Topics

What Is the Purpose of Poetry?

A CONVERSATION WITH CAITLIN SMITH GILSON

Cicero Bruce

Poetry was once understood to be an anthropological episteme, a way of knowing, if only through a glass darkly.

America’s Deposit of Faith

FOUR LITERARY EVANGELISTS

Will Hoyt

Hawthorne, Thoreau, Melville, and Dickinson together comprise a reliable foundation for realist biases that are fully in line with the Platonic-Augustinian tradition.

Checking Out of the Local Library

NOVELTY OVER GOODNESS

Eric Jackson

Today's librarians apparently believe the only way to get kids to read is to sucker them in with books about television characters, or worse.

An Elegy for Bloom

A STAUNCH DEFENDER OF THE WESTERN CANON

Cicero Bruce

Bloom understands that literary study, in contradistinction to cultural studies, is, and ever will be, an elitist endeavor in the service of aesthetics.

John Milton, Farewell

THE THRILL IS GONE

James Como

I’ve come to realize that Lucy Beckett is right: Milton is no Christian. That is, he gets it wrong and, worse, seems not to know it.

Finding God’s Will in Each Moment

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #55

David D. Jividen

In the many stories of saints who followed their inspirations despite the seeming impossibility of what God was asking them to do, He was the source of life for these souls.

Charles Williams in Letters & Remembrances

LOVE DURING WARTIME

Cicero Bruce

Williams, an influential British theologian and accomplished man of letters, was best known as a principal member of the Inklings.

Why a Self-Indulgent Age Needs a Rough Religion

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #53 & #54

Kenneth Colston

Penance is man’s pitiful part in cooperation with grace, an extreme method necessary to combat the difficulties posed by the passion and the pride of man.

Is There Such a Thing as Catholic Feminism?

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #52

Annesley Anderson

Kristin Lavransdatter’s story shows that following our own desires brings pain but also that God remains with us and draws us into His love and service.

What “Old Books” Have to Teach Us About Being Human in the 21st Century

LITERATURE MATTERS

Michael S. Rose

Although we have more books available to us than at any time in history, fewer and fewer of us read great literature, distracted as we are by screens.

The Wanting Seed. By Anthony Burgess.

WHAT SEEMED ABSURD IN 1962 NOW APPEARS FRIGHTENINGLY QUOTIDIAN

Michael S. Rose

The book seemed absurd when it appeared in 1962. Sixty years later, lipstick-wearing men, sex changes, and overzealous population controllers are common.

Walker Percy, the Episcopal Church & Kierkegaard’s “Apostle”

ON SPEAKING WITH AUTHORITY

Thomas H. Hubert

Kierkegaard’s concept of “the Apostle” influenced Percy’s presentation of character and theological insight in his fiction.

Man’s Natural Aptitude for the Divine

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #51

Edmund B. Miller & Monica Blaney

Willa Cather, in Death Comes for the Archbishop, offers a clear literary portrait of a man who sees the divine in the ordinary.

Nineteen Eighty-Four. By George Orwell.

LITERATURE MATTERS

Michael S. Rose

The citizens of Oceania are not only stripped of human freedom and basic rights but so dehumanized that each individual lacks any semblance of human dignity.

Chesterton on Man, the Religious Animal

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED #50

Carl Sundell

GKC asserts that Jesus was not merely one of many great figures in history; rather, He is at the center of all history: past, present, and future.

It’s Tricki Woo’s World Now

OUR RELATIONSHIPS WITH PETS HAVE GONE WRONG

Eric Jackson

Our relationships with animals have gone wrong. What is tolerable in a few Mrs. Pumphreys is horrifying when it becomes common practice.

Fahrenheit 451. By Ray Bradbury.

LITERATURE MATTERS

Michael S. Rose

If we continue to cede our lives to Hollywood and tech, we will fall prey to consumerism and become a vacuous people concerned with little more than our own amusements.

Never Let Me Go. By Kazuo Ishiguro.

LITERATURE MATTERS

Michael S. Rose

The world Ishiguro describes is not some far-flung future driven by fantastic technology still on the distant horizon; it is recognizable as our own.

