Tag Archives: Enlightenment

Figaro vs. Kafka’s K: The Power of Rumor

By Robin Bates | Published: November 15, 2022

In our continuing discussion of rumor vs. truth, Figaro finds a way to defeat malicious gossip, Kafka not.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Barber of Seville, Franz Kafka, Gioachino Rossini, Pierre Beaumarchais, Rumor, Socrates, Trial | Comments closed

Byatt’s Babel Tower and Truth Today

By Robin Bates | Published: September 19, 2022

A.S. Byatt counterposes Fourier and Sade in “Babel Tower.” The novel is influencing a “Truth, Education, and Democracy” session I am helping put together.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged A.S. Byatt, Babel Tower, Carleton College, Charles Fourier, Marquis de Sade | Comments closed

When a Novel Affected Clock Sales

By Robin Bates | Published: June 9, 2022

Friday I have lots of thoughts about the Congressional hearings on Donald Trump’s January 6 coup attempt, which opened last night, and am working up a post that references Milton’s rebel angels. I’ll end this week, however, on a lighter note, an interesting footnote that my English professor son alerted me to. Apparently, Laurence Sterne’s […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged clocks, Country Wife, John Wilmot, Laurence Sterne, Plain Dealer, Tristram Shandy, William Wycherley | Comments closed

“Clarissa” Taught the Age Empathy

By Robin Bates | Published: February 28, 2021

A new book argues that epistolary novels, especially “Clarissa,” taught the 18th century empathy.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Clarissa, Daniel Defoe, Denise Diderot, empathy, Humphrey Clinker, Moll Flanders, Roxana, Samuel Richardson | Comments closed

Gothics Speak Truth to Denial

By Robin Bates | Published: July 17, 2019

Thursday Thursday morning I delivered the following talk to Sewanee’s Rotary Club. I entitled it “America’s Obsession with Gothic Fantasy, from Poe to Game of Thrones. When you hear someone mention gothic fantasy or gothic horror, what American stories, movies or television shows come to mind? Before I let you answer that question, let me […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Black Cat, Edgar Allen Poe, Flannery O'Connor, Game of Thrones, George Martin, Good Country People, gothic fiction, It, John Winthrop, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Stephen King, Tell-Tale Heart, Twilight Zone, Young Goodman Brown | Comments closed

Fantasy Frees Us from Narrow Thinking

By Robin Bates | Published: March 14, 2019

Friday I share today a new insight that I gained from my recent Lifelong Learning class about “Wizards and Enchantresses.” To set it up, I first share my theory of fantasy. As I see it, fantasy is always oppositional in its invocation of magic and the supernatural. If it flourished in the wake of the […]

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged fantasy, Fundamentalism, Geoffrey Chaucer, scientism, Wife of Bath | Comments closed

Authentic Awareness vs. Reason

By Robin Bates | Published: May 6, 2018

In Nicole Krauss’s “Dark Forest,” we see a character’s hunger for magic and mystery and her battle with Enlightenment Reason.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Age of Reason, Dark Forest, Descartes, Nicole Krauss | Comments closed

Fantasy, a Portal to the Numinous

By Robin Bates | Published: March 26, 2017

People are often drawn to fantasy in our post-Enlightenment world because they hunger for the numinous.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged "Crystal Forest", alienation, angels, Beauty and the Beast, Charles Taylor, disenchantment, fantasy, Georg Lukacs, Harmut Rosa, His Dark Materials, Homer, John Milton, Odyssey, Paradise Lost, Philip Pullman, re-enchantment, resonance, Theory of the Novel, Willam Sharp | Comments closed

How Fantasy Saves Our Souls

By Robin Bates | Published: April 13, 2015

Great fantasy can always be seen as oppositional, pushing against prevailing modes of thought and opening up portals into new human possibilities.

Posted in Uncategorized | Also tagged Age of Reason, Bacchae, Don Quixote, Euripides, fantasy, Hobbit, J. R. R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings, Miguel de Cervantes, Scientific Revolution, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Tracks | Comments closed