Samuel Beckett’s Trilogy

Samuel Beckett’s Trilogy (Molloy, Malone Dies, and The Unnamable) treated as a gnostic creation myth, in which what is created is the book itself, by a mysterious god or gods, who, like the Romantic demiurges, cannot create a decent world for their creatures. Accepting Nietzsche’s idea of the Death of God, Beckett creates a story in which the novelist dies midway, leaving his characters to fend for themselves in the absurd world he leaves behind him. Lecture

Paul Cantor discusses works of literature that can teach us about liberty. Conversation

Huckleberry Finn is a dark and deeply unnerving work. It is filled with a seemingly endless parade of con artists, impostors, vigilantes, lynch mobs, and other practitioners of fraud and deception or cruelty and inhumanity. Essay

Frankenstein can teach us a valuable lesson about culture—the way that high art grows out of and can in turn influence commercial culture, even the mass media. Essay

Huckleberry Finn shows that a nation devoted to fresh starts will also invite false starts and upstarts. Book Review

Jonathan Swift was one of the most secretive men who ever lived, the Howard Hughes of 18th-century Britain. Given how well-known his name is today, it comes as a surprise to learn that most of his writings were initially published anonymously. Book Review

Writing a biography of Charles Dickens is not an enviable task. It is much like trying to paint a portrait of Rembrandt—the Dutchman already did such a good job himself. Book Review