I argue in this paper that the ability of art to express a holistic experience of life challenges the abstractness and formulaic tendencies of some philosophical ethics. The paper examines the presentation of death in three poet-playwrights--Sophocles's "Oedipus Rex," Shakespeare's "Hamlet," and John Donne's "Meditation XVII." Sophocles's…

Writing to her husband's first illustrator, Graham Robertson, in 1931, Elspeth Grahame thanked him for the gift of his recently published memoirs. She called them "entrancing" and goes on to note: "The touch is so light yet so sure that whatever the subject the reading of it would be full of pleasure to any lover of English…

For academics committed to the idea of an all-round aesthetic education, one of the great successes of the last thirty years has been the tremendous expansion of creative writing classes. Despite the dramatic expansion of creative writing as an academic discipline, the methods, ideals, and values of creative writing workshops have very often been…

In this article I explore how myth and song intersect in J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy--"The Fellowship of the Ring," "The Two Towers," and "The Return of the King"--and Donald Swann's song cycle setting of Tolkien texts, "The Road Goes Ever On." In so doing I am drawn back to Tolkien's "The Hobbit," the novel from which "The…

The sublime is a theory of aesthetics that reached its highest popularity in British literature during the Romantic period (c. 1785-1832). This article (1) explicates philosophers' different meanings of the sublime; (2) show how the sublime is relevant to education; and (3) show how the sublime "works" in literature by analyzing William Blake's…

Discusses how, again and again, actors, actor-managers, and directors have been trying to interpret Shakespeare, to show us what his plays should really look like, should really sound like, even at times to give us what Shakespeare really should have written--i.e., to set Shakespeare free. (RM)

Historicism critiques cultural history and cultural materialism as a methodology for literary analysis. Questions the finality of interpretation, how original values change, and whether dramatic history implies actual history. Using Shakespearean plays, analyzes the power and politics of a play in relation to its audience; posits that cultural…

The author developed a course called "Wagnerian Music Drama and English Literature." Its intent was, by offering a class that would juxtapose the music dramas of Richard Wagner with English literature, to develop insights into the subjects that might not otherwise emerge from considering either the music or literature alone. (Author/RK)

Discusses teaching English literature in relation to E. D. Hirsch's book, "Cultural Literacy". Isolates Hirsch's literary references and discusses how they can be used to teach undergraduates. Maintains that schools of education and English departments can contribute to cultural literacy because they educate prospective teachers. (KM)

More than sixty years ago, John Dewey and Louise Rosenblatt produced theoretical work that challenged prevailing assumptions concerning art and aesthetic experience. Today, their work continues to be relevant and particularly useful for exploring the troubled interface between literary scholarship and classroom practice. Rereading Dewey and…