Act 3 contains the most thrilling scenes in the play: Caesar’s assassination and Brutus’s and Antony’s dueling funeral orations about what that assassination means. Five comments on the act: Caesar is never more defiant than just before he dies. He compares the rest of the senators to mutable heavenly bodies and himself to the unchangingContinue reading “Julius Caesar: Act 3 Commentary”
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Julius Caesar: Act 2 Commentary
The most important quotation from Act 1 was Cassius’s comment regarding Caesar: “And this man / Is now become a god.” The first act gives us ample evidence that none of these characters are transcendent, Caesar included. The most important quotation from Act 2 is a question from Caesar himself: “What can be avoided /Continue reading “Julius Caesar: Act 2 Commentary”
Julius Caesar: Act 1 Commentary
My covenantal argument about The Tragedy of Julius Caesar is that the real god in this play is the Roman state. The fight between the empire and republic obscures their deeper commitment to the state. This is a commitment only a Christian could see. What evidence would confirm this reading? First, the play should dramatizeContinue reading “Julius Caesar: Act 1 Commentary”
Julius Caesar: The Historical Bind
Shakespeare rarely made up his own stories. He frequently adapted historical events from chronicles or fictional tales from various places. He wrote at least eight plays with HISTORY in the title. Every event portrayed in those two tetralogies were over a hundred years old. Consequently, talking about history in a Shakespeare play requires two overlappingContinue reading “Julius Caesar: The Historical Bind”
Robinson Crusoe Part 2
Robinson Crusoe is about a man discovering God’s sovereignty during exile. Robinson disobeys his father’s commands by going to sea, receives punishment through shipwreck, and then turns to Christ in his distress. He is both Jonah and the Prodigal Son. Alone on the island, Robinson can contemplate God’s sovereign work in his life. The firstContinue reading “Robinson Crusoe Part 2”
Genre Criticism
Here’s a truism. Open a book about biblical hermeneutics, and you’ll find a warning about genre. You can’t read Song of Solomon the way you read II Chronicles. They’re not the same genre. Don’t read Genesis the way you read The Psalms. Again, not the same genre. The Gospel According to John is different thanContinue reading “Genre Criticism”
Critical Terms: Literary History
This is the fourth of a series of weekly posts on the book Critical Terms for Literary Study. In his survey of the term “literary history” Lee Patterson poses this question: what exactly is the relationship between literature and history? His survey shows that in the 19th Century, history was held to be “objective” and literatureContinue reading “Critical Terms: Literary History”
Biblical Presuppositions: The Covenant
Stories matter to God. He is the grand storyteller. Reality itself is His story. Because we are made in God’s image, people tell stories too. Because stories matter, literature matters. When God revealed himself to us, he didn’t just give us theological treatises, a book of collected sermons. Covenants are personal agreements that the transcendentContinue reading “Biblical Presuppositions: The Covenant”
The Reeve’s Tale: A Covenantal Outline
This is the third in a series of posts about Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (1390s). PLOT TRANSCENDENCE: There is no transcendence in this plot: only the authorial intent of the Reeve (a town official) who wants to get back at the Miller for telling a tale that satirizes carpenters because he is himself aContinue reading “The Reeve’s Tale: A Covenantal Outline”
Experiments in Criticism 