Tag Archives: Covenantal Literature

Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion explores the relationship between judgment–the capacity to form opinions based on reason, understanding, and intuition–and persuasion, convincing others to consider or accept one’s point of view. Austen takes a fairy-tale structure–the forsaken daughter who finds love–and imbues it with persuasive pathos by complementing the plot with irony-tinged commentary on a smallContinue reading “Persuasive Judgment in Jane Austen’s Persuasion”

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus asks readers to wrestle with perplexing questions about the nature of monstrosity and justice. These are ethical concerns. Who gets to say that the monster is more or less monstrous than the man who made him? Is it Frankenstein or his creation that is the novel’s true hero?Continue reading “By What Standard? Judgment in Frankenstein”

I talked with an English prof friend of mine today about The Lord of the Rings. I’m reading it again though it’s not my thing because I know it resonates with devoted readers in general and Christian readers in particular. As someone who cares about readers (i.e. people) more than books, I am interested inContinue reading “Three Sources of Literary Power”

In a world filled with distractions, cynicism, and skepticism, it’s easy to forget the simple wisdom we learned as children. G.K. Chesterton reminds us of the truth we learned from fairy tales. The things I believed most then, the things I believe most now, are the things called fairy tales. They seem to me toContinue reading “The Covenant of Fairy Tales”

J.R.R. Tolkien, the brilliant mind behind The Lord of the Rings series, was an advocate for the subtlety and depth of literature. He believed in the power of stories to shape our understanding of the world around us, while also granting readers the freedom to draw their own conclusions. In the preface to The FellowshipContinue reading “The Power of Literature: Remembering Context”

The new covenant of communion established by Christ emphasizes the deep bond formed when people break bread together. In literature, authors often use meals to cement connections and explore the complexities of human relationships. Here are three examples from works I teach to my freshmen every semester. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road: In The Road, aContinue reading “Breaking Bread: Biblical Covenants and Connections in Literature”

In The Content Trap, Bharat Anand reveals that innovation thrives not on the content itself but on the connections that content fosters between consumers, products, and spaces. For educators like myself, the book serves as a wake-up call. It challenges the belief that providing deeper insight into the subject matter is the key to enhancingContinue reading “Connections and Covenants: Emphasizing Relationships Over Content”

An entry in a new series that covers these covenantal categories… Today, The Great Gatsby (1925). AUTHOR: F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in 1896. He published The Great Gatsby in 1925. It was his third novel. When he died in 1940, he had four published novels, a novella, and one unfinished novel (The Last Tycoon). HIERARCHY: FitzgeraldContinue reading “The Great Gatsby”

An entry in a new series that covers these covenantal categories… Today, The Brothers Karamazov (1880). AUTHOR: Fyodor Dostoevsky was born in 1821. He published The Brothers Karamazov in 1880, the year before his death. HIERARCHY: Dostoevsky was the son of a middle-class doctor who studied to be an engineer. His father was killed by serfs, andContinue reading “The Brothers Karamazov”