In his haunting “Ode to a Nightingale,” Keats imagines himself as a homesick Ruth standing “amid the alien corn.”
Fantasy is nothing in and of itself but takes its character in opposition to an unsatisfactory reality.
Also posted in Lewis (C. S.), Shakespeare (William), Tennyson (Alfred Lord), Tolkien (J.R.R.) | Tagged "Lady of Shalott", "Lotos Eaters", "Passing of Arthur", Alfred Lord Tennyson, C. S. Lewis, Eve of St. Agnes, J. R. R. Tolkien, Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Lord of the Rings, Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare |
See explosive Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin appear from nowhere brings to mind the Keats poem “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.”
Memorizing poetry used to be standard classroom practice and poetry was widely popular before the snobs came in.
Also posted in Coleridge (Samuel Taylor), Kilmer (Joyce), Kipling (Rudyard), Riley (James Whitcomb), Shelley (Percy), Tennyson (Alfred Lord), Wordsworth (William) | Tagged "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud", "Ozymandias", "Trees", Alfred Lord Tennyson, Cleanth Brooks, Gunga Din, Joyce Kilmer, Memorizing poetry, Percy Shelley, Robert Penn Warren, Rudyard Kipling, Ulysses, William Wordsworth |
Developing what John Keats described as negative capability can help students be more successful in college.
Having taught British Fantasy Literature for the first time last semester, I need to think back on it before it becomes a distant memory. By reflecting publicly, I can share some of the insights I gained from the course. Two major things I learned are that (1) fantasy is an oppositional genre—by which I [...]
Also posted in Andersen (Hans Christian), Barrie (J. M.), Carroll (Lewis), Chaucer (Geoffrey), Coleridge (Samuel Taylor), Dickens (Charles), Grahame (Kenneth), Grimm Brothers, Haggard (Rider), Kipling (Rudyard), Rossetti (Christina), Shakespeare (William), Sir Gawain Poet, Tennyson (Alfred Lord), Tolkien (J.R.R.) | Tagged "Kubla Khan", "La Belle Dame sans Merci", "Lady of Shallot", Alfred Lord Tennyson, Alice in Wonderland Alice through the Looking Glass, Carl Jung, Charles Dickens, Christina Rossetti, fantasy, Geoffrey Chaucer, Goblin Market, Grimm Brothers, Hans Christian Andersen, Hard Times, Hero with a Thousand Faces, Idylls of the King, J. R. R. Tolkien, James Barrie, John Keats, Joseph Campbell, Jungle Books, Kenneth Grahame, Lewis Carol, Man and His Symbols, Midsummer Night's Dream, Rider Haggard, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Rudyard Kipling, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, She, teaching, The Lord of the Rings, The Wind in the Willows, William Shakespeare |
In Southern Maryland our eternal summer appears finally to be fading and the fall, my favorite season, is a’cumin in. To celebrate it, I am posting one of my favorite seasonal poems, John Keats’ “To Autumn” (1817). The poem takes on added significance as the news continues to get worse for my friend Alan. Despite [...]
Sunday evenings are for visiting our friends Alan and Jackie. I feel blessed that Alan is sharing his dying with us and that I get to have with him the final conversations I did not have with Justin, my son who drowned. We don’t talk that much about death. Mostly we talk, as we always [...]
W. H. Hunt, Eve of St. Agnes Sometimes I will discover that two different works start talking to each other simply because I happen to be teaching them both at the same time. This week Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey (from my Jane Austen first year seminar) and John Keats’ Eve of St. Agnes (from my [...]