Gulliver’s Travels. By Jonathan Swift.

LITERATURE MATTERS

Michael S. Rose

Swift’s struldbrugs inspire consideration of the abiding human passion to prolong life indefinitely. But by losing our mortality, do we also lose our humanity?

“The Body-Snatcher.” By Robert Louis Stevenson.

LITERATURE MATTERS

Michael S. Rose

A certain scientific consequentialism claims that the “end” of medical experimentation (the advancement of science) justifies any “means.”

A Davidic Similitude in Pre-Revolutionary China

REVERT'S ROSTRUM

Casey Chalk

All of us, regardless of our wealth or circumstances, are presented with choices that lead either to our happiness or to our ruin.

Ernest Gaines & the Triumph of the Human Spirit

GUEST COLUMN

Terry Scambray

Artists are prophetic because they see and experience what those at a distance take longer to see.

That Hideous Strength. By C.S. Lewis.

LITERATURE MATTERS

Michael S. Rose

Lewis, as a man, a scholar, and a writer, recognizes the perennial threat of dehumanization, including the misuse of science.

The Constant Gardener. By John le Carré.

LITERATURE MATTERS

Michael S. Rose

Does the international pharmaceutical industry indeed use destitute black Africans as guinea pigs for its clinical trials?

Why We Need Teachers

ON THE SOCIABILITY OF EDUCATION

Mitchell Kalpakgian

People require outside influences to educe their latent talents, to cultivate the manners and morals that produce civility and intelligence.

The Thanatos Syndrome. By Walker Percy.

LITERATURE MATTERS

Michael S. Rose

Is it ever appropriate to change human nature, even if ostensibly for the sake of improving the quality of life for a great many people?

Tolle Lege: The Wisdom of the Great Books

HOW ARE YOU USING YOUR QUARANTINE TIME?

Paul Krause

When reading great literature, especially the great books, we find the virtues of love and forgiveness front and center.

Sympathy for the Priest

REVERT'S ROSTRUM

Casey Chalk

Honest, humble, Christ-like priests serve on the front lines of a multi-millennia war against evil, defiantly waving the banner of Christ.

Things Fall Apart. By Chinua Achebe.

LITERATURE MATTERS

Michael S. Rose

Achebe centers on the clash of civilizations between his native Ibo culture and Christian missionaries who established colonial government in Nigeria.

“Politics and the English Language.” By George Orwell.

LITERATURE MATTERS

Michael S. Rose

Language should reflect reality. If it doesn’t, what possible limits could be placed on misleading, manipulative language?

“Young Goodman Brown.” By Nathaniel Hawthorne.

LITERATURE MATTERS

Michael S. Rose

Brown believes he can dabble with the Devil just this once and then return to Faith spiritually unscathed and continue his earthly pilgrimage to Heaven.

“Markheim.” By Robert Louis Stevenson.

LITERATURE MATTERS

Michael S. Rose

Markheim is confronted at the scene of his crime by a mysterious “visitant” who seems to be giving him advice on how best to escape being caught.

Fragmented Lives of Incomplete Reckoning

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #49

Edmund B. Miller

Man’s efforts are lost if they are not embedded in and do not proceed from the eternal perspective, without which they remain fragmented impulses.

“The Pardoner’s Tale.” By Geoffrey Chaucer.

LITERATURE MATTERS

Michael S. Rose

Chaucer satirizes the hypocrite and the fraudster, especially he who uses his talents -- like preaching -- for his own gain.

Frankenstein. By Mary Shelley.

LITERATURE MATTERS

Michael S. Rose

Shelley’s novel can be read as a validation of the family, marriage, and natural human values in contrast to the overreaching desires of the prideful scientist.

Brave New World. By Aldous Huxley.

LITERATURE MATTERS

Michael S. Rose

Huxley articulates, through an engaging narrative, the underlying philosophies that in any century will dehumanize us and lead us away from God and all that is truly good and beautiful.

Your Guide to the Interior Life

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #48

F. Douglas Kneibert

The Imitation is the finest work of Catholic spirituality. Thomas à Kempis’s voice speaks to us today with the same authority that his monks heard nearly six centuries ago.

