Monthly Archives: February 2012

High Schoolers and Great Expectations

“Great Expectations” is a perfect novel to teach high school students.

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Romney as Shakespeare’s Dark Lady?!

“I do believe her, though I know she lies,” wrote Shakespeare about the dark lady. It could also be said by some Republican voters about Mitt Romney.

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Unruly Women Playing Cards

The Folger’s revival of Susanne Centlivre’s 1705 comedy about unruly women playing cards has coincided well with battles in Congress over who has the right to control women’s bodies.

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The Cleanness of Sweet Abstinence

Herbert paradoxically describes Lent as a “dear Feast” in which we can revel.

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Downton Abbey vs. the Super Bowl

The conflict between the Super Bowl and “Downton Abbey” is anticipated in Tom Robbins’s comic novel “Skinny Legs and All,” only with a dancer rather than a television series.

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Random Reading: Intoxicant, Tranquilizer

A. S. Byatt describes narrative as “one of the best intoxicants or tranquilizers.”

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Using Lit to Figure Out Mitt

Which literary character is Mitt Romney? Possibilities include Faustus, Chauncey Gardener, the Hollow Men, Richard Cory, Tom Buchanan, and Joseph Conrad’s Station Manager.

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Jeremy Lin Speaks Out Loud and Bold

See explosive Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin appear from nowhere brings to mind the Keats poem “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.”

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Has Obama Been a Naïve Wealtheow?

Pundits debates whether Obama has been naive in his dealings with opponents. The same question can be asked of Queen Wealtheow in “Beowulf.”

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