Storytelling shaped Washington Irving and his life as much as he shaped it. Irving describes how from boyhood he rambled about the countryside and “made myself familiar with all its places famous in history or fable. I knew every spot where a murder or robbery has been committed or a ghost seen. I visited the [...]
Having played the cello for more than thirty years, I am often asked what I would recommend for listeners, especially for those who aren’t necessarily concertgoers. As a cellist, it’s hard to categorize what to listen to. Some pieces are fun to play and to listen to, while others require such technical practice that they [...]
Here is an array of poetry that just might fit your needs as you consider presents for any type of graduate… I have a privileged position. I really do. The graduating class at our small high school has only sixteen seniors this year. Most years we have fewer than thirty. Last year, I chose to [...]
Fiction often clarifies our thinking about moral quandaries, distilling muddy waters into clear ones and dissecting our common human experience. The stories of Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne do just this. In the scope of American literature, Melville and Hawthorne reflect both the reasoning of the Enlightenment and the emotional and spiritual influence of the [...]
Majesty, beauty, ferocity, personality—all these traits typify the settings Willa Cather employs in her writings. More lush and alive than I could have imagined, these fullest of descriptions drew me to her work. When I first read O Pioneers!, I wanted to be there in Hanover, Nebraska. I wanted to work the hard land, to [...]
What was Ernest Hemingway illustrating about the emptiness of the generation in which he lived when he wrote A Farewell to Arms in 1929? If we unthinkingly pursue pleasure and live for nothing except ourselves, what are we left with? In A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway portrays the character of Frederic Henry as a [...]
F. Scott Fitzgerald likened Jay Gatsby’s disillusionment and lack of purpose to that of the American people during the Roaring Twenties, those said to be in pursuit of the American Dream and materialistic success, ever reaching towards that green light, thinking the Dream would and will save them. Using the framework of a subjective narrator, [...]
In Virgil’s Aeneid, the strongest and most admirable characters like Aeneas and Turnus are seen as ideals of patriotism and courage. At times though, their stories are momentarily superseded by interactions with a minor character. These subplots often serve to deepen our understanding of the main characters, but in turn bring a new character into the spotlight. [...]
The cover of a book is like the door of a quaint cottage in the woods. It entices, appeals, and even tempts you to peek in the window before you walk inside the story. These beauties are ones families can give and purchase for a lifetime of use… I do love a beautiful book. The [...]
Francesco Petrarch and Laura de Sade likely never met or spoke, but Petrarch wrote hundreds of sonnets about her and to her. When we think of love sonnets, most of us think of the sappy ooze of lyricists or the sometimes flavorless mush in cheap greeting cards. When they were first written in the fourteenth [...]
John of Salisbury exemplifies a practice that we must champion to change our learning systems—to address the failings directly and to see that one educator can transform the world in which he teaches… John of Salisbury not only depicts the thorough and balanced measure of the education of the ideal scholar, but he also points [...]
Hope permeates God’s creation, our natural world and the world of nature, as concrete images and as an enduring cycle, a complete and unrelenting season in itself… Hope is not a finite thing as Emily Dickinson well knew. A thing of feathers it is, and few definitions could do it justice. Yet we can catch [...]