If Shylock in The Merchant of Venice is a thinly-veiled Puritan (see the earlier article in this series), so is Malvolio in Twelfth Night. Maria, in act two of Twelfth Night, describes Malvolio explicitly as “a kind of puritan,” and the critic Leslie Hotson has argued that Malvolio was modeled on the Puritan William Knollys, … Read more
“Not many of you should become teachers. As you know, we teachers will be judged with greater strictness than others.” (James 3:1) What happens in our country’s college classrooms matters. It matters, of course, to the students themselves. It matters to their professors. And it matters, greatly, to the country, whose reins of leadership will … Read more
In the recently-released book The Case for Patriarchy, Catholic writer and teacher Timothy J. Gordon boldly proclaims the “kingship of the social reign of Christ, King of the Patriarchy!” Gordon’s well-researched, deeply insightful work deconstructs feminism’s numerous nostrums that have upended modern life in the name of a false paradise of sexual egalitarianism. Gordon traces … Read more
Dystopian fiction can offer a curious consolation in dark times. There is comfort of a sort in the knowledge that our current troubles were foreseen by others: this shows, if nothing else, the evils of our age are not as chaotic as they sometimes seem. On the contrary, they conform to a pattern that can … Read more
Conservatives long to recapture “the ideal of a gentleman.” But is this another example of cheap moralizing and lamenting the good days gone by? Do they themselves really understand what they aim to recover? Aaron Renn thinks not. In The Masculinist, he argues that today’s nostalgia for the gentleman ignores the historical context which made … Read more
Shakespeare’s Hamlet is arguably the greatest play ever written. It is, however, also one of the most misread and misunderstood. One could write a book, or perhaps a whole shelf-full of books, on the way in which the play is misconstrued by critics, or the manner in which it is sacrificed to the latest literary … Read more
“Pride goeth before a fall,” as the Good Book tells us. But prior to the fall, there is often a leap. The proud person believes he can do things that are far beyond his ability. Being ignorant, incompetent, or unqualified are not factors that deter him from attempting to do what he cannot do. A … Read more
“People warn that you’ve got to watch what you say on the air,” said Tom Basile, “because of the cancel culture. I’m not going for any of that. I’m going to put God first.” Basile, news anchor and host of the weekly show America Right Now at Newsmax TV, is a faithful Catholic and a … Read more
The Wall Street Journal recently published a powerful article on the large and growing gap between the numbers of men and women enrolled in American colleges and universities. Enrollments have declined steeply in recent years, but they have declined much more among males than females. Only 40 percent of current college students are males. The … Read more
Hot Take: the movie Hostiles, starring Christian Bale, is a love story. One wouldn’t think this gritty, modern western would be a love story, given that it’s rife with suffering and violence. But it is precisely because of its real and raw depiction of lived human experience that it is a love story in the … Read more
The biggest problem with critical thinking is the critical part. It’s not socially acceptable; it’s not nice to be critical. And thinking? Well, we’ll get to that. As I was mindlessly dawdling on Facebook (which is about the only thing one can do there), and was just at the point of chastising myself, I came … Read more
(Note: This previously unpublished article was written on September 14, 2001, from the office of Fr. John A. Perricone at St. Agnes Rectory in Manhattan, some two miles away from Ground Zero. Much of the horror of that day has faded. Even more so, its urgent lessons. Much of America seems to have moved on … Read more
More than most of Shakespeare’s plays, Julius Caesar begs a good many questions. Who are the heroes? Where are the out and out villains, the machiavels, who are so evident in many of Shakespeare’s other plays? Where are the women? Is their relative absence significant? What does it say about politics and politicians? What does … Read more
Many baseball fans have been alarmed, if not disgusted, by recent news regarding Los Angeles Dodgers star pitcher Trevor Bauer, who is under investigation for allegations of sexual assault. According to the accuser, Bauer physically and sexually assaulted her on two separate occasions, including while she was unconscious. As troubling as such a story is … Read more
That sport best pleases that doth least know how: Where zeal strives to content, and the contents Dies in the zeal of that which it presents: Their form confounded makes most form in mirth, When great things labouring perish in their birth. Love’s Labor’s Lost Strange to say (though not much stands outside that category … Read more
The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet of the Devil’s party without knowing it. — William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. “Milton,” replied Father Thomas Edmund Gilroy, “though undeniably possessed of poetic … Read more
For the child—and the adult who knows there is still a child in all of us—fairy tales reveal truths about ourselves and the world. As psychologist Bruno Bettelheim stated in his extraordinary study titled The Uses of Enchantment (1976), “the fantastical, sometimes cruel, but always deeply significant narrative strands of the classic fairy tales can aid in … Read more
Lorne Park Baptist Church in Mississauga, Ontario, has fired Rev. Junia Joplin after he announced his transitioning from a male to a female. The congregants voted to terminate his employment, the majority for theological reasons. The chair of the church’s executive council stated that Joplin was offered “a fair severance.” Nonetheless, he is suing for … Read more
“I just don’t think I’m ready to get married, have kids, and do all that. She and I are still learning to adult,” said a friend of mine the other day. He and his girlfriend have been together for several years, are both in their late 20s, and enjoyed steady employment. Although trivial and mundane, … Read more
The original title of this delightful comedy was Sir John Falstaff and the Merry Wives of Windsor. This is hugely significant because the play is largely a vehicle or an excuse for the lampooning of the character of Falstaff, who had made his first appearance in Henry IV, Part 1. In that play, Falstaff’s character … Read more