An Updated Look at Keats's Odes

You never quite know what you’re going to get yourself into these days with literary criticism.  

I should say up front that I belong to an old school of literature. I was not an English major, but I sat with them through two semesters of English Lit in college, while 99.999 percent of the other students took the general, mainly American, required literature courses. My two-volume Norton Anthology of English Literature, now more than half a century old, sits on a bookshelf, complete with my underlines and marginal scribblings still there. I still use it my Norton as a reference, and I may ask to have it buried with me when the time comes. I even have my textbook from high school senior English, and I still use it as a reference.

 

My mid-term exam in second semester English lit was three pages of lines and phrases from the poetry of John Keats, William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Percy Shelly and George Lord Byron – and I had to identify the author of each line or fragment. Some of the English majors flunked the exam. No one got an A. I was downright thrilled to get a B-. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

“The Signal and Selected Stories” by Vsevolod Garshin

Perhaps it was the fact that he died young. Or perhaps it was because he never published any famous novels, or even unfamous ones. But Vsevolod Garshin (1855-1888) may be the most famous Russian writer I never heard of. 

Garshin’s entire literary output consists of art exhibition reviews published in newspapers and 20 short stories published in one volume. The stories may be few in number, but they are wonderful works of experience, empathy, and observation. They’ve been published together as The Signal and Selected Stories.

 

I started reading Garshin’s stories without knowing anything about the author except that he died at 33. By the time I reached the second story, entitled “Four Days” and one of the author’s best known works, I knew he’d been a military veteran and had fought in a war. He had indeed; it was the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, which involved several Eastern European countries and Russia against the Ottoman Empire. (The European countries were fighting against Ottoman oppression; Russia was hoping to regain territory it had lost in the Crimean War (1853-1856). 

 

“Four Days” may be the short Russian answer from the Russo-Turkish War to Erick Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front about World War I. A Russian soldier lies seriously wounded, forgotten by his comrades. And he lies next to a dead Turkish soldier, whose supplies keep the Russian alive and whose presence keeps the Russian from losing his mind. And what transpires is an understanding that two young men, trying to do their duty, were caught up in a terrible conflict.

 

Vsevolod Garshin

“The title story, “The Signal,” concerns the life of railroad signalmen. These were the men who, living near the rail lines, signaled open or busy lines to train engineers. One young signalman becomes disenchanted and angry with his treatment by the supervisor, and he decides to do something drastic in retaliation.

 

Other stories concern young men waiting to be called up for military service; love stories; stories of frustrated love, where a young man to get the attention of a nurse he’s infatuated with becomes deathly ill; and other things. Several of the stories remind me of the short stories of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who often wrote about military themes. Written 70 and 80 years after Garshin, Solzhenitsyn’s stories often have the same sense of fate and surprise twists at the end.

 

Garshin died of injuries from an attempted suicide; he threw himself down a flight of stone stairs. He had previously had mental problems. And yet his stories are clearheaded, straightforward narratives. He knew war, and he knew people, and it’s unfortunate that he died so young and with a small if insightful body of work.

The table story

After Galatians 2:11-14 

We come together at the table,

the common table, shared

by all, the table where

diversity becomes unity,

sharing bread and wine

together in oneness.

 

And yet, even then.

 

They arrive to join

the meal, and they see

the inherent contradiction,

the uncleanness, of their

unity, because tradition

and old religious laws

refute this sharing,

deny this togetherness,

reject this unity.

 

Those who know better,

know the old has been

set aside, separate 

themselves as of old,

fearful of the condemnation

of men, fearful of losing

their reputation and

position. Even though

they know they are free,

they shackle themselves,

once again.

 

Photograph by Mona Masoumi via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Saturday Good Reads - March 11, 2023

The movie “Jesus Revolution” was expected to gross about $5 million. At last report, it had exceeded $30 million, a bit more than five of the movies nominated for best picture at the Oscars – combined. Alexander Larman at The Spectator says the that it may well indicate that Christian movies have found their niche. 

It’s been hard to look anywhere on social media or the news media and not see a story about artificial intelligence (AI), and how Microsoft has integrated into ChapGPT. Some of the best commentary I’ve seen, interestingly enough, is from people of faith. Clint Archer at The Cripplegate says AI is here, and we’re seeing its precocious adolescence. Jeremy Pierre at The Gospel Coalition asks whether students should use AI for writing assignments.

 

I’m old enough to remember what happened when Daniel Ellsberg leaked what came to be called the Pentagon Papers; in fact, I was in journalism school. And there have been a number of spectacular disclosures since then – Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, and Wikileaks, to mention some fairly recent ones. Historically, the news media applauded and supported such disclosures. Then came two voluntary disclosures: Elon Musk and the Twitter files, and Tucker Carlson and the Jan. 6 videotapes. Both of those ran afoul of the prevailing media narrative (and there is a prevailing media narrative). Freddy Gray at The Spectator says that Tucker Carlson’s biggest crime was doing good journalism.

 

More Good Reads

 

British Stuff

 

St. Clement Danes – A Historic Strand Landmark – A London Inheritance.

