Because everyone loves a good story
Tolkien, Heaney, and Beowulf, Part Two
::Cue dramatic radio announcer voice:: When two unparalleled authors face off in an epic translation battle, only one can take the throne. Who will wear the laurels, and who will be the loser? Welcome to…Heaney vs Tolkien: The Beowulf Battle. …All right, maybe translations…
Tolkien, Heaney, and Beowulf
Youth is wasted on the young, and college classes are wasted on college students. When I was a junior in college, I took a History of Modern English class that seemed, at the time, drier than dust and older than dirt. To this day,…
“The Writer”: A Poem by Richard Wilbur
Today I’d like to share with you a poem by Richard Wilbur. If you were around last year on Past Watchful Dragons, you’ll know I shared many of my favorite poems with you then, so we’ll consider today a bonus poem. I found this…
To Revenge or Not To Revenge? The Count of Monte Cristo and Shakespeare’s The Tempest
Recently I had an literary epiphany. Two stories I’d known for decades finally collided with each other in my mind and fused into a new idea: I saw two ways to approach revenge when I contrasted Edmond Dantes with Shakespeare’s Prospero. The Comparison Catalyst…
Skyscrapers, Social Media, and Science: C.S. Lewis on “Progress”
Proof number 793 that I’m an old soul: I resonate with a poem that laments the evils of progress…from 100 years ago. On my latest reading of C.S. Lewis’s The Pilgrim’s Regress, I came across this powerhouse of a poem in the last chapter….
An Allegorical Conversion Story: C.S. Lewis’s The Pilgrim’s Regress
This week I finished re-reading C.S. Lewis’s The Pilgrim’s Regress, and guys—it was thrilling. Seems like an odd description for a spiritual allegory from almost a century ago, but it’s true. I’d read it before, maybe during high school, so I found plenty of…
On Pickwick, Dickens, and a New Crush
Will you despise me if I admit that, while I’ve loved reading since I was a wee child, I’d never been much of a Charles Dickens fan? I know. It’s heresy. He’s one of the greats, and I had tried (from time to time)…
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