David Foster Wallace, like Plato, Horace, and Sidney before him, wrestles with the dichotomy between reading for enjoyment and reading for instruction. But what if this is a false dichotomy.
Tag Archives: William Butler Yeats
Two Exam Poems To Lift Your Spirits
For students encounter end-of-semester pressure, here are two comic poems about exams. Laughter is an important resource for you at the moment.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Among School Children", exams, finals week, students Comments closed
Bloodless Criticism Undermines Lit
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 Comments closed
Yeats & Ireland’s World of Faery
Yeats’ “Stolen Child” longs for the lost world of faery but also finds something precious in the here and now world of Ireland.
I Am of Ireland
Yeats captures the enduring myth that is Ireland in two poems.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "I Am of Ireland", "Those Dancing Days Are Gone", Ireland Comments closed
Disaster Ahead, No More Fantasizing
Can the Tea Party move beyond fantasies and deal with the world as it really is? Shakespeare and Yeats weigh in.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Circus Animals Desertion", As You Like It, debt default, GOP, governmental shutdown, politics, Tea Party, William Shakespeare Comments closed
Uncontrollable Mystery on the Bestial Floor
A Yeats poem about the Magi helps us transition out of Christmas and back into our work lives.
