Tag: reading
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The Dangers of Populism in All The King’s Men
“Mason city. To get there you follow Highway 58, going northeast out of the city, and it is a good highway and new” (opening lines) In an age where populist demagoguery has once again captured the hearts of the American voter, it has been illuminating for me to sit down and read this classic novel […]
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On the Definitions, Postulates, and Common Notions of Euclid’s Elements
Euclid’s Elements (“Stoikheîon”) is the foundational text of classical, axiomatic, and deductive geometry (“earth-measurement”). The Elements is composed of thirteen books, each filled with propositions that beautifully unfold a theory of number, shape, proportion, and measurability. The Elements was the essential geomtery textbook for nearly 2,000 years thanks to the preservation efforts of the Byzantines, […]
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“Crawling Between Earth and Heaven:” A Reading of Hamlet
Hamlet is a deeply puzzling and unsettling play. It remains elusive, alluring, cryptic, macabre, and mysterious: it is Shakespeare’s drama par excellence (contrary to T.S. Eliot’s unimpressive criticism of the play). On the surface, Hamlet is a classic revenge story that mirrors the theatrical works of classical antiquity. However, upon closer investigation Hamlet draws on […]
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On Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”
“Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon” -fictional proverb The year was 1948. The New Yorker Magazine was celebrating its 23rd anniversary when it published a disturbing little story called “The Lottery.” The story was to cause decades of controversy. At the time, The New Yorker apparently did not distinguish between works of fact or […]
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Introduction to Hamlet
The century was coming to an end. The rapidly approaching 1600s marked the end of the long reign of Queen Elizabeth I, and consequently the twilight of the Tudors. William Shakespeare, an unknown man without a formal education from the rural town of Stratford, had exploded onto the London theatrical scene, quickly becoming a star […]
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Reflections On Aristotle’s Prime Unmoved Mover
The summit of Aristotle’s examination of “first philosophy” occurs in Book XII of his Metaphysics. Chapters 1-5 of Book XII reiterate Aristotle’s examination into the nature of thinghood (an inquiry which had previously appeared in Aristotle’s Physics). Thinghood is a kind of whole (not a part of a whole) representing the sources as well as […]
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