About Timothy H. Wilson

Timothy H. Wilson is Professor of English Literature at the University of Ottawa, specializing in Early Modern Literature and Literary Theory. His recent research has focused on the “quarrel of philosophy and poetry” within the Western Tradition, bearing fruit in a number of papers on the manifestation of this quarrel in the political thinking of Plato, Shakespeare, and Nietzsche. Dr. Wilson is also the Associate Vice-President of Research Programs at the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and has held a number of executive positions within the Treasury Board Secretariat and the Public Service Commission of Canada.

“Robinson Crusoe” and Modernity

By |2023-02-01T16:56:50-06:00February 1st, 2023|Categories: Books, Imagination, Literature, Modernity, Religion, Timeless Essays|

“Robinson Crusoe” contains profound messages for us today. It is an enactment of the modern, secular individual making his way alone in the world and overcoming challenges through the power of his own unaided reason. At the same time, in pointing to a religious interpretation of existence that is never quite fully experienced, it highlights [...]

The Ancient Liberty of Milton’s Epic Verse

By |2021-03-30T12:21:17-05:00March 30th, 2021|Categories: Christianity, Great Books, John Milton, Liberty, Poetry|

John Milton’s “ancient liberty” is not the liberalism of Thomas Hobbes or John Locke, where the telos governing human liberty is dispensed with. Rather, “Paradise Lost” cultivates Christian virtues by reclaiming an ancient liberty within the traditional epic verse form and by returning to that which is first or most ancient: Divine Will. The opening [...]

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