Tag Archives: Tom Jones

If Fielding Had Written about Trump

By Robin Bates | Published: October 6, 2017

Henry Fielding would have had a field day writing about America’s president.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trump, Henry Fielding, Historical Register for the Year 1736, Jonathan Wild the Great | Comments closed

Update on My Heart Condition

By Robin Bates | Published: September 29, 2017

I now have a possible explanation for last week’s heart episode. Henry Fielding’s “Tom Jones” helped lead me to it.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Henry Fielding | Comments closed

Dying of a Broken Heart

By Robin Bates | Published: January 1, 2017

Two 18th century items: Henry Fielding believed that it was possible to die from a broken heart, which some speculate explains actress Debbie Reynolds’s death after her daughter Carrie Fisher died. And prankster Jonathan Swift has a characteristic list of New Year’s resolutions.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, dying of a broken heart, Henry Fielding, Jonathan Swift, New Year's resolutions | Comments closed

Defending Homer against Plato

By Robin Bates | Published: October 4, 2016

Plato’s attacks on Homer have to do with the bard’s focus earthly concerns rather than higher ones. Following Plato’s prescriptions, however, will not produce very interesting poetry.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Henry Fielding, Homer, Odyssey, philosophy, Plato, Republic | Comments closed

Ted Cruz as Lucifer, “Squat Like a Toad”

By Robin Bates | Published: May 1, 2016

After John Boehner compared Sen. Ted Cruz to Lucifer, I went looking through “Paradise Lost” to find passages that would apply. I found a particularly good one but, if you ask me, Cruz more resembles Blifil, Tom Jones’s nemesis.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Bram Stoker, Dracula, Henry Fielding, John Boehner, John Milton, Julius Caesar, Lucifer, Paradise Lost, Peter King, politics, Presidential Primaries, Satan, Senate, Ted Cruz, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Detecting the Person behind the Poetry

By Robin Bates | Published: June 18, 2015

What we find when we look for the person behind the literary work.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged authorial criticism, Charles Dickens, death of the author, Henry Fielding, intentional fallacy, James Joyce, Lucille Clifton, New Criticism, Roland Barthes, Structuralism, Ulysses, Wimsatt and Beardsley | Comments closed

Falling Out of Love with Tom Jones

By Robin Bates | Published: December 9, 2014

I have fallen out of love with “Tom Jones.” One reason may be because of the author’s sense of entitlement.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged class entitlement, class resentment, Henry Fielding, Peregrine Pickle, Roderick Random, Tobias Smollett | Comments closed

Reading Novels for Moral Instruction

By Robin Bates | Published: November 7, 2014

“Tom Jones” teaches how to raise adolescents. And how not to.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged adolescence, Henry Fielding, Moral Instruction, teaching | Comments closed

10 Famous Fetish Objects in Lit

By Robin Bates | Published: November 6, 2014

Literature is filled with fetish objects that take on outsized significance to various characters.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Alexander Pope, Charles Dickens, Edgar Allan Poe, Emma, Great Expectations, Henry Fielding, Jane Austen, Marcel Proust, Prophet's Hair, Rape of the Lock, Salman Rushie, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Tell-Tale Heart | Comments closed

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