For readers and thinkers on whom nothing is lost
For readers and thinkers on whom nothing is lost
I recently saw Richard Dawkins on his final public speaking tour. And while I was not able to ask him a question then, one still burns brightly in my mind – concerning memes, and the rise of AI in culture. In lieu of the professor himself, I explore my question here, in hopes of finding a satisfactory answer.
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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’.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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“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.
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‘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?
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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.
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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.
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In these heated days of reactionism and political tribalism, I consider whether there is a more measured path to cooperation and communication that we all must take in order to, simply, calm down. Let us open our minds to all possibilities, instead of locking our doors and closing the blinds to shut out the sunlight.
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