Month: February 2005
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The Pursuit of Happiness
John Mark Reynolds, 2005. Virgil forces the reader to visit the place of the dead. Homer did the same. Dante begins his trip that ends in Paradise with a journey through Hell. Plato begins and ends the Republic with visions of a downward journey, the last to the place of the dead. Why do so…
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Heaven In Her Eye
John Mark Reynolds, 2005. Milton famously describes Eve as having “heaven in her eye.” As a young adult, I loved that line, because it seemed such a perfect description of the beloved when I found her. She would have heaven in her eye. Her gaze would promise paradise in the raptures of two folk in love.…
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O Death
John Mark Reynolds, 2005. I never liked going to funerals. In my childhood, they were sad affairs and fairly formal. Later they became full of false cheerfulness and endless speeches about the departed. Secular funerals were the worst of all. Such events are full of courage, but not much else. Death is a bad thing…
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Old like Simeon
John Mark Reynolds, 2005. Sometimes, some days, I feel very old. It happens when a student talks about classic films from the nineties or when my freshman can only dimly recall the Clinton administration. It makes me a bit sad. It seems like just a few days ago that I was teaching an experimental on-line…