As we bask in the glory of the Easter Octave, celebrating the Resurrection, it is a good time to consider how themes of resurrection have been a recurrent feature of literature throughout the ages. A good place to start is to see the Resurrection in terms of eucatastrophe, a word which Tolkien invented to indicate [...]
Time taken does not perish because it is made of imperishable things, such as truth itself. It exists in eternity liberated from the shadow of transient things. Time is a great mystery. It is... but we don’t really know what it is. We know that we are subject to it and that it is not [...]
Stepping back out of the snapshot of 1953, I am struck by a world which bears many of the hallmarks of our own deplorable epoch. The most striking difference, and it is a grim and sobering one, is that our own techno-dominated peers seem much more comfortable with their enslavement to Big Brother than were [...]
Many so-called conservatives are buying into the progressive presumption that things are progressing inexorably in one direction, which the progressives think is a liberated future and which conservatives think is a libertine hell. Such conservatives agree with the progressive perspective; they just don’t like it! It is odd that those who consider themselves “progressives” assign [...]
In our own days, characterized by a narcissistic daze, the lessons that Romeo and Juliet teaches about “violent delights” and their “violent ends” are as relevant as ever. A few days ago, I gave a talk on Romeo and Juliet to a high school freshman class, after which I endeavoured to answer the many great [...]
In the light or shadow of the current conflict in the Ukraine, it would seem appropriate to remind ourselves of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s relationship with Vladimir Putin. This will enable a deeper understanding of the background to the conflict, especially if the following is read in conjunction with Solzhenitsyn’s prophetic understanding of the underlying reasons for [...]
There is a real sense of the elven magic and Arthurian romance in John William Waterhouse’s painting, "The Lady of Shallot," which unites it aesthetically with Tennyson’s poem. It is other-worldly, suggestive of other-worlds beyond the merely mundane. It takes us out of ourselves to a realm beyond the confines of the ego. Such is [...]
The English Romantic poets sought truth beyond the empirical and scientistic limits to which it had been confined by eighteenth-century rationalism. Insisting that truth could be found in transcendence, and especially in the transfiguring kiss of Beauty, these poets waxed lyrical in their praise of Creation, seeing it as a hymn of praise to the [...]
It is not fair or accurate to describe the struggle between the two warring parties in Ukraine as religious, except in the decidedly irreligious sense of its being a sectarian struggle in which religious affiliation is little more than a badge worn in the service of tribalism. A couple of nights ago, I found myself [...]
Though Solzhenitsyn feared the consequences of an independent Ukraine, he respected the right of the Ukrainian people to secede, a right which they duly exercised as the former Soviet Union unraveled. Reiterating his subsidiarist principles he insisted once again that “only the local population can decide the fate of their locality, of their region.” Alexander [...]
"The Picture of Dorian Gray" shows us the true face of Pride. It shows us that those who choose a life of Pride are condemning themselves to a self-delusional and self-destructive existence. Hoodwinked by the nihilistic falsehood of relativism, they spend their increasingly meaningless days in a Dorian daze. Literature can throw a penetrating light [...]
If J.R.R. Tolkien were still in his grave, it is likely that he would be turning in it. The cause of his consternation would be the gollumizing of Middle-earth by the forthcoming TV series bearing the name of The Lord of the Rings. This new “adaptation”, produced by one of the Tech Tyrants which are [...]
When works of literature go to the movies, it’s usually an unpleasant sight. There are noble exceptions, however, which are worthy of praise. The film adaptions of two literary classics come to mind. First is the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, starring Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy and Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennet. [...]
Relishing a challenge, the following is a snapshot in a thousand words of the full panorama of two thousand years of English history. I am currently writing a series for Crisis Magazine in which I put the great works of literature in the proverbial nutshell. The idea of the series is to distill and encapsulate [...]