The Scribe’s Scribblings – The Watchful Scribe

15/09/202415/09/2024The Scribe's Scribblings

Founding Myths: The Problem with George Washington

Hello readers, I recently read, in the London Review of Books, a piece entitled ‘In Need of a New Myth’ by Eric Foner, considering the work ‘A Great Disorder’ by Richard Slotkin. Within the text in question, Foner writes, Slotkin strives to argue that the current societal rifts and tensions in America are stimulated not by ‘economic or political’ spurs, but are instead ‘essentially cultural’. Ultimately, Slotkin points accusatorily at the […]

05/02/202405/02/2024The Scribe's Scribblings

Give the Public What they Want? Northrop Frye’s ‘Anatomy of Criticism’

Northrop Frye’s ‘Anatomy of Criticism’ is a momentous collection of essays that I have been grappling with for a while now, as I try to foray further into the folds of literary criticism. Here, I return to just its first few pages, and consider Frye’s point about the danger of the public intellectual and the ‘history of taste’.

14/01/202415/01/2024The Scribe's Scribblings

‘Content, Content, everywhere, But nothing makes you think’: The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere and the Doldrums of Ennui

I must admit, I find myself somewhat uninspired this time of year. In search of a remedy, I turn to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere’, to see if an answer lies within the icy wastes of his South Pole.

07/01/202407/01/2024The Scribe's Scribblings

Wordsworth and the Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

As a fan of the Hunger Games series, I was pleased to find that Suzanne Collins has reached a similar level of quality with ‘The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’. As an English graduate, I was not expecting to find in the book a relationship to the Romantic poets substantial enough to sink my teeth into. Here, I do exactly that— I consider the true significance of the fraught relationship between Coriolanus Snow and Lucy Gray Baird, a journey that will take us via Rousseau, Hobbes and Wordsworth.

11/12/202316/12/2023The Scribe's Scribblings

Overproduction in Movies as Over-Description in Literature

A few scribblings ago, I wrote about a quote by David Hockney stating that ‘Space is where God lives’ in a painting, and applied that philosophy of valuing absence to writing as well. Now, I’d like to turn that same idea to cinema, and wonder whether the huge production values of modern film are actually a detriment to the experience of the viewer.

01/12/202302/12/2023The Scribe's Scribblings

What Does it Mean to be a Karamazov? Dostoevsky and the Human Soul

Dostoevsky’s final work is also the culmination of his artistic endeavour, laying bare the entire scope of the human condition over the course of almost one thousand pages. I have recently finished this masterwork, and now attempt to organise some of my thoughts about its message.

19/11/202302/12/2023The Scribe's Scribblings

Space is Where the Reader Lives: Hockney Between the Lines

“Space is where God lives.” This quote from British artist David Hockney originally applied to the art of painting, but I consider its pertinence to the art of writing, as well. From the sparsity of 20th century minimalism to the richness of the Victorian realists, all authors must consider the importance not just of their words, but of the blank space between them.

13/11/202313/11/2023The Scribe's Scribblings

Fantasies Fleeting in the Murk of Modernity: John Keats’ ‘La Belle Dame sans Merci’

‘La Belle Dame’ is one of Keats’ most enigmatic of poems, detailing the love and loss of a certain ‘Knight at arms’ the nature of which we are never properly told. But beyond the individual pining of a man over his lost ‘Lady in the Meads’, is there a wider truth that Keats is trying to tell, concerning the direction of literature and the fate of his fellow Romantics as a whole?

07/10/202307/10/2023The Scribe's Scribblings

History, the Convenient Cultural Colander

Why is it that so many classic texts are forced upon us in this modern age? And, more importantly, why is it that I won’t stop harping on about them throughout this website? In a rare moment of self-awareness, I try to propose an answer.

01/10/202301/10/2023The Scribe's Scribblings

The Internal Shamanic Dance of Authorship

It has always been a marvel to me how certain authors are capable of putting aside their own selves and portraying the fictional mind of their characters in such vivid and believable detail. Here, I consider whether an explanation for this ability can be found in the shamanic traditions and processes at the root of our human culture.