I remember being vaguely amused by Doctor Faustus when I was in college, but the language was difficult for a 20 year old. Reading about the antics of Faust and Mephistopheles as I plowed through the verbiage was rather like trying earnestly to understand a joke.  I worked at understanding it and had it explained  Read the Rest…

I’ve been reading The Norton Anthology of English Literature Volume 1 in stealth because I wasn’t sure I wanted to declare it A Project. But I have gotten passed the metaphysical poets and am rounding the 18th century so I think it’s a done, if not finished, deal. I was completely sucked in by Chaucer.  Read the Rest…

As our Canterbury pilgrims move along the road the friar and the summoner get into a pissing match with each other by telling a story about the other’s profession. Since there seem to be friars and summoners all over the place, I’ll start with a few guidelines: The Pissing Friar and the Pissing Summoner are  Read the Rest…

As I snickered my way through some of The Canterbury Tales I got to wondering why on earth Chaucer isn’t favored reading in every high school English class and college fraternity in the entire world. Of course, I know it’s because one has to dig hard so hard to get through the language, but the  Read the Rest…

I’d heard about this woman: sexually voracious, loud mouth, obscene, headstrong, selfish, power-hungry, and immoral. I was eager to meet her. News flash: she is none of those things in my estimation. Here, word for word, is how we might expect to describe a man similar in nature to the wife of Bath: man of  Read the Rest…

I’m back at The Sandpiper. When I was here with Nina in April, I wished I had brought my winter clothes. This week I could use a sundress and some shorts. There are ways around that when one is at a quiet resort mid-week on the off season. I’ll get to them later. For now  Read the Rest…

During my childhood, at regular intervals, somewhere in our house a book slammed shut and the call rang out, “Finished the book!” My father, my brother and I all participated in this ritual. My mother mostly read the Bible and of course, there’s never an end to that. This morning I quietly closed the 2533  Read the Rest…

It’s a good idea to know the definition of dapple (cloudy and rounded spots or patches of a color or shade different from their background) before you read Gerard Manley Hopkins because it’s a word he uses a lot and nobody else does. Not ever. I have a dappled relationship with him. Music, painting, and  Read the Rest…

Rudyard Kipling. The few of his poems featured in the Norton reminded me that I had an old copy (1899) of Plain Tales from the Hill that has a swastika embossed on the front. In India in 1899, the swastika was a revered symbol, however between the swastika on the book and what we today  Read the Rest…

“A deep sense of religion (is) compatible with the entire absence of theology.” So is Thomas Henry Huxley quoted in the Norton Anthology of English Literature Vol 2, and all over the Internet but no one seems to have any source other than “a letter.” A great statement like that is, in my opinion, free  Read the Rest…