When my father was in World War II, after which he received orders for other assignments that took him away from home for long periods of time, I resided with my maternal grandmother. She had emigrated from Sicily and lived in this country for over 60 years (but refused to learn English, considering it an [...]
Little did Ray Bradbury know of his prescience in 1951, as he criticized society’s obsession with screens and the far-ranging effects of technology. Could television supersede community? Could it control us to the point of isolation and loneliness? Bradbury’s writing gives us much to think about. I am haunted by a lonely man. At sundown [...]
Charles Dickens’ Bleak House is considered by most contemporary critics to be his best novel and, although the postmodernist intellectual community should be navigated with caution, I am inclined to agree. It’s richly complex with an eclectic array of subplots, characters, and themes, and concludes with a bitter-sweet ending that is, unlike many contemporary stories, [...]
I Sometimes I imagine that I am still young, Like an old sleeping dog in his dreams; His legs move, and he pants at the air with his tongue, As he chases an object which seems To embody the world of his hopes and desires, And all that he ever could be— For that vision [...]
During the spring semester of 1957, the University of Chicago invited a number of distinguished speakers to campus to lecture on the meaning and significance of science fiction as a genre. Robert Heinlein, C.M. Kornbluth, Robert Bloch, and Alfred Bester each gave insightful speeches, all of which were collected by Basil Davenport and published in [...]
Over the sultry seas and snowy peaks, I see the budding sun appear, Creeping from out the craggy recesses And pouring through the valley glades. […]
Tomie dePaola understood that life is difficult and yet redemption is possible. What marks him out ultimately as a conservative of the imaginative variety is that his understanding of childhood includes not only the child-protagonist’s sense of self, but also the sense of self of the other children and indeed the adults in the stories. [...]
With twenty stories, accompanied by lush but tenebrous full-page images, Sam Weller’s “Dark Black” is a thing of haunting beauty and voluptuous terrors. Dark Black, by Sam Weller (254 pages, Hat & Beard Press, 2020) Most readers of The Imaginative Conservative know Sam Weller as the extraordinary biographer of Ray Bradbury and as the author [...]
Rousseau’s bastard sons sit off, signing their suicide pacts— man born free yet everywhere in subclauses and stipulations. […]
Part of Dante’s heroism in the “Divine Comedy” is his enduring pursuit of knowledge—he is full of wonder and longing for the truth. These qualities also make him an exemplary student. I have the great blessing of teaching at a tiny school in Wyoming that is truly devoted to liberal education. But for a few [...]
Even the greatest poet cannot simply sit down and compose as if by some regimented habit. The poet will never find poetry, poetry must find him. But in what state will poetry find him? Rather than a step-by-step guide to writing, John Keats discovers an awakening of his creative powers by confronting one of the [...]
Marchette Chute’s “Shakespeare of London” is a delight to read. With a fluid narrative, Chute has produced a fascinating wealth of research in a most readable form. Shakespeare of London, by Marchette Chute (397 pages, E.P. Dutton and Company, 1949) It was a classic when it was first published in 1949, but it remains a [...]
There are none so blind as those who can only see themselves. This is the tragedy of narcissism or what the psychologist Paul Vitz has called selfism. The modern narcissist no longer looks at himself in a pool of water, or even in the mirror; he sees himself in countless selfies, the icons of his [...]
In his collection of essays, Soliloquies in England, George Santayana dedicated some pages to a piece titled “Queen Mab” presumably after the enigmatic faery who is mentioned by Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet.[1] The essay turns into an analysis of British literature, which I take to mean that Santayana saw some form of greater representation [...]