Snapshots from a Religious & Literary Pilgrimage

A ROUND OF VISITS ACROSS DECAYING CHRISTENDOM

Kenneth Colston

We travel under the pretense of being receptive, really looking for what we think we already know. Yet we are occasionally genuinely surprised.

My Antonia. By Willa Cather.

LITERATURE MATTERS

Michael S. Rose

Willa Cather understands there’s a bleak side to the Romantic ideal of the American dream, a critical misinterpretation that the dream focuses on you rather than on others.

“The Birth-mark.” By Nathaniel Hawthorne.

LITERATURE MATTERS

Michael S. Rose

Should we try to repair our imperfections using our human ingenuity and genius? In other words, should man aspire to control nature, to play God?

“William Wilson.” By Edgar Allan Poe.

LITERATURE MATTERS

Michael S. Rose

Poe uses the doppelgänger motif as a physical manifestation of Wilson’s conscience and ultimately shows the demise of a man who, blinded by his sins, kills his own conscience.

Dante’s Divine Comedy & the Viganò Testimony

GUEST COLUMN

Joshua Hren

Then as now, opinion makers try to reduce those who testify against Church corruption to resentful reactionaries working out their revenge.

Dracula. By Bram Stoker.

LITERATURE MATTERS

Michael S. Rose

For the original vampire slayers, most of them nominal Anglicans, the efficacy of Catholic sacramentals and the Sacrament quickly becomes apparent.

On the Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus. By Christopher Marlowe.

LITERATURE MATTERS

Michael S. Rose

Once Faustus takes possession of Mephistophilis as his servant, it becomes apparent that the Devil isn’t so much serving as manipulating him.

Clerics & Curates: Who Needs Them?

A KERYGMA FOR THE UNCATECHIZED

Kenneth Colston

The loss of spiritual paternity within contemporary Catholicism is profound.

The Family: The Center of Civilization

ON GENERATION X'S WANDERLUST

Mitchell Kalpakgian

The family preserves and perpetuates those manners, morals, and ideals that are true yesterday, today, and tomorrow.

How Literature Helps Us Grow in Virtue

LOVING & HATING ARIGHT

David Arias

On Pilgrimage with Shakespeare in Protestant England

AMASSING CREDIT IN THE TREASURE HOUSE OF MERIT

Kenneth Colston

On Man's Many Attempts to "Kill Death"

SALVATION IN SCIENCE? TRIUMPH IN TECHNOLOGY?

John Lyon

Man's passion to redress his felt grievances against nature becomes, as the Marquis de Sade showed us, a desire simply to outrage nature.

The Inspiration of the Muses in Daily Life

TO LIVE WELL & ENJOY BEAUTY

Mitchell Kalpakgian

Is There Such a Thing as Catholic Ghost Stories?

AN ABERRATION ? AN OXYMORON ?

Andrew M. Seddon

"Ghost stories are so important," writes Fr. McManus, and "Christians ought to tell the best of ghost stories, because our stories are true."

When No Man Was His Own

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #45

Ian Hunter

The plot of 'The Tempest' is threadbare and fantastical. Shakespeare is less concerned with unfolding a story than with unfolding characters.

Camus & Christ at Arlington National Cemetery

JESUS CONTRA JACQUES

Casey Chalk

The truth of the Incarnation and the Mystical Body of Christ offers both hope for loved ones lost and an exemplar to be emulated in our relating to the dead.

Tyranny of the Perverse Will

EVIL FOR EVIL'S SAKE

Mitchell Kalpakgian

Evil offers a glamour or appeal that tempts a person to exercise his will and ignore all the laws, inhibitions, and consequences that warn of danger or tragedy.

The Tears of a Cleric

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #42

Anne Barbeau Gardiner

Bernanos has much to teach us about the clerical state, particularly that being a priest is not really about power, unless it is the power of self-sacrifice.

The Crypto-Catholic & the Jansenist

SHAKESPEARE, RACINE & CATHOLIC DRAMA

Keith Hopkins

Is there such a thing as "Catholic drama"? William Shakespeare and Jean Racine, compared and contrasted, provide two fascinating case studies.

