In the forties and fifties, Cleanth Brooks devoted himself to interpreting and popularizing the work of one of America’s greatest but most difficult novelists, his fellow Southerner William Faulkner. When I think of the state of literary criticism in the academy today, I think of a New Yorker cartoon someone has put up in the [...]
When one dares to enter the country of other men’s souls in quest of understanding about the nature of virtue, he enters a dangerous world. When one dares to enter the country of other men’s souls in quest of understanding about the nature of virtue, he enters a dangerous world, especially when that world is [...]
I urge “imaginative conservatives” to use their imagination in selecting what they choose to read. Instead of wasting time with the toxic triteness of New York Times bestsellers, we need to reward the courage that adventurous publishers are showing by buying and reading the new and adventurous works that they are publishing. For almost a [...]
What Willa Cather did in "O, Pioneers!" was create an American Myth, the difficult—slow but steady—story of a pioneer, a Swedish woman, Alexandra, who yearns to love the land and succeeds in doing so. Every once in a while, slow and steady wins the race. One of America’s greatest literary regionalists, Nebraskan Willa Cather (1873-1947), [...]
Who says there are gods? Russell Amos Kirk does in “The Last God’s Dream,” a long, complicated tale that challenges us to reflect once again on both God’s agency and mercy. All of Russell Kirk’s stories have been grossly neglected over the years, so it would perhaps be redundant to describe “The Last God’s Dream” [...]
Jesus did not preach an escape from earth to an immaterial Heaven. Rather, he preached the coming of God’s kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven,” a redemption of God’s good creation. We hope in the completion of God’s grand rescue project, which is taking shape as we speak and which will reach fulfillment [...]
Two themes (among many) lurk behind almost every corner in Ray Bradbury's fictional soul: dystopian conformity and autumnal imagination. An American original, Ray Bradbury will almost certainly enjoy a high reputation for centuries to come. The future will remember him for hundreds of short stories and at least four profound novels of gothic Americana: Fahrenheit [...]
The 22nd of July is Mary Magdalene’s day, and continuing my sequence of sonnets written in response to the church year I post this for her. As usual you can hear the poem by clicking on its title or on the ‘play’ button. This sonnet is drawn from my collection Sounding the Seasons, published by Canterbury Press [...]
This city, this Promised Land, this Banquet, is what all those who love God long for, and in order to see it, we must always be ready, like the virgins with the lamps, for God to break in and re-adjust our imaginative visions, our unexamined assumptions, our paradigms, to align with who He is, the [...]
Oh, dear sons of the twenty-first century, do not balk at those who call you to live up to your father’s reputation. Do not define yourself against him, as so many of your age have done. If you do, you will dash yourselves on the rocks and miss out on your greater calling. Author’s Introduction: [...]
What was it that this non-expert, the funny fat man, had to say? Why did his works become for many a sort of bible? How was it that an artist-turned-journalist was accepted as the idea man as well as the entertainer of people? The people who now know G.K. Chesterton most commonly know that physically [...]
The idea that eternity will be a culture and a civilization, not a disembodied never-never land, is perhaps the most powerful takeaway from Fr. William J. Slattery's "Enchanted by Eternity," and I assume it will be news to many people. It opens up a vast field of wonder and possibility. Enchanted by Eternity: Recapturing the [...]
Tomasi di Lampedusa’s “The Leopard” provides invaluable insight into 19th-century Italian history while creating a compelling story, allowing readers to relive an unfamiliar age of revolution and a fading nobility. Time under quarantine has been an excuse to revisit a personal favorite book and to explore its history, controversy, and literary value. I can think [...]
Pope St. John Paul II and Russell Kirk defended freedom within the limits of truth and its authentic or right use. They knew it was crucial to distinguish license and liberty. But they have different approaches to truth. As we discussed the work of Russell Kirk, written in 1954, revised in 1962 and 1988, I [...]