Tag Archives: Uncle Tom's Cabin

Literature in Time of War

By Robin Bates | Published: February 29, 2024

Poetry has always been present in times of war but with mixed success at improving conditions.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged burning books, Ernest Hemingway, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Hitler, Homer, Iliad, King John, Louis Untemeyer, Modern American and British Poetry, Nadezhda Mandelstam, Osip Mandelstam, Robert Graves, Stalin, Uncle Tom's Cabin, William Shakespeare | Comments closed

Tim Scott’s Self-Debasement

By Robin Bates | Published: February 28, 2024

Sen. Tim Scott’s self-abasement before Donald Trump brings to mind various “Uncle Tom” poems written by Black authors.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "All of Us Are All of Us", "robert", "Uncle Tom", Donald Trump, Harriet Beecher Stowe, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Lindsey Graham, Lucille Clifton, racism, Tim Scott, Uncle Tom's Cabin | Comments closed

The Arbery Killers, Today’s Slave Catchers

By Robin Bates | Published: November 22, 2021

The men who chased and killed Ahmaud Arbery are like the slave catchers in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Ahmaud Arbery, Fugitive Slave Law, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Kyle Rittenhouse, racism, Uncle Tom's Cabin | Comments closed

Uncle Tom’s Cabin Changed History

By Robin Bates | Published: July 7, 2021

“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” changed history. But is it a great work of literature?

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Harriet Beecher Stowe, slavery, Uncle Tom's Cabin | Comments closed

The Lit That Inspired Van Gogh

By Robin Bates | Published: May 26, 2020

Writers like Stowe, Dickens, Hugo and Maupassant played a pivotal role in the evolution of Van Gogh as an artist.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Bel Ami, Charles Dickens, Christmas Tales, Guy de Maupassant, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Miserables, painting, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Victor Hugo, Vincent Van Gogh | Comments closed

Returning to the Misty Past

By Robin Bates | Published: October 18, 2018

John Gatta’s “Spirits of Place” is helping me understand why I have chosen to retire in my home town. Wordsworth, Stowe, Homer, and Frost help out as well.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Death of the Hired Man", "Pulley", George Herbert, Harriet Beecher Stowe, home, Homer, John Gatta, Odyssey, retirement, Robert Frost, Sewanee, Tintern Abbey, Uncle Tom's Cabin, William Wordsworth | Comments closed

Can Art Thwart Trump? A Debate

By Robin Bates | Published: December 28, 2016

In which I argue with a writer who claims that art and artists have an inflated sense of their power and that they are irrelevant in the battle against Donald Trump.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Donald Trump, Grapes of Wrath, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Invisible Man, John Steinbeck, propaganda, Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, social realism, socialist realism, Uncle Tom's Cabin, W. H. Auden | Comments closed

Child Heroines Who Die for Our Sins

By Robin Bates | Published: November 2, 2015

The child heroine who dies, a common trope in the 19th century, continues to fascinate us, appearing in “Bridge to Tarabithia” and “The Fault Is in Our Stars.” One of my students has this as a senior project topic.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Annabel Lee", Bridge to Tarabithia, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, Children, death and dying, Edgar Allan Poe, Feminism, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Jane Eyre, Katherine Paterson, Little Women, Louisa Mae Alcott, Old Curiosity Shop, Uncle Tom's Cabin | Comments closed

Can Lit Also Be a Force for Evil? A Debate

By Robin Bates | Published: October 22, 2015

The classics are capable to doing great good but can they also do harm? Even as they powerfully open up the mind to new possibilities, can they also close it down? A debate.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Anabelle Lee", Aristotle, Bridge to Terabithia, Charles Dickens, Earth Sea Trilogy, Edgar Allan Poe, George Eliot, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Jane Austen, Katherine Paterson, Middlemarch, Old Curiosity Shop, Percy Shelley, Plato, Pride and Prejudice, Sir Philip Sidney, Twelfth Night, Uncle Tom's Cabin, Ursula Leguin, William Shakespeare | Comments closed