C.S. Lewis’ obscure essay, ‘A Note on Jane Austen,’ shows that it is Austen’s humor and humility that captures Lewis’ fancy and that directs us to a Lenten lesson. In his rule Saint Benedict advises that each monk should have a holy book to read during Lent. When searching for a holy book, we are […]
In February of 2022, I began a new tradition that I hope to maintain. It stemmed from a keen desire to become more familiar with the great literary works of the 20th century. So, last year I decided to read one work published or written exactly one century in the past. Thus, 2022 corresponded to […]
Huckleberry Finn is no hero, though he does symbolize the American conscience at the time Mark Twain wrote, or at least the conscience Twain hoped for. Yes, “Huckleberry Finn” is a coming-of-age tale and a social criticism and satire, but it also asks crucial questions: Who actually changes? What type of American will change? Huckleberry […]
As did St. Augustine as the barbarians tore through Rome’s gate on August 24, 410, at midnight, J.R.R. Tolkien looked out over a ruined world: a world on one side controlled by ideologues, and, consequently, a world of the Gulag, the Holocaust camps, the Killing fields, and total war; on the other: a world of […]
“Orthodoxy” ends with Chesterton delving deep into the divine comedy at the heart of all things. If angels can fly because they take themselves lightly, does God take Himself lightly? In a recent essay, I wrote about truth and masks in the world and works of Oscar Wilde. As a follow-up, I’d like to focus […]
“The Trial by Existence” is an example of Robert Frost’s strong and brilliant reworking of Dante’s poetic tradition in his own work. He incorporates many of Dante’s images, but he also pushes past the ending silence of “Paradiso” by making the incarnate Christ the sight at the top of the mountain. But God’s own descentInto […]
“The Trial by Existence” is an example of Robert Frost’s strong and brilliant reworking of Dante’s poetic tradition in his own work. He incorporates many of Dante’s images, but he also pushes past the ending silence of “Paradiso” by making the incarnate Christ the sight at the top of the mountain. But God’s own descentInto […]
In 1885 Oscar Wilde wrote “The Truth of Masks,” in which he claimed that there was no such thing in art as a universal truth. Attitude, he wrote, was everything. The truth, or otherwise, of masks is crucial to any understanding of Wilde’s complex and conflicted character. His public persona, cultivated and constructed from his […]
The modern secularist, T.S. Eliot, finds meaning either in the brute forces of the physical world or the arbitrary freeplay of the mind or the passing consensus of the human tribe. Looking for meaning in these places has not only led individuals to a sense of nihilism but has led whole nations to slaughter innocent […]
I don’t really care for C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia. I sympathize with the allegory Lewis was trying to present throughout the series, but I felt that it was too overt in places, and took away from the overall narrative. To me, it was distracting. But even though I didn’t personally enjoy the Chronicles of Narnia, I […]
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