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The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
(Notre-Dame de Paris) Victor Hugo 1831 (Love for a young gypsy woman allows an ugly man to rise above the world’s hatred of him, and to show his inner beauty). Beauty and beast stories are thousands of years old. Here is how they generally go: a beautiful maiden somehow must associate with a character of […]
Hippolytus
(Ἱππολυτος) Euripides 429 BC (Disaster ensues when Phaedra falls for her stepson!) The gods will have their play, and we piteous humans must suffer in double jeopardy. First, vice will eventually bring destruction, and yet we are by nature weak and prone to vice. Second, everyone is subject to fate, which is not kinder to […]
The History of Mr. Polly
H. G. Wells 1910 (A man of precisely 37.5 years of age can’t seem to find success or happiness in life… perhaps he has to do something drastic.) “HOLE!” said Mr. Polly, and then for a change, and with greatly increased emphasis: “ ‘Ole!” He paused, and then broke out with one of his private and […]
Arnold’s early poems
Matthew Arnold 1840-1849 (A man of intellect and of spiritual sensitivity contemplates the purpose of life and its struggles.) “Unwelcome shroud of the forgotten dead,/ Oblivion’s dreary fountain, where art thou”. What a dark way to begin one’s poetical efforts, at 18 years of age! And we need read no further to suspect (correctly) that in Matthew […]
Madame Bovary
October 21, 2020 / Leave a comment
Gustave Flaubert 1857 (An unhappily married woman pursues a lifelong quest for the fulfillment of her romantic desires, by any means necessary.) When a novelist is said to rebel against romanticism, anyone with an imaginative, adventurous, passionate, chivalrous, or spiritual streak may be forgiven for wanting to give it a pass. Such a writer sounds […]
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