pamela, Romantic Comedy, Samuel Richardson, Shamela Comments closed
A Christian Attack on Toxic Masculinity
In “Sir Charles Grandison,” Richardson attacks toxic masculinity in ways that feel very modern.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Clarissa, dueling, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, Joseph Andrews, Northanger Abbey, Pamela, Samuel Richardson, Shamela, Sir Charles Grandison, toxic masculinity Comments closed
Johnson: Read the Bard, Not Tom Jones
I share the Samuel Johnson chapter from my book-in-progress.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aristotle, Clarissa, Henry Fielding, Horace, Plato, Republic, Samuel Johnson, Samuel Richardson, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Will Trump Pay? Literature Is Unsure
Will Trump escape all accountability? Literature weighs in.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Beggar's Opera, Bertolt Brecht, Candide, Dante, Donald Trump, Henry Fielding, impeachment hearings, Importance of Being Earnest, Inferno, John Gay, Oscar Wilde, Threepenny Opera, Voltaire Comments closed
Scott Atlas, a Fieldingesque Quack
Fielding’s jabs at quack doctors in “Tom Jones” are suddenly relevant again given Trump’s approach to the pandemic.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Center for Disease Control, COVID-19, Deborah Birx, Donald Trump, Henry Fielding, quack doctors, Robert Redfield, Scott Atlas Comments closed
Knives Out and the American Dream
The movie “Knives Out” is satisfying but leaves unquestioned the American Dream.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Vanity of Human Wishes", American Dream, Anne Sexton, Cinderella, Henry Fielding, Knives Out, Samuel Johnson Comments closed
Caution against Purity Policing
Monday One of my conservative readers wrote me recently asking me how I felt about leftist insistence that Virginia governor Ralph Northam resign for having posted a racist picture in his medical school yearbook years ago. After all, hasn’t Northam lived a fairly exemplary life since then? The reader also sent me a Quillette article […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aphra Behn, Henry Fielding, Merchant of Venice, Oroonoko, purity policing, William Shakespeare Comments closed