The function of the literary imagination is to incarnate meaning in concrete images, characters, events, and settings rather than abstract or propositional arguments. To use the formula of Dorothy Sayers, the imagination images forth its subject, and in turn it is a…
For several weeks I’ve been intermittently reading Roald Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach to my kids, while dabbling (as is my wont) in the news (typically the BBC), which, true to form, has generally born witness by one headline…
About a year ago I took a solo road trip from Jackson, MS to St. Joseph’s Abbey in Covington, LA, which is the final resting place of the Roman Catholic novelist, Walker Percy. It was an opportunity to pay my…
Joseph Alleine (1634-1668) Life Born at Devizes, Wiltshire, Joseph Alleine loved and served the Lord from childhood. A contemporary identified 1645 as the year of Alleine’s “setting forth in the Christian race.” From eleven years of age onward, “the whole…
A friend of mine, some five years ago now, introduced me to Vigen Guroian when he suggested I read Inheriting Paradise (Eerdmans, 1999), a short but immensely satisfying meditation on the relationship of theology to gardening. Earlier this year, I…
Though some will try and deny it, everyone loves a good story. Being fashioned in the likeness of the God who scripted the story of life, we by consequence find both identity and delight in stories. We have, after all,…
When viewing a film, while it is important to pay attention to its narrative, it is also very important not to simply or exclusively concentrate on the narrative. The artistic elements of filmmaking convey aesthetic and worldview choices as much…
Harry Potter is the literary phenomenon for children so far in the twenty first century. On the use of the imagination in literature, C.S. Lewis has commented, “You and I who still enjoy fairy tales have less reason to wish…
“Fairy tales, romance and adventure appeal to us, not just because they are different from our ordinary experience but because they present in easily assimilable form an essential element of that experience, the shrouding mystery of life and the tremulous…
Toothless Vampires and the Holy Grail It is often suggested that John Milton’s Paradise Lost is a better read than his Paradise Regained. It is easier to describe evil than goodness, easier to record the terrors of Hell than the…
