Category: Literature
Pushkin, Fate, and Modern Man
Alexander Pushkin is often referred to as Russia’s national poet. Basically, as Virgil was to Romans so is Pushkin to Russians. A major theme in his legendary “novel in verse”, Eugene Onegin, is that of fate. The main character, Eugene,...
Literary Criticism and Epistemology
For some time I have been bothered by the phenomenon of 20th C. literary criticism of all varieties: Marxist, feminist, post-colonial and the other smatterings. It just rubs me the wrong way. After remembering Rodrick Chisholm’s insightful article, “The Problem...
Plato’s Euthyphro versus Aristophanes’ The Clouds
It’s nice to be blogging again! Greek and Roman philosophy are on my mind… Plato’s Euthyphro recounts the conversation Socrates had with Euthyphro, a religious leader, just before his trial. It comes out that this man is also awaiting a...
An abstract and somewhat poetic post
I was talking to Matt at his fiance’s house, conversing on the nature of talk. I said nothing not brought to discussion is ever remembered or well understood. “No,” he said, “there’s something to be said, not for talk, but...
Descent into Heaven
My students have recently been reading Charles Williams’ Descent into Hell. Though I had read Williams’ Figure of Beatrice (which is, incidentally, an excellent commentary on Dante’s thought), this was my first exposure to his fiction. His writing style is...
Plato III
It’s unbelievable how pregnant my soul is with thought. Yes, that’s a very Platonic thing to say, but I’ve just spent 15 hours reading Plato. So there. The weekend was unbelievable. I would love to turn the spoken logos into...
Plato II
Tonight’s major revelation: I am not a Platonist. Fundamentally, I think Good is not “beyond” Being. I do not see how this can be coherent. Details to follow. Time for bed.
Plato I
It’s been a long, fascinating evening of Being, Becoming and 30 amazing people. The Republic meta-thon turned in to a Timaeus/Republic metathon. You can read the Capn’s summaries (as well as some of his personal reflections) here. I won’t repeat...
Who was M. Regulus? (And why don’t we care?)
In prep for my classes next semester, I picked up The City of God today and started what will have to a be a very fast read. It’s been a while since I was in Augustine so I was a...