"How far that little candle throws his beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world."
- William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
Showing posts with label Literature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Literature. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 2, 2021
Thursday, December 24, 2020
Charles Dickens, Marley's Chain and Theophylact of Ochrid
By John Sanidopoulos
When Jacob Marley makes his ghostly visit to Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens describes him as a transparent spirit bound by a chain. He describes the chain specifically as follows: "The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel." When during their conversation Scrooge asks trembling why he was fettered, Marley replied: "I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?” Then Marley reveals to Scrooge that the chain he bears is much more ponderous: "Or would you know the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since. It is a ponderous chain!"
Friday, March 20, 2020
Mary Shelley as a Philhellene
By John Sanidopoulos
In the summer of 1816 Percy Bysshe Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin traveled to Switzerland in order to meet Lord Byron. The meeting had been engineered by Mary’s stepsister, Claire Clairmont, who had been Byron’s mistress in London and who was pregnant with his child. At this point Byron had lost interest in Claire yet in Percy Shelley he found a great friend. Byron and the (future) Shelleys rented houses in close proximity on the shores of Lake Geneva and spent much time together that very rainy summer, socializing together in the evenings and exploring local sites of interest during the day.
The summer in Geneva also inspired Shelley’s lover, and later wife, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin. One rainy evening as the company was sitting around the fire, reading aloud German ghost stories, Byron challenged each person present to write their own ghostly tale. Shortly afterwards, in a waking dream, Mary conceived the idea for Frankenstein, the story of a scientist who brings life to a likeness of man with disastrous consequences. Completed when she was still only 19 years old, the novel, which was first published anonymously, has never since gone out of print.
Thursday, January 23, 2020
The Good Guy/Bad Guy Myth
The Good Guy/Bad Guy Myth
Pop culture today is obsessed with the battle between good and evil. Traditional folktales never were. What changed?
Catherine Nichols
January 25, 2018
The first time we see Darth Vader doing more than heavy breathing in Star Wars (1977), he’s strangling a man to death. A few scenes later, he’s blowing up a planet. He kills his subordinates, chokes people with his mind, does all kinds of things a good guy would never do. But then the nature of a bad guy is that he does things a good guy would never do. Good guys don’t just fight for personal gain: they fight for what’s right – their values.
Monday, December 23, 2019
Christmas Stories Resource Page: Literature, Film and Television
Charles Dickens
Marley's Bowels of Compassion (or Lack Thereof)
The Reception of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" in Greece
Charles Dickens' "The Cricket on the Hearth"
Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Match Girl"
Russian Tales
Greek Tales
Christmas in Greek Literature
Christ at the Castle: Papadiamantis’ Tale Captures the Genuine Spirit of Christmas
"The Gleaner: A Christmas Story" by Alexandros Papadiamantis
"The Slacker's Christmas" (Alexandros Papadiamantis)
"The Christmas Bread" (Alexandros Papadiamantis)
"The Cantankerous Man": A Christmas Story by Alexandros Moraitidis
"John the Blessed": A New Year's Eve Tale by Photios Kontoglou
"All-Bright Theophany": A Short Story by Alexandros Papadiamantis
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde's "The Happy Prince"
Henry van Dyke
"The Story of the Other Wise Man" (1989 - Animation)
Movie: "The Fourth Wise Man" (1985)
O. Henry
O. Henry's "The Gift of the Magi"
Silent Films
"Massacre of the Innocents" (a silent film from the 1910's)
Movies
"It's A Wonderful Life"
Films About Jesus
Friday, September 20, 2019
The Stag of Saint Eustathios Plakidas and Popular Fantasy Literature
The Hunting of the White Stag
A Christ symbol that is closely related to the unicorn is the stag, whose earliest representation in Christian art can be found in the Roman catacombs and in baptismal font designs and basilica altar mosaics of subsequent periods. It appeared as a Christ symbol in bestiaries, stories of the lives of the saints, and in medieval romances, such as the Queste del Saint Graal, where the stag served as a guide toward the object of the quest, the Holy Grail.
The stag appeared as a symbol of Christ in the story of St. Eustace [Eustathios]. This saint, like C. S. Lewis’s fictional character Eustace Scrubb in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, experienced a miraculous conversion.
Wednesday, December 19, 2018
Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" as a Reimagining of the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus
Lazarus and the Rich Man is a parable recorded in Luke 16 that Jesus tells in response to the Pharisees, who were self-righteous and wealthy. Lazarus is a beggar who sits by the gate of a rich man’s estate. The rich man walks by Lazarus day after day, ignoring his plight.
