Tennyson’s “In Memoriam” wrestles with the death of the poet’s closest friend, a death that pushed Tennyson into a bout of depression and an immense wallowing sorrow. But the poem is also an attempt to draw near the transformative power of love—a love that turns the cold and bleak midwinter into the high noon of [...]
How does one account for J.R.R. Tolkien’s seeming ability to live inside of mythology? He read it, he translated it, and he absorbed it. After all these grand things, he rewrote it. Yet, no matter how deeply he delved into the profound and pervasive paganisms of pre-Christian cultures, he never lost his ability to baptize [...]
Courage is found in unexpected places. It is not the sole province of soldiers, nor does it find its only fulfillment in the vanquishing of enemies. Indeed, courage manifests itself most powerfully, not in a single deed of valor, but in a lifetime of endurance. Author’s Introduction: Imagine if Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, and the [...]
If culture can neither thrive nor survive without religion, then a cultural conservative, which Russell Kirk claims is the most imaginative of conservatives, must fight to preserve the religious foundations of his culture. Apropos of the title of this online journal, I think it appropriate to offer a few Russell Kirk—inspired refections as to what [...]
It’s usually only the rationalists and skeptics who find their way into the great surveys of thought. But religion always rises from the ashes. This is thanks in no small part to the imaginative thinkers who revealed Christianity as what it always was, although not always ideally expressed by us: a thing of mystery, romance, [...]
There must be places like Mecosta, hidden away from the world, where people can repair to ponder and consider the permanent things that matter. The course of rivers is often marked by rapids, which reflect excitement, dynamism and raw power. While rapids can be exhilarating, there is also a place for river pools and backwaters, [...]
Alexander Solzhenitsyn illuminates the distinctive character of our age by bringing to bear a religiously grounded moral vision, and he filters this vision through his literary imagination. In the summer of 2003, I had to vacate my college office. With limited file-cabinet space at home, I had to lighten my files drastically. Reading and skimming [...]
“The Cellar of Little Egypt” is among the least appreciated of Russell Kirk’s many ghost stories. It is a tale about how businesses can be corrupted from internal forces, and it offers businessmen a shot of moral imagination. “The Cellar of Little Egypt” is among the least appreciated of Russell Kirk’s many ghost stories. Kirk [...]
You teach your students that the men of the past looked upon their wives as chattel, that they saw them as possessions rather than as people of value and worth. How deeply mistaken you are; how far from the truth. Author’s Introduction: Imagine if Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, and the other great poets of ancient [...]
The spiritual life (including the prayer and rites of religion) and the cultural life (including the artistic and intellectual cultivation of the human person in its countless forms) together ensure that life is more than a blind cycle, a march leading nowhere. They reveal the sense of our pilgrimage and light a path to our [...]
“The world is too much with us,” Wordsworth wrote over 200 years ago, and we certainly understand what he means—but perhaps we do not understand well enough what the recourse might be. During their junior and senior years, students at Wyoming Catholic College move from a solid grounding in ancient thought into the complexities of [...]
C.S. Lewis believed that every nation possesses what he called a “haunting,” a “Logres,” which baptizes it with a unique inner life. What, or where, is America’s Logres? Who is the mythological hero that could guide the American identity the way Arthur guided Britain and inspired generations of English poets and artists? During my undergraduate [...]
Moral imagination is capable of grasping truth and goodness in ways that move us passionately to live in those objective realities. The answers to the errors of modern times need to be given in philosophy and theology, but it is essential that we also experience the truth imaginatively. Beauty is truth, truth beauty — that [...]
Wallace Stevens’ poetry is replete with examples of this effort to understand and articulate the poet as creator of things and meaning. Wallace Stevens wrote in a letter to a friend that “[a]fter all, I like Rhine wine, blue grapes, good cheese… etc., as much as I like supreme fiction,” (Letters, 431) Despite this protest, [...]