One of the staples of discussion about basic aesthetic principles is that art has to exist for its own self, and cannot be prostituted to advance a particular cause or point of view. Perfect nonsense, of course, but that doesn’t keep it from being repeated ad nauseam. There is a truth buried in all the …
Flannery Fanboys
Just a random Flannery O’Connor thought. I am currently enjoying Wise Blood very much, and it struck me how seriously O’Connor took her fundamentalist misfits. She was a Roman Catholic, and yet we find that her literary (and very Southern) genius really sees Jesus in the angular, raw Tishbite street preachers. She expects us to …
Spiritual Disciplines in Narnia
The topic before us now is “spiritual disciplines” in the Narnia stories, and I have to begin by explaining the topic perhaps a little more than some of the others. Spiritual disciplines are those practices which should be practiced on a daily basis, so that they become habitual, with the result that you are prepared …
Nobility in Narnia
What does it mean to be noble? What is false nobility? And what does it mean to fail in nobility? These are all questions that will be answered if you read the Narnia stories they way they really ought to be read. Like Shasta in The Horse and His Boy, we too often have a …