T. S. Eliot 14
Dana Gioia’s Bright Twilight
Out on the wrinkled sea, the high notes come shimmering over the cold waves, and 72-year-old Dana Gioia says, “Meet me at the Lighthouse.”
Joining the Dance: Setting Aside Screens to Build the City
The young pagans band around the picnic table and scrawl inky runes into their hands with cheap pens. Around them, the world falls, and wonders if they will learn to…
Salvaging: Boat Trailers, T.S. Eliot, and Resurrection
I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river Is a strong brown god— . . . Unhonoured, unpropitiated By worshippers of the machine, but waiting,…
Reading the Constitution in the Light of Russell Kirk
Berwyn, PA. Gerald Russello reflects on Russell Kirk's theory of the unwritten Constitutionone in a new essay published on the Liberty Fund's Liberty Forum. His essay is part of a…
The Place of Religion and Literature
Devon, PA. My talk from the annual Ciceronian Society Conference, held in joy and good company last weekend at the University of Virginia, has now been published on the Anamnesis website. The…
The Death of the Family
Devon, PA. In my previous essay, a sort of preface, I mentioned a two-part essay I published in the wake of the 2008 presidential election, called "Sarah Palin, Spectacular Politics, and the…
Stoic Sex in Evanston
Tucson, AZ. One of the pleasing genres of contemporary journalism is the coverage of bizarre happenings in academe that shock the sensibility of the middle classes. You know the types:…
What Is Wrong with Contemporary Intellectuals?
"Intellectual" and "Disinterested," as we use them, are new words. I "prefer" old words: Scholar, Monk, Contemplative, Lover of Wisdom.
The Population Bomb
Not with a bang, but a whimper . . .
Foreign Policy and the Gift of the World
Devon, PA. In February 2007, as the Iraq war crept to the end of its fourth year, I published this short essay, proposing a few notions on foreign policy that…
Conservatism as Literary Movement
Devon, PA. Last month, I alerted FPR readers to the appearance of the first part of my essay, "Art and Beauty against the Politicized Aesthetic," in First Principles. The primary…
Novel, Myth, Reality: An Anatomy of Make-Believe
For Maureen Drdak, If she will accept it as part of our good conversation. Devon, PA. I shall be returning to the following subject frequently in the next few weeks: the need…
The Decline of Middle America and the Problem of Meritocracy
I delivered a version of the following text as a lecture at Augustana College last Tuesday, April 28 (all errors of fact and interpretation should be ascribed to my…
What the Fork; Or, Why You Should Not Eat the Person Sitting Next to You
Alexandria, VA . The causes of the current economic collapse have been widely discussed and minutely explored. However, to date I do not believe that I have yet seen…