 

Poetry

 

Things Worth Remembering: W. H. Auden’s Poignant Embrace – Douglas Murray at The Free Press.

 

Crucifixion – Anna Akhmatova at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin).

 

Lean on Him – Warren Bonham at Society of Classical Poets.

 

Life and Culture

 

Thomas Jefferson and the Smoothening of the American Mind – Douglas Murray at The Spectator.

 

Unpopular, Polarizing, and Ineffective: Affirmative action’s days may finally be numbered – Jason Riley at CityJournal. 

 

Cornmeal and Butter: On the Significance of Temperature – Ethan Mannon at Front Porch Republic.

 

American Stuff

 

A Different Fight: The Insurance Writings of General Gustavus Woodson Smith – Karl Miller at Emerging Civil War.

 

The Women’s Tea Parties – Bert Dunkerly at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Blurred Lines: When a Novel’s Author Is Also Its Narrator – William Landay at CrimeReads. 

 

In defense of narrative history: Stories make scholarship human – Charlotte Gauthier at The Critic.

 

Every Friday Nite is Kiddies Nite – a previously unpublished short story by Tennessee Williams at Conjunctions. 

 

Faith

 

Love Is – Vanessa Le at Gentle Reformation.

 

News Media

 

Elon Musk Outlines His Vision for Twitter at Morgan Stanley Tech Conference – Andrew Hutchinson at Social Media Today. 

 

May It Be (Enya / Lord of the Rings) – Voces8

 Painting: In the Library, oil on canvas  by Johann Hamza (1850-1927).

Even the best among us

After Galatians 2:11-14 

An age-old story,

this surrender to temptation,

and yet not the most obvious

sin, but the one to which 

even the best among us

are susceptible, the sin

of hypocrisy. Because

we need, and often crave,

the approval of others,

their acceptance, or

because of what we

consider to our place

or position to be, we

deny the truth. We want

that acceptance, or we

fear the consequences

of confessing and 

upholding what we know

is true, even when we

have the experience

of recognition of our sins,

we stumble into the same

again. And each of us

hears our own rooster

crow three times.

 

Photograph by Jehyun Sung via Unsplash. Used with permission.

"Murder in the Church" by Roy Lewis

It seems that Northumberland planning officer Arnold Langdon just can’t stay out of trouble. 

He agrees to undertake some research for a university professor, determining if a Cluniac monastery might have existed in the area. His supervisor (bearing only the name of “Senior Planning Officer”) assigns him a hornet’s nest of a project – local farmers upset that a group of Gypsies has been allowed to camp on the commons. Another planning petition involves a group seeking to use a local church, and the group may or may not have a Satanic orientation. And while checking the church, Arnold discovers the body of an older Gypsy man, who appears to have been died in a ritualistic stabbing. 

 

Violence seems to be dogging Arnold everywhere he turns; it will soon follow him to his own home and result in the discovery of yet another body. Having a hobby like studying medieval architecture and building materials can be a dangerous thing.

 

Roy Lewis

Murder in the Church is the fifth Arnold Landon mystery by British writer Roy Lewis, and a fine, intriguing mystery it is. A planning official is not your typical mystery detective, but his mild, unassuming manner masks a mystery-solving mind. Landon mut have been a favorite character for the author, as he’s written some 22 novels featuring him.

 

Lewis is the author of some 60 other mysteries, novels, and short story collections. His Inspector Crow series includes A Lover Too Many, Murder in the Mine, The Woods Murder, Error of Judgment, and Murder for Money, among others. The Eric Ward series, of which The Sedleigh Hall Murder is the first (and originally published as A Certain Blindness in 1981), includes 17 novels. Lewis lives in northern England.  

 

Related:

 

 

Murder in the Barn by Roy Lewis.

 

Murder in the Manor by Roy Lewis.

 

Murder in the Farmhouse by Roy Lewis.

 

Murder in the Stableyard by Roy Lewis.

 

Error in Judgment by Roy Lewis.

When Research for Your Historical Novel Changes Your Understanding

For more than a year, I’ve been researching / writing/ researching / writing a historical novel set during the American Civil War. It’s loosely based on the experiences of my great-grandfather, but the more I write and research, the looser it becomes. 

I thought I knew the basic story of the war. What I soon learned is that, for a very long time, historians focused on the war in the East, which specifically meant Virginia, Maryland, Georgia, and Gettysburg in Pennsylvania. But in the last two of three decades, the war in the West – in particular, Tennessee and Mississippi – has come to be recognized as almost as significant as that in the East.

 

It was certainly significant for both sides of my family. My father’s family experienced the Battle of Shiloh and Grierson’s Raid (the basis for the 1959 movie The Horse Soldiers, starring John Wayne). My mother’s family experienced the Union occupation of New Orleans (starting in 1862), both the Creole French and German immigrant sides of the family. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at the American Christian Fiction Writers blog.

Photograph: John Clem, who "enlisted" in the Union army at age 9 in 1861 and became a soldier at age 12.