“Mrs. Dalloway” has as one of its primary reference points the life and fate of a psychologically maimed soldier who has returned from the Western Front… The British writer, C.E. Montague (1867–1929) poignantly describes this debasing process in an acclaimed book that appeared in 1922, Disenchantment. To read Montague’s text regarding his own personal experiences [...]
To read “Mrs. Dalloway” is to re-experience the full violence of war inflicted on body and soul and mind and to comprehend the ravages of cruel history… The British writer, C.E. Montague (1867–1929) poignantly describes this debasing process in an acclaimed book that appeared in 1922, Disenchantment. To read Montague’s text regarding his own personal [...]
Man, it is often said, cannot jump over his own shadow. The poet—and by “poet” I mean a writer of imaginative works in verse or prose—leaps over the universe… Sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper et in saecula saeculorum. I We not only read a novel, we enter into its created world. We [...]
Man, it is often said, cannot jump over his own shadow. The poet—and by “poet” I mean a writer of imaginative works in verse or prose—leaps over the universe. Sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper et in saecula saeculorum. I We not only read a novel, we enter into its created world. We [...]
Edmund Burke: A Genius Reconsidered by Russell Kirk (ISI Books, 2009, 2nd edition). Russell Kirk’s book on Edmund Burke, first published in 1967, now revised and handsomely re-issued, testifies not only to the “enduring Burke,” but also to the enduring Kirk. As a British statesman and political philosopher of “inspired wisdom,” Burke (1729-1797) continues to address our time [...]
Can a man of moral sensitivity function in a corrupt and derelict world? This is a major question that Joseph Conrad probes in Victory (1915) and that his main character, Axel Heyst, presumably a Swedish baron, depicts through a demanding process of self-examination and self-discovery. Conrad, to be sure, conveys in this novel the fundamental [...]
In the ancient world the perimeters of tragic vision and experience were clearly established and recognized. One could be quite clear as to the meaning of tragedy and the manifestations of tragic experience and tragic heroism. One could readily comprehend the noble stature and the transcendent realm of tragedy. One could, in short, measure oneself [...]
Lord Jim (1900), Joseph Conrad’s fourth novel, is the story of a ship which collides with “a floating derelict” and will doubtlessly “go down at any moment” during a “silent black squall.” The ship, old and rust-eaten, known as the Patna, is voyaging across the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea. Aboard are eight hundred [...]
Restoring the Meaning of Conservatism: Writings from Modern Age, by George A. Panichas. Wilmington: ISI Books, 2008. This collection of writings by George A. Panichas, all of which appeared in the pages of Modern Age between 1965 and 2007, is a testament to the author’s major contribution to conservatism for over four decades. During this [...]
Edmund Burke: A Genius Reconsidered, by Russell Kirk, with a Foreword by Roger Scruton, Wilmington, Delaware: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 1997. Russell Kirk’s book on Edmund Burke, first published in 1967, now revised and handsomely re-issued, testifies not only to the “enduring Burke,” but also to the enduring Kirk. As a British statesman and political [...]