The child perspective in Ferrante’s “My Brilliant Friend” creates a special bond with the reader.
Tag Archives: Wayne Booth
My Brilliant Friend, Cure for Loneliness?
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Angus Fletcher, Charlotte Bronte, Childhood, Company We Keep, Elena Ferrante, Emily Bronte, first person point of view, Hamlet, Jane Eyre, John Knowles, My Brilliant Friend, opera, penny dreadfuls, Separate Peace, William Shakespeare, Wonderworks, Wuthering Heights Comments closed
Better Living through Lit–the Book
In which I talk about my book, which a publisher has just accepted.
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, Terry Eagleton, W.E.B. Du Bois 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, Terry Eagleton, W. E. B. Du Bois Comments closed
Theories about Lit’s Impact
A transcript of a talk given at the University of Ljubljana on “how literature changes lives.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Aristotle, Bertolt Brecht, Chinua Achebe, Frederick Engel, Horace, Karl Marx, Martha Nussbaum, Matthew Arnold, Percy Shelley, Plato, Rachel Blau du Plessis, Samuel Johnson, Sir Philip Sidney Comments closed
My Dinner with Mladen
An account of a dinner with an old Slovenian friend and intellectual.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged intellectual conversations, Ion, King Lear, Mladen Dolar, Oedipus at Colonus, Pierre de Marivaux, Plato, Republic, Samuel Beckett, Sophocles, William Shakespeare, Worstward Ho Comments closed
A Cosmic Theory of Literature
My attempt at an overarching theory of literature and its place in human history and human progress.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Sir Philip Sidney, Terence, Twelfth Night, William Shakespeare Comments closed
For a Rich Life, Read Widely and Freely
Literature impacts our lives but the influence is best if we read a wide variety of works. Limiting ourselves to just a few authors can warp us.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Company We Keep, D. H. Lawrence, ethics of fiction, Jane Austen, Leo Tolstoy, Mikhail Lermontov, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Lit Classics, Our Most Valuable Friends
Wayne Booth compares our relationship with books to our relationships with friends. Just as we can judge whether a friendship is good for us, so can we do so with a literary work.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Company We Keep, Ethics, ethics of fiction, reader response Comments closed
