The Philosophical Optimist

              It was Shakespeare's Juliet who asked "What's in a name?"   The answer to that question appears at times to be: more than you might think.   This truth, which seems to recur in my thinking again and again like a musical theme, struck me again recently as I was watching the science fiction action film Demolition Man (1993).   In that film, Sylvester Stallone plays John Spartan, a late 20th-century police officer sentenced to 70 years in a "Cryo-Penitentiary" for the death of 30 hostages in the course of apprehending the mass-murdering Simon Phoenix.   36 Years later, when Phoenix escapes during his parole hearing, the practically violence-free world that has developed in the interim finds itself unable to deal with him, and must revive the 20th-century "barbarian" John Spartan to apprehend him.             The revived Spartan finds himsel...

[The following essay and its sequel were first published on my previous blog several years ago, but its ideas are just as relevant as ever, if not more so]             I first began this little meditation some time ago when I was recalling a commercial for the then-new (and then quickly canceled) television show My Own Worst Enemy .   The show involved a man who was in some sense (what sense, I did not know, nor did I care) a split personality, with two opposed minds within him.   Of the two, the good one was named "Henry," while the evil one was named "Edward."   It was some time before I realized why those names seemed so appropriate: they are, of course, the respective first names of the two eponymous characters of Robert Louis Stevenson's famous short work, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde .             So I thought to myself: that was a nice ...

Another essay on Milton for my students:  Charles Brent Oliver Dr. Borges ENGL 1020 SA1 5 March 2015   “On His Blindness”: Milton’s Punctuation             A careful examination of Milton’s sonnet “On His Blindness” reveals it to involve a masterful usage of English syntax and punctuation.   The poem of fourteen lines actually consists—in at least one of its multiple editions—of two main sentences, each of which contains within quotation marks at least one other sentence.   A close examination of how this was done, including a look at the punctuation, may reveal some of the art Milton used in making this, one of his most personal poems.             The poem, in the edition under consideration here (from the anthology Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense ), contains five marks of full punctuation: a question mark (line 7) and four pe...

Here we have another essay written for my students, but it’s free for anyone to enjoy. Brent Oliver Dr. Wells ENGL 1020 SA1 14 March 2016 The Agon of Art & Experience in a Sonnet by Milton             In the study of poetry, we are often cautioned by our teachers to recall that the speaker of a poem, like the narrator of a novel, is a voice invented by the poet and not the poet himself—or at least, not necessarily.   However, a poet is in no way forbidden from making the speaking voice of a poem a vehicle for his own thoughts and feelings.   The most obvious example of this may be prayers and hymns, whether they be ancient psalms, the poetry of John Donne, or the work of the latest contemporary Christian artist.             John Milton’s sonnet often referred to as “On His Blindness” is one example of a poet’s use of his poetry to express his own...