Category: Literature
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The Architecture of George Herbert’s Poetry
Introduction George Herbert was born on April 3, 1593, one of ten children. Though his father died when he was only three years old, Herbert’s mother, Magdalen, took responsibility for the education of her children. Moreover, she was decently well-connected, in that she ran a kind of literary and academic salon; that is, she managed…
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Raisin in the Sun: Text and Film
Not long ago, the Torrey Honors College added Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun to our regular curriculum. Any time you drop a twentieth-century text into a Great Books curriculum, you’re taking a gamble: No matter how well the book is regarded, it’s only harvested a measly few decades of reviews, and we prefer…
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The Monastic and Intellectual Ethos of Gerard Manley Hopkins
Gerard Manley Hopkins was born on July 28, 1844 in Stratford, England into what we could consider a middle-class family. Perhaps not surprising given the shape of his poetry, Hopkins had a sensitive nature compared with his father’s demanding nature. As one of nine children, the Hopkins family was large and they were committed High…
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The Gates of Linden Hills
A pilgrim and his poet-guide, side by side, gaze up at the gates and read the weather-beaten inscription: I am the way out of the city of woeI am the way to a prosperous peopleI am the way from eternal sorrow If you know your Dante, you recognize this as the sign over the Gates…
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Iliad: Why the Lattimore Translation
The curriculum of Torrey Honors College starts out with Homer’s Iliad. This means the book has a special place in the life of our program: students we have admitted into the program but haven’t met in person yet mostly read it in advance over the summer, and then show up on campus for our formative…
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Jesse Hamm, Cartoonist’s Cartoonist
Comics artist Jesse Hamm has died. Jesse worked in comic books at all levels: from the self-published days of photocopied zines, up through small presses and indie/alternative publishers, to Marvel & DC. Click through to the obituary at comics.com for a list of his most notable projects, and see what names you recognize (currently, for…
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Four Great African American Books
Here are four books that Torrey Honors officially recommends, and by “officially” I mean that we have built them into the heart of our great books program. So we will be cycling through them every year with students, because they are proven masterpieces that bear careful reading and re-reading. Narrative of the Life of Frederick…
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Redefining Freedom on the Frontier
If Western civilization as we know it were to collapse, I think I will last a week, month, or maybe even a year longer, simply for having read the Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Pa and Ma are simply amazing. I’ve learned much “looking over their shoulders,” as it were, as they…
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Following and Sight: Lewis’ Retelling of “The Bacchae”
“‘Till We Have Faces” is not the only myth Lewis retold. In fact, he loved retelling myths. And while you may have noted the conspicuous presence of Bacchus at the end of Prince Caspian and the amazing feast that follows, you may not have caught some of the other details Lewis wove into his retelling of the Bacchae.…
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A Wrinkle in Time Among the Great Books
Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time was published in 1962. A few years ago, several Torrey professors had a panel discussion about this strange book that had stayed in print for 50 years, finding new audiences all the time. Now that the Ava DuVernay-directed Disney movie version of it is out, we thought we’d post…
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The Ideal in Pride and Prejudice (Common Room)
Check out this conversation on a Jane Austen novel: it’s a chat among two philosophers and an Old Testament prof, so it gets philosophical and theological (Aristotle and Proverbs are both invoked). But it’s also powerfully good reflection on a book that all three participants obviously love, and love talking with students about year after…
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A Few Writing Tips
Some tips on writing that I posted on a friend’s blog back in 2010, but which have gone missing from the internet since then. Lightly revised and updated, they still represent my best advice about the craft of writing. 1. Read for craft. Once you’ve got it in your head that you want to be…