Dostoevsky’s Dangerous Gambit
Dostoevsky is too Christian for a secular age and too secular for Christendom.
Democracy and Dr. Kissinger
Posted on December 4, 2023
Image: Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger on Air Force One in 1974; Everett Collection HIstorical/Alamy.
Kissinger the scholar studied power. Kissinger the statesman acquired power, guarded it, and wielded it.
Unfinished Business
Posted on November 29, 2023
Image: Fleeing Paris in 1940; © LAPI/Roger Viollet.
An unfinished fiction is a memento mori.
The Anti-Poetry of John Milton
Posted on November 21, 2023
Image: Satan Watching the Caresses of Adam and Eve (detail), 1808, by William Blake (1757–1827); public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William_Blake_-_Satan_Watching_the_Caresses_of_Adam_and_Eve_-_WGA02226.jpg.
There is nothing winsome about this Jesus, but winsomeness is not, Milton believes, what we need from him.
You Can’t Fact Check Propaganda
Could it be otherwise? Probably not, at least at the moment.
Afterword to an Introduction
Posted on November 9, 2023
Image: THR illustration; Amelia Rosselli in the 1960s; background art by Lisa Buchanan.
The special challenge of presenting a poet whose work is neither new nor widely known.