The Golden Echo

Exploring a Hermeneutic of Hope

Why Do We Enjoy Suffering in Literature?

July 24, 2017

Why do we enjoy tragedies? Why is there something almost pleasant about an elegy. We watch King Lear, knowing that the moment will come when he carries Cordelia out. We watch Macbeth to hear “Out, out, brief candle!” I’ve noticed that I enjoy Old English poetry and the works of Thomas Hardy because they enter … More Why Do We Enjoy Suffering in Literature?

Happy Birthday Tennyson

August 6, 2016

It’s Alfred Tennyson’s birthday today. He was born on this day in 1809. Why don’t we celebrate him with the same vigor he celebrated Arthur Hallam’s birthday in his great elegy, In Memoriam A.H.H. Tennyson wrote this poem, with its cantos of raw grief enveloped by a calmer ring of a Prologue and an Epilogue, to mourn … More Happy Birthday Tennyson