Category: Literature
A Critical Masterpiece: Ironies of Faith
Unless criticism is so profound and stirring that it assumes the same plane as the artwork criticized, it will always be derivative. Its secondary nature, however, does not entail that criticism is useless. Rather, in its finest forms, literary criticism...
The Ents Go to War: Jackson vs. Tolkien Again
Mere O “neighbor” and Plato scholar Bourgeois-Burglar penned an excellent analysis of Peter Jackson’s changes to the Ents in response to my post about Jackson’s different approach to Frodo. One conclusion that may reasonably be drawn from the movie’s “adaptation”...
On Providence: Peter Jackson vs. JRR Tolkien
One of these days I’m going to do a thorough comparison of the crucial differences between Tolkien’s version of Lord of the Rings and Peter Jackson’s film adaptation. The differences illuminate much, I think, about our contemporary values in very...
Chesterton’s Infuriating Style, or, Defending Chesterton against the Lewisians
The increasingly prominent and popular (as well as uncannily accurate!) Dawn Eden pointed out a discussion about Chesterton at the Relevant Magazine message boards. A number of writers vented frustration at Chesterton’s style, so I penned the following response in...
What All but He Do Know: Midsummer Night’s Dream Revisited
The handsome, extraordinarily brilliant, and always punchy Nobody (who has been happily blogging at Any Eventuality for some time now) sent in this juicy piece of poetry from Shakespeare’s Sonnet number 129. (I should also point out that Nobody is almost a...
Loving Home While Craving Adventure in Chesterton’s Orthodoxy
I wrote the following article for a Christmas newsletter for homeschool students participating in Torrey Academy, the program I teach in. Though it was written with the yuletide season in mind and for the particular plight of homeschoolers, I think...
Simple but Lovely Poem on the Nature of Daily Work
I think this poem goes along well with Dorothy Sayers’ “Why Work?” and is a clear statement of the Christian understanding of work. The author is Henry Van Dyke, American poet and writer of that famous hymn, “Joyful, Joyful.” WORK...
Deja Vu: Repeating the Midsummer Night’s Dreaming
Here’s the final version of the paper I sent in for my grad school application. I made a few subtle, yet important changes in my wording in order to (hopefully!) make my thesis more clear. While I am not sure...
Midsummer Night’s Dreaming: An Analysis
So, the following paper has consumed my attention the last week. My grad school application is now due in 72 hours, and I am finally “finished” with my paper. It was harder to write than I thought it would be–literature...
Why did God create? a poem
This question has puzzled theists for millenia, and its atheistic equivalent, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” has puzzled everyone else for equally as long. Augustine says, “But why did God choose then to create the heavens and earth...