The Decisions that Shaped History

THE VIRTUE THAT SAVED CIVILIZATION

Mitchell Kalpakgian

Christendom rests upon the heroic souls of men and women with hearts inflamed by love for God and neighbor, who refuse to compromise the truth.

The Catholic Dramatist in a Protestant Land

ALL THE CHURCH'S A STAGE

Kenneth Colston

Macbeth, Lear, Othello, Hamlet, Falstaff, Henry IV — are these immortal portraits of sinful humanity not the very crucible of Shakespeare’s art?

The Virtue of Anger & the Sin of Wrath

LESSONS FROM LITERATURE

Mitchell Kalpakgian

Righteous anger is a fire that inflames the heart to take action, enkindles the conscience to call evil by its true name, and purifies the mind to speak the truth.

"Lust Hard by Hate"

GUEST COLUMN

Anne Barbeau Gardiner

Lust is not beautiful, and no rhetoric can make it seem so. In "Sonnet 116," Shakespeare reminds us of what love really is: "the marriage of true minds."

Reading Francis through Manzoni

ECHOES FROM THE PAGES OF A BOOK

Francis J. Manion

The main themes of "The Betrothed" include the mercy and forgiveness of God and the corruption caused by love of wealth and worldliness in society and the Church.

On Shakespeare's Supposed Catholicity

WHAT HAS HISTORY REVEALED?

Keith Hopkins

What can we say, if anything, about the Bard's religious and political views and how, if at all, are they woven into the plays themselves?

Can Beauty Save the World?

IS IT MORE ACCESSIBLE THAN THE TRUE & THE GOOD?

James G. Hanink

"Every consonance or harmony, every concord, every friendship and union," Maritain writes, "proceeds from the divine beauty…which gathers all things together and calls them to itself."

Why Liberals Love Satire

ACCIDENTS & ESSENCE

James Tillman

Satire plucks a bone from the body of meaning and tradition, and laughs at how ridiculous and useless the bone looks by itself.

The Optimistic Pessimism of G.K. Chesterton

Chene Richard Heady

GKC did believe creation and its Creator are good, but not that the majority of people would always choose rightly or that any merely human structure would endure.

Off the Beaten Path

GUEST COLUMN

Ray Cavanaugh

Kerouac was “not ashamed to wear the crucifix of my Lord... I believe in beatitude and that God so loved the world that he gave his own begotten son to it.”

Time & Certainty: Jane Austen & René Descartes Have Tea

GUEST COLUMN

Joseph T. Stuart

Had they met, the English writer and the French philosopher would have had an interesting exchange of ideas over a nice cup of tea.

Three Victorian Morality Tales

VITAL WORKS RECONSIDERED, #19-21

Matthew Anger

See how three authors — in varying degrees of sympathy with, or hostility toward, Christianity — expressed their conception of the basic struggle between good and evil.

Flannery O'Connor & the Representation of Mystery

ENCOUNTERS WITH GOD

Tracy Jamison

She believes a good fiction writer intuitively adopts a sacramental and liturgical view of creation and is therefore able to portray the spiritual in the ordinary.

Virtues of the Heart

HOME-GROWN HABITS

Mitchell Kalpakgian

The culture of the home raises the conduct of human life and measures it by the highest standards, not the lowest common denominator.

The Christian Philosophy of Samuel Johnson

NEITHER UTOPIAN NOR CYNICAL

Matthew Anger

"No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize and force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability."

Fatherhood & Fertility in The Last of the Mohicans

STRUGGLE FOR THE AMERICAN SOUL

Eric Seddon

James Fenimore Cooper's 'The Last of the Mohicans' is the birthright of every American; it helps to explain who we are to ourselves.

Women's Revenge: To Torture Without Guilt

BATTLE STRATEGIES OF THE SEXES

Alice von Hildebrand

Literature offers many examples highlighting the fact that, in very subtle ways, men can be victimized -- even “tortured” -- by the fair sex.

Transmitting Culture from Generation to Generation

DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY, YOUR TIME, YOUR MIND, OR YOUR BODY

Mitchell Kalpakgian

The modern world's temptations are especially designed to dupe the young and to enslave them by money, indebtedness, entertainment, and sex.

