Literature

Literary Theory Was Corrupted, But There Are Signs of Hope 6
- Education, Featured, Literature
- August 19, 2024
I didn’t have a name for it. I just knew I hated it. That’s how I felt when I first began studying literature at a public university and encountered a morass of muddled ideas about literature, language, and truth that all but spoiled the beauty and art of great books, which was what had caused
READ MORE
C.S. Lewis on the True, the Good, and the Beautiful 2
- Featured, Literature, MomThink
- August 15, 2024
Are truth, goodness, and beauty related? C.S. Lewis and many others of the greatest minds in the Western tradition thought so. For thousands of years, philosophers and theologians have argued that these “three transcendentals” are fundamentally connected. To understand one, you must understand all three. Truth, goodness, and beauty are called the “three transcendentals” because
READ MORE
The Ancient Solution to Violence: What Girard Discovered About Desire 0
- Literature, Culture, Featured
- August 14, 2024
René Girard was one of the great geniuses of the 1900s. A historian, literary theorist, philosopher, anthropologist, social psychologist, and theologian, Girard wrote almost 30 books and influenced dozens of scholarly disciplines. Yet in a time of rising social discord, Girard’s ideas move beyond the ivory towers of academia and apply directly to the unfolding
READ MORE

The Forgotten Father of Modern Fantasy Literature 5
- Featured, Literature
- August 6, 2024
George MacDonald had a colossal impact on some of the most brilliant early-20th-century writers, including C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, and J.R.R. Tolkien. He was a Scottish minister, poet, and fairytale writer, but today, much of his work has been abandoned. It’s time to shake the dust from MacDonald’s magical and redemptive works, many of which
READ MORE
A Children’s Book We Can All Learn From: ‘Farmhouse’ by Sophie Blackall 1
- Literature, MomThink
- August 2, 2024
The old farmhouse that my wife grew up in has been in her family since the Civil War. It’s seeped in memories and nostalgia as generations of large families have been raised there, making it the witness of the countless joys, sorrows, failures, and achievements that go along with growing up. When we visit there,
READ MORE
The Politics of Stephen King’s Fiction 6
- Literature, Featured
- July 31, 2024
Lately, I’ve been reading a lot of Stephen King, and I came to wonder about the horror writer’s political ideas. Several right-leaning essayists have already noticed a seeming disconnect between King’s politics and the spirit of his fiction. Tim Cavanaugh labels King a “lefty,” yet notes that his stories are full of “hard-headed pragmatism and
READ MORE