Our looming fiscal cliff can be imagined as Coleridge’s “deep romantic chasm” in “Kubla Khan.”
John Donne’s poem on the Nativity shows us a way out of our imprisoned existence.
In 2010 Carol Ann Duffy compared Beckham to Achilles after he went down with an injury to his Achilles tendon.
My sons’ special friendship brings to mind Laura and Lizzie’s friendship in “Goblin Market.”
A copy of Shakespeare’s works that circulated through apartheid-era prisons shows the Bard providing solace for the prisoners.
Tolkien criticized the looseness of C. S. Lewis that prompted him to put Santa Claus and a variety of myth traditions in Narnia.
In Scott Bates’s updated nativity scene, there is no room for Mary and Josephn in the Holiday Inn.
Applying “Hichhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” to the nativity scene opens up interesting perspectives on the animals that are present.
Anne Porter shows us how “the fresh truth of children” is central to the Christmas experience.
Byron’s “deep and dark blue ocean” rolls on and so does the Alabama Crimson Tide.
A number of poets have written poems about the apocalypse. But it’s always figurative, never literal.
Posted in Arnold (Matthew), Pope (Alexander), Shelley (Percy), Woolf (Virginia) | Tagged "Hellas", "Second Coming", "Stanzas from the Grand Chartreuse", Alexander Pope, Apocalyptic literature, Between the Acts, Dunciad, Matthew Arnold, Mayan Apocalypse, Virginia Woolf, William Butler Yeats |
Elie Weisel helps us understand where God was during the Sandy Hook killings.
Rachel Kranz’s “Leaps of Faith” provides a vision of unions that are needed in the face of GOP attacks.
Gun control is difficult because certain Americans have almost a sexual relationship with guns.
Blake captures the tragic clash between childhood innocence and worldly corruption that we witnessed in Sandy Hook.
A Christina Rossetti poem about the massacre of the innocents looks for solace for such tragedies in Christ’s love.
The Sandy Hook killings recall the Biblical massacre of the innocents, referenced in “Moby Dick.”
Jacques Prévert’s lyre bird comes to the rescue of bored students everywhere.
To excite students, teach good writing–not writing that torments.
The new Common Core State Standards are pushing literature out of English classes.
Morrison’s “Song of Solomon” has advice for Obama in the fiscal cliff confrontation: Leap!
Fascination with Kate Middleton’s pregnancy may be tied in with the “return of the king” trope found in much British fiction.
Marge Piercy’s mother died during Hanukkah and the poet uses the season to reflect upon their contentious relationship.
RGIII, Russell Wilson, and Andrew Luck are escape artists in the mode of Mac the Knife.
Posted in Gay (John), Harris (Joel Chandler), Homer, St. Vincent Millay (Edna) | Tagged "I burn my candle at both ends", Andrew Luck, Beggar's Opera, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Football, Homer, Joel Chandler Harris, John Gay, NFL, Odyssey, Robert Griffin III, Russell Wilson, Sports |
Find out what Jane Austen character you are with my class’s Jane Austen Personality Profile test.
If Obama goes over the fiscal cliff as Sherlock goes over the Reichenbach Falls, then he’ll be all right.
The Christmas nativity scene is less Christian than devout Christians realize.
For strength Obama can think of himself as Carl Sandburg’s steel spike.
Obama appears to be playing Beowulf-hard rather than Wealtheow-soft in budget negotiations with the GOP.
Pan became a major figure for turn-of-the-century poets and artists.
Posted in Bates (Scott) | Tagged "Afternoon of a Faun", Bacchae, Euripides, Finnegans Wake, Guillaume Apollinaire, Heresiarch and Company, James Barrie, James Joyce, Kenneth Grahame, Mallarmé (Stéphane), mythology, Paganism, Pan, Peter Pan, Peter Weir, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Puck of Pook's Hill, Rudyard Kipling, Theocritus, Ulysses, wind in the willows |
“The Maltese Falcon” captures the existential absurdity of Peyton Manning in a Broncos’ uniform.