Lazarus dies and is carried away by angels to be with Father Abraham. The rich man also dies and is in torment in Hades. He looks up, and sees Abraham and Lazarus far off, on the other side of a chasm that cannot be crossed. He calls out to Abraham to send Lazarus to bring him something to quench his thirst.
Monday, April 30, 2018
The Sense of Death in Tolstoy and Kierkegaard
The Sense of Death in Tolstoy and Kierkegaard
By Michael K. Macrakis, M.A., Ph. D.
Introduction
Death is a subject which concerns mainly religion, the philosophy religion. «The oldest and most common definition is that religion is the link between man and God». According to this definition, religion derived from religare and originally meant «a bond». This bond, of course, is not between two men, «between the sexes», as Ludwig Feuerbach wishes, but between God and man because religion can not exist without God.
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
The Church Fathers and Heathen Literature Under Julian the Apostate
From Socrates Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, Bk.3, Chs. 12 and 16:
Observing that those who suffered martyrdom under the reign of Diocletian were greatly honored by the Christians, and knowing that many among them were eagerly desirous of becoming martyrs, Julian determined to wreak his vengeance upon them in some other way. Abstaining therefore from the excessive cruelties which had been practiced under Diocletian; he did not however altogether abstain from persecution (for any measures adopted to disquiet and assault I regard as persecution). This then was the plan he pursued: he enacted a law by which Christians were excluded from the cultivation of literature; 'lest,' said he, 'when they have sharpened their tongue, they should be able the more readily to meet the arguments of the heathen.'
Sunday, October 29, 2017
Dr. Jekyll and His Conscience
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
By Robert Louis Stevenson
"In each of us, two natures are at war – the good and the evil. All our lives the fight goes on between them, and one of them must conquer. But in our own hands lies the power to choose – what we want most to be we are."
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Dorian Gray and His Conscience
"It had brought melancholy across his passions. Its mere memory had marred many moments of joy. It had been like conscience to him. Yes, it had been conscience. He would destroy it."
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Ch. 20
- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Ch. 20
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Orthodox Fundamentalism, Conspiracies and Harry Potter
The Harry Potter Phenomenon and Orthodox Reactions
Bishop Auxentios of Photiki
The Orthodox Church, contrary to certain well-meaning but misguided efforts by the Faithful and some clergymen to prove other wise, is not opposed to science, progress, or human intellectual development. Even a cursory survey of the writings of the Church Fathers--from St. Basil the Great to St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite, to cite two notable examples--and those of our finest theologians lucidly demonstrates that the fear of secular knowledge, of the West, of science, and of secular intellectual trends is unknown to the Orthodox Church. St. Basil the Great instructs us to benefit from what is good even in pagan writers, while St. Nicodemos adapted more than one spiritual source of Western provenance to Orthodox usage. And the late and renowned Photios Kontoglou, a conservative and decidedly traditional Orthodox thinker, benefited from the writings of classical Greek philosophy and without reluctance fathomed the depths of such Western thinkers as Blaise Pascal. Anti-Western, anti-intellectual thinking is not part of the Patristic consensus, except as the Fathers approach the dogmatic deviations of Western Christianity. We must keep these notions in mind, as we confront technologies, ideologies, social thought, and intellectual trends formed in a changing world and in a secular context that some times challenges the immutable truths which shape our thinking and lives as Orthodox Christians.
Friday, March 25, 2016
The Church of Panagia of Finikia and Lord Byron
Near the site of Lord Byron’s house in Messolonghi and the Garden of the Heroes, which is a memorial garden commemorating the Philhellene Europeans who fought in the Greek War of Independence, is the island Chapel of Panagia of Finikia (Panagia of the Palms). Lord Byron especially loved this place and would often come here to rest and enjoy an evening equestrian excursion. The church was built in 1804.
Friday, January 22, 2016
Bruce Chatwin and His Discovery of Orthodoxy
By Petros Panayiotopoulos
One of the most enigmatic and contradictory personalities of the last century, the writer Bruce Chatwin (1940-1989), came to have a close relationship with the truth of Orthodoxy, mainly through the attraction he experienced towards the life of the monks of the Holy Mountain. A constant traveler, a nomad student of nomads, he found in Eastern Christianity many of the answers to issues which troubled him throughout his life, and especially in its last stages when he suffered from AIDS.
