Open: A Poem
Only what’s Useful can live when a city’s in debt.
literature
Dante: An Author Profile
The canon of literature is like a lofty tower, composed by hands that seem superhuman (for “there were giants in the earth in those days”). Yet one poet surpassed storied Babel; for he did “reach unto heaven, and make a name.”
Dante: An Author Profile Read More »
Boccaccio: An Author Profile
The Renaissance was a pivotal historical period which did not exist, and lasted for one century that began in 1300 and ended in 1650, give or take fifty years in both directions. These, at least, are the impression one might take away from reading a randomly-chosen handful of modern historians.
Boccaccio: An Author Profile Read More »
Tolstoy: An Author Profile
Tolstoy:An Author Profile By Gabriel Blanchard One of the pivotal figures of nineteenth- and twentieth-century literature and radicalism, Tolstoy was (as we must surely expect by now) vocally
Tolstoy: An Author Profile Read More »
Edgar Allan Poe: An Author Profile
There is no greater master of the ghoulish among American authors than the tragic figure of Edgar Allan Poe.
Edgar Allan Poe: An Author Profile Read More »
The Great Conversation: Wisdom—Part IV
From the more obvious moral and intellectual meanings of wisdom, we pass now to something more esoteric.
The Great Conversation: Wisdom—Part IV Read More »
De Pizan: An Author Profile
Victorian novelist Frank Smedley wrote that “All’s fair in love and war”; though we cannot be sure, Renaissance diplomat Christine de Pizan might have thrown her complete works at his head if she had heard that.
De Pizan: An Author Profile Read More »
Chekhov: An Author Profile
Chekhov is celebrated for his eponymous gun, but his writing is more like a knife, sharpened to razor-like simplicity.
Chekhov: An Author Profile Read More »
The Great Conversation: Wisdom—Part III
Scholars the world over will, doubtless, agree that the greatest artistic embodiment of wisdom in the last hundred years (perhaps, in the last five hundred) was Bugs Bunny.
The Great Conversation: Wisdom—Part III Read More »
The Great Conversation: Wisdom—Part II
The Great Conversation:Wisdom—Part II By Gabriel Blanchard Having discussed wisdom as a synonym for knowledge, we may shift to wisdom as a form of moral goodness. As discussed
The Great Conversation: Wisdom—Part II Read More »