Slouching Toward Vegas

by Richard T. Whittington

In South and West, her newly published notes from 1970, Didion checks into a series of motels on her trek across the Gulf South, a region sunk in history.  Continue Reading »

9 May 2017 0

Waugh’s Helena, Father General, and the Reality of Revelation

by George Weigel

Evelyn Waugh’s slim and critically unappreciated novel, Helena, is, at bottom, an act of faith in the reality of revelation. Continue Reading »

29 Mar 2017 0

Brothers and Other Perils

by Betty Smartt Carter

Learning lessons from Molly Hughes’s rollicking chronicles of Victorian family life. Continue Reading »

17 Jan 2017 0

The Troubling Legacy of Shūsaku Endō’s Silence

by Roy Peachey

Shūsaku Endō’s Silence is now widely regarded as a modern classic. The initial reaction of Japanese Catholics, however, was largely hostile. Continue Reading »

27 Dec 2016 0

On Reading Old Books

by Rachelle Peterson

Reading classics is humbling. Myopia becomes impossible. Millennia of human history unfold with the pages of books—and with an authenticity that no textbook or documentary can mimic. Continue Reading »

19 Sep 2016 0

The Half-Empty Auditorium

by James Matthew Wilson

The following essay is adapted from Chapter 3 of “The Fortunes of Poetry in an Age of Unmaking.” Those who love literature, or at any rate have a vested interest in making sure great works of literature are taught at universities and that radical politics are not, could only find the conquest . . . . Continue Reading »

16 Dec 2015 0

Keep It Shakespeare, Stupid

by Alexi Sargeant

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is launching a three-year project to commission 36 pairs of playwrights and dramaturges to translate the works of Shakespeare into English. Yes, English. John McWhorter in the Wall Street Journal expresses support for this plan, saying, “Much of Shakespeare goes . . . . Continue Reading »

14 Oct 2015 0

Close Reading in the Classroom

by Andrew Ladd

Too often, the teaching of English literature lacks the developmental sense that other disciplines have. As you go from a basic English course to an advanced one, it isn’t clear how one step builds on the other. Each math course, for instance, presumes knowledge developed in previous courses, and other humanities fields have a graduated curriculum.

28 Sep 2015 0

Flannery O'Connor: Stamped but not Cancelled

by Ralph C. Wood

On June 5, 2015, the U.S. Postal Service published a commemorative stamp in honor of Flannery O’Connor. O’Connor is an anomalous candidate for such acclaim, since her work stands at a critical distance from the American project, both in its older and more recent iterations. Precisely in her . . . . Continue Reading »

16 Jun 2015 0

Ulysses and the God of Irony

by Kelsey Burritt

Allow me to summarize the plot of a 644-page Modernist masterpiece, James Joyce’s Ulysses: Two guys meet one day. The day in question is June 16, 1904 (Happy 111st anniversary!). The guys in question are Stephen Dedalus, twenty-two, poet; and Leopold Bloom, thirty-eight, ad canvasser. Stephen . . . . Continue Reading »

16 Jun 2015 0