Monday, December 14, 2015
"Fiction as Food" by G.K. Chesterton
FICTION AS FOOD
By G.K. Chesterton
I have been asked to explain what I meant by saying that "Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity." I have no notion when I said it or where I said it, or even whether I said it; in the sense that I do not now remember ever saying it at all. But I do know why I said it; if I ever said it at all. That is the advantage of believing in what some call dogma and others call logic. Some people seem to imagine that a man being sceptical and changing his beliefs, or even a man being cynical and disregarding his beliefs, is a sort of advantage to him in liberality and flexibility of mind. The truth is exactly the other way. By the very laws of the mind, it is more difficult to remember disconnected things than connected things; and a man is much more in control of a whole range of controversy if he has connected beliefs than if he had never had anything but disconnected doubts. Therefore I can immediately understand the sentence submitted to me, as if it were a sentence made up by somebody else; as perhaps it was.
Friday, April 17, 2015
Saint Nektary of Optina and the Arts
Saint Nektary of Optina (Feast Day - April 29)In 1876, Nicholas [later named Nektary] arrived at the Optina forest with a bundle swung over his shoulder, containing nothing but a copy of the New Testament. Many years later, the holy father recalled his first impressions of Optina Monastery: "Lord! How beautiful it is with the sun flooding the area from sunrise, and the flowers! Just as though in Paradise!" Nicholas was received by none other than Elder Ambrose, and his initial dialogue with this great sagacious elder produced such a deep impression that he remained there for the rest of his life. Elders Ambrose and Anthony (Zertsalov) became his spiritual mentors.
When he was in reclusion, Elder Nektary’s spiritual preceptors blessed him, after ten years of exclusive study of spiritual literature, to read secular authors and to study the secular sciences, obviously with the aim that he acquire that knowledge which would enable him to help lead the restless souls of the groping intelligentsia to salvation. He studied science, mathematics, history, geography and classical literature, both Russian and foreign. He spoke to his visitors about Pushkin and Shakespeare, Milton and Krilov, Spengler and Hegart, Blok, Dante, Gogol, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. In his only hour of rest after dinner he would ask to have read aloud Pushkin or some fairy tales—either Russian or the Brothers Grimm.
When he was in reclusion, Elder Nektary’s spiritual preceptors blessed him, after ten years of exclusive study of spiritual literature, to read secular authors and to study the secular sciences, obviously with the aim that he acquire that knowledge which would enable him to help lead the restless souls of the groping intelligentsia to salvation. He studied science, mathematics, history, geography and classical literature, both Russian and foreign. He spoke to his visitors about Pushkin and Shakespeare, Milton and Krilov, Spengler and Hegart, Blok, Dante, Gogol, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. In his only hour of rest after dinner he would ask to have read aloud Pushkin or some fairy tales—either Russian or the Brothers Grimm.
Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Marley's Bowels of Compassion (or Lack Thereof)
Charles Dickens writes in A Christmas Carol, describing the spirit of Jacob Marley when he appears to his business partner in life Ebeneezer Scrooge:
"Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he had never believed it until now."
Thursday, December 18, 2014
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Theological Journey
As the final installment of the Warner Bros fantasy blockbuster, The Hobbit, hits the cinema screens, Dr Alison Milbank of the University of Nottingham’s Department of Theology and Religious Studies, offers her insights into J.R.R.Tolkien and his famous novel. The film, based on the adventures of Hobbit Bilbo Baggins and his dwarf companions, will, she says, fulfill deeper needs in modern society than pure entertainment.
Friday, October 31, 2014
The Monsters Among Us
October 30, 2012
With Halloween approaching, people turn their attention to the spooky and the scary, reveling in stories and images of ghosts, ghouls and witches for the holiday. However, while some monstrous characters only come out to play in October; others enjoy attention year round.
For example, in recent years, vampire media has gained popularity, from Stephanie Meyer's "Twilight" series of books and films to HBO's "True Blood," which finished its fifth season this summer. Zombies have recently seen a resurgence in popularity as well, evidenced by new takes on the genre, such as Zach Synder's 2004 remake of "Dawn of the Dead," Danny Boyle's "28 Days Later" and Edgar Wright's "Shaun of the Dead." Zombies have even shambled onto the television screen with AMC's "The Walking Dead."
Hollywood is quick to cash in on what's popular, but why do themes gain popularity in the first place? Does the prevalence of a certain monster reflect what's going on in our society today?
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
G.K. Chesterton on Robert Louis Stevenson's "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"
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| Robert Louis Stevenson |
In my opinion, the last chapter of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the best written chapter in any book in the English language, as far as I've read, and it is one of my favorite fictional stories. G.K. Chesterton is one of the few Christian thinkers who holds a similar high regard for Stevenson and his philosophical romances, as expressed below:
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