“If You Reject Me on Account of My Religion…”

Thomas Storck

Belloc is a thinker and writer of enormous importance. Whether as an essayist, poet, historian, social critic, or novelist, what he wrote is always of interest.

The Tribunal of Great Writers

Cicero Bruce

A classic attains permanent reputability not because it proves useful to one regnant ideology or another, but because it presents us with a unifying vision of nature and man’s place in it.

Harry Potter: Situation Ethics Candy-Coated for Kids

GUEST COLUMN

Ian Rutherford

What must be closely examined is what the Potter series says about good and evil, and what defines each.

Hospitality

A LOST ART?

Mitchell Kalpakgian

The cultivation of leisure, friendship, good cooking, and delightful storytelling are never learned if everyone is too busy or too lazy to be host or guest.

Chivalry Scorned Is Love Denatured

WHAT MANLINESS IS REALLY ALL ABOUT

Mitchell Kalpakgian

Gentlemanliness flourishes when women hold men to high standards, expecting them to be magnanimous, civilized, and chaste.

The Seven Sad Ages of Modern Man

DISCIPLES OF JAQUES, NOT JESUS

Mitchell Kalpakgian

Our rewriting of the great drama of life, which should proceed like a mysterious tale full of wonder and engagement, is a sad soliloquy.

Hard Heart, Soft Heart, or True Heart?

CULTIVATING THE MORAL SENTIMENTS

Mitchell Kalpakgian

The truly human needs are the very things not absolutely necessary for mere survival: dignity, respect, gratitude, and kindness.

The Gospel of Adjustment, Common Ground & Mediocrity

THE FIRST MODERN MAN: NOT MARX, BUT MONTAIGNE

Mitchell Kalpakgian

Today sensitivity is a virtue, stimuli are irresistible, environment is determinative, and we prefer our chicken frozen and wrapped in plastic.

The Invisible Man

HARVARD DIARY

Robert Coles

Endo's Silence

HARVARD DIARY

Robert Coles

The Bluest Eye

HARVARD DIARY

Robert Coles

The Heart of the Matter

HARVARD DIARY

Robert Coles

The Phenomenon of Robert Hugh Benson

ESCHEWING TRENDY SPECULATION

Janet Grayson

While he lived, from first novel to last, he enjoyed an immense audience, an international audience drawn from all classes, including the royal family.

Ralph Ellison's Angle of Vision

HARVARD DIARY

Robert Coles

Reading as Sacrament

GUEST COLUMN

Will Hoyt

Good books aren’t highways or avenues of mass transport. They’re foot trails, the kind that are traveled single file or not at all.

Orestes Brownson's Christian Radicalism

GRASPING THE UNIVERSAL THROUGH THE PARTICULAR

Christopher Lasch

Brownson argues that Man grasps the universal only through a particular (and inevitably divisive) set of loyalties, as opposed to a watery eclecticism.

The Last Days & the Church

GUEST COLUMN

John J. Reilly

Predictive Scripture differs from the odd example of human prescience in that it tells us the eternal significance of events to which it alludes.

Milan Kundera, Mario Vargas Llosa, John Berger, Nadine Gordimer & the Realist Novel of Commitment

BEYOND NOVELS AS A FORM OF DIVERSION

Ed Block Jr.

Ripeness Is All

GUEST COLUMN

Will Hoyt

The novelist calls characters into being and prods them forth toward a closure which, once reached, turns all that came before radiant with meaning.

J.F. Powers's Comic Art

ECCLESIASTICAL COMEDY AS DEEPENED COMEDY

Richard Stokes

Powers once remarked that he views the human condition as essentially comic, and that writing about priests complicates or deepens the comedy.

Raymond Carver's Death

HARVARD DIARY

Robert Coles

Raymond Carver's Dying Chekhov

HARVARD DIARY

Robert Coles

Tom Wolfe's Novel and Its Reception as a Significant Historical Event

OPPORTUNISM & FEAR AMONG THE INTELLECTUALS

John Lukacs

Evelyn Waugh & ‘The Bright Young Things’

James J. Thompson Jr.

