The death of a beloved cousin is throwing me into the primal pain described by Tennyson and Auden.
The poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty get us to interpret the sculpture differently than the designer intended.
Even 85 years later, actress Clara Bow, the “It Girl,” still explodes off the screen.
Great political novels are rich in spiritual attitude. Poor ones are agenda driven.
Posted in Conrad (Joseph), Dostoevsky (Fyodor), Ginzburg (Natalia), Gordimer (Nadine), James (Henry), Llosa (Vargas), Naipaul (V.S.), Pamuk (Orhan), Roth (Philip K.), Stendahl, Turgenev (Ivan), Yeats (William Butler) | Tagged "Easter 1916", American Pastoral, Berger's Daughter, fathers and sons, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Henry James, Ivan Turgenev, Joseph Conrad, Literary Theory, Nadine Gordimer, Natalia Ginzburg, Orhan Pamuk, Philip Roth, political novel, snow, Stendahl, V.S. Naipaul, Vargas Llosa, William Butler Yeats |
Paul Ryan’s speech before AARP brings to mind the generational conflict described in Samuel Johnson’s “Rasselas.”
Mitt Romney resembles the dead leopard in “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” in multiple ways.
The spirit of Yom Kippur is captured through the harvest imagery of a Jane Kenyon poem.
In this topsy-turrvy baseball season, as in Midsummer Night’s Dream, all things are possible and the Baltimore Orioles are a game out of first.
“Vertigo” is a film about how we are driven by desire and how to achieve it is to lose it.
Celebrating the agreement between the Chicago teachers and the city, here’s a humorous poem about school band.
Mitt Romney’s characterization of 47% of the American public as people who won’t take responsibility for their lives signals that he is a dragon in the Beowulf mode.
In “Easter, 1916,” Yeats gives us a framework for understanding the ambivalence of Muslim moderates towards protesters.
Tess of the D’Urbervilles puts a human face on the dilemmas of rape victims. Romney/Ryan, take note.
Poet Enid Shomer describes Rosh Hashanah as a swimmer beginning on the surface but eventually sinking deep within the water/rituals.
Middle Eastern leaders could learn from Beowulf–and so could Mitt Romney–as they deal with anti-American riots.
Mitt Romney, like Citizen Kane, is a cipher. What drives him other than a desire to appear big?
The Library of Congress names 91 books that shaped America.
Scott Bates’s ABC of Radical Ecology calls for us to keep fighting to save the environment.
Andy Murray and Serena Williams were warriors as they won the U.S. Open, bringing to mind poems by Robert Burns and Tony Hoagland.
Obama sells himself in a softer way than Beowulf does. is he right to do so?
Levertov’s “Fountain” invokes the healing power of water.
Peyton Manning and Roger Federer, in the twilight of their careers, bring to mind Tennyson’s Ulysses.
“Beasts of the Southern Wild” points to the devastation coastal communities can expect from climate change.
The current political situation calls for us to be Beowulfs.
Galloway’s “Cellist of Sarajevo” gives a face to the victims of violence.
Obama has had to to resist black male anger such as that described in Eliison’s “Invisible Man.”
Novelist Rachel Kranz shows workers finding a sense of self respect through union action.
Wallace Stevens’ “Peter Quince” mingles eroticism with spirituality.
The strange case of Stephen Strasburg–missing the playoffs if he exceeds his innings pitched limit–has parallels with the Balzac novel “The Magic Skin.”
