In the concluding chapters of A Room of One’s Own, Woolf returns her narrator, Mary, to the present. Woolf then, finally, lends her own voice to the piece.
Returning to A Room of One’s Own, we find ourselves in the home—the room—of Woolf’s narrator, Mary. Having made her observations out in the world, she returns here to tease out and develop her thoughts. Disappointed with her trip to…
Everyone wants to have read Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own. Nowhere near as many have read it. I got to it (finally) in 2021. Read along with me, it’s past time.
I recently had a chance to spend a morning at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm’s museum of modern art. Though I admit to a preference for Medieval and Renaissance art, Stockholm seems to bring out the modernist in me, and I wanted to…
Proseguendo attraverso il terzo girone dell'Inferno, passiamo con Dante e Virgilio attraverso innumerevoli ombre delle anime dei morti che giacciono nelle pozzanghere sporche,…
Amy Willis and Sarah Skwire recently took a little time out of all our behind the scene work at Liberty Fund's websites to have a lively and wide-ranging discussion about two Christmas stories by Charles Dickens. We hope you enjoy…
Continuing through the third circle of Hell, we pass with Dante and Virgil through countless shades of the souls of the dead that are lying in the filthy puddles, apparently able to tread…
There’s a deep tension in society about how to view America’s founding. Some people see the creation of America as a product of enlightenment, based on the ideals of liberty, independence, and pluralism. Others see America as a…
Siamo ora nel terzo girone dell'Inferno con Dante. Ovunque guardi vede nuovi tormenti. Sta piovendo, una pioggia fredda, pesante, senza fine, che si rinnova sempre in forza e…
After Jane Austen died, her brother Henry penned a "Biographical Notice of the Author" verging on hagiography. The restrained author he depicts--"as she never deserved disapprobation . . . she never met reproof"--evokes a lady who…
A Reading Room SeriesWe are now in the third circle of Hell with Dante. Everywhere he looks he sees new torments. It is raining—a cold, heavy, non-ending rain, ever-renewing in strength and accursedness. Huge pellets of hail and…
When recommending books that have been around for ages, it’s not uncommon to be faced with questions from skeptics. Why, they wonder, should I bother reading that old thing when there’s all this new stuff to read? I suspect there…
Dante distingue tre singole ombre di <<malfattore carnale>> che vengono verso di lui, lamentandosi e trasportati insieme all'inesorabile uragano. <<Maestro>>,…
Frankenstein's monster evokes little wonder in the fall when he lurches across our television screens or stands on our front porches demanding candy. We expect Mary Shelley's creature around Halloween. What is startling is to find…
Dante makes out three individual “carnal malefactor” shades coming toward him, lamenting and being born along by the relentless hurricane. “Master,” he asks Virgil. “Who are these people,…
“Knowledge is, of course, liberty,” said Mattheson.“In compressed tabloids,” said Birkin, looking at the dry, stiff little body of the Baronet. Immediately Gudrun saw the famous sociologist as a flat bottle, containing tabloids of…
Dante e Virgilio lasciano il Limbo e si fanno strada nel secondo girone dell'Inferno. Questo cerchio è di dimensioni più piccole del primo (l'Inferno di Dante ha la forma di un cono…
In August of 1790, George Washington made a trip to Newport, Rhode Island shortly after Rhode Island had agreed to the Constitution and to join the United States. Washington was greeted by various leaders of the city including a…
Dante and Virgil leave Limbo and make their way into the second circle of Hell. This circle is smaller in size than the first (Dante’s Hell is shaped like an upside-down cone, so that…
Dante e Virgilio proseguono attraverso una foresta, una foresta di <<fantasmi folti>>. Non molto lontano in questa foresta Dante vede un fuoco divampare nell'oscurità.…
A Reading Room seriesDante and Virgil continue onwards through a forest—a forest of “thick-crowded ghosts.” Not very far into this forest Dante sees a fire blazing in the darkness. Even though they are still somewhat distant from…
This month’s featured birthday anniversary is the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, a.k.a, Benedict de Spinoza. A key figure in the history of Rationalism, he is also widely regarded as one of the most important expounders of the…
Dante viene svegliato da un forte tuono. Si alza in piedi, si guarda intorno e cerca di capire dove si trova. È in piedi sul bordo di una valle profonda, buia e nebbiosa che…
While purporting to be a show about nothing, Seinfeld is, of course, a show about everything. Furthermore, it is a show that is very particularly about the difficulty of explaining why we are inclined to blindly accept