Those who know Waugh on­ly through his novels might be surprised to learn that he entered the Church as early as 1930.

Teaching and Learning, Strutting and Conniving

HARVARD DIARY

Robert Coles

The Secular Mind I: Determinism

HARVARD DIARY

Robert Coles

Why Don't People Read the Spiritual Classics?

GUEST COLUMN

Mitch Finley

Two Tolstoy Stories

Harvard Diary

Robert Coles

Tolstoy's Resurrection

HARVARD DIARY

Robert Coles

Tolstoy's Confession

HARVARD DIARY

Robert Coles

The Soviet Union & Gorki’s God

CHRIST & NEIGHBOR

John C. Cort

A people, such as the Russians, who have produced and who still honor writers like Gorki, Dostoyevsky, and Tolstoy deserve to be regarded with respect.

Thomas Hardy, the Populist

HARVARD DIARY

Robert Coles

When Thomas Hardy’s "Jude the Obscure" was published, Victorian England was hardly ready to accept that novel’s story of a love affair between cousins.

Walker Percy’s Christian Existentialism

HARVARD DIARY

Robert Coles

In every Percy novel there is a complex, reli­giously sensitive yet also modern and scientific sen­sibility at work.

A Japanese Graham Greene

Bruce L. Edwards Jr.

Endo seeks to foster and exemplify such religious concepts as sin, redemption, and resurrection in his characterization and plot.

Silone’s Religious Humanism

HARVARD DIARY

Robert Coles

The world is wolfish, devouring, full of evil, Silone knew — yet, good will and love are also constantly in evidence: God’s gift to us.

A Rare Novel of Worth

James J. Thompson Jr.

Although Murdoch’s characters have banished God, they have yet to rid themselves of sin, guilt, and evil; God is dead but Satan thrives.

Second Coming

HARVARD DIARY

Robert Coles

The opening struggle for a New Jerusalem is naturally beyond anyone’s ken. A novelist, perhaps alone among us, has the capacity to make compelling guesses.

G.K. Chesterton’s St. Francis of Assisi

CHRISTIAN CLASSICS REVISITED

James J. Thompson Jr.

St. Francis was that rarest of revolutionaries: one impelled by love rather than by hatred veneered with the catchwords of brotherhood.

Recovering the Vocabulary of Faith

Carl R. Schmahl

Good fiction uses the events and tensions of everyday life on one level to draw us deeper and deeper into the writer’s perception of truth or real­ity on another.

Contemplating the Foolishness of Our Age

James J. Thompson Jr.

Polit­ical activists of every stripe distrust Percy, for none of them knows exactly where to peg him.

Slouching Toward Suburbia

S.L. Varnado

Cheever is a melioristic figure in contemporary literature. But whether such a tatterdemalion figure can be “baptized” is another matter.

Something More

James J. Thompson Jr.

At times Christian writers have entered that exclusive realm where profound insight into the wisdom of Christianity joins artistic merit to produce fiction of a higher order.

Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited

CHRISTIAN CLASSICS REVISITED

James J. Thompson Jr.

Waugh never attempted to palliate his sins or weasel out of their consequences; he believed in the fallen state of man because he clearly discerned his own bent nature.

Detection & Orthodoxy

ON DOROTHY L. SAYERS

Rosamond Kent Sprague

The work of Dorothy Sayers is very much all of a piece; she was a thinking and believ­ing Anglican throughout her literary career.

Dorothy L. Sayers’s The Whimsical Christian

CHRISTIAN CLASSICS REVISITED

James J. Thompson Jr.

From first to last, The Whimsical Chris­tian provides the unadulterated pleasure of watch­ing the workings of a powerful Christian mind.

False Savior

Harold Fickett

The expense of maintaining our own illusions of godliness must finally crush our spirits or turn us back to God.

Jack Kerouac’s Creedal Moment

GUEST COLUMN

James K. Hanna

Jack Kerouac should be remembered as an artist, specifically a Catholic artist. This is what he asked of us in front of Bill Buckley and the world, a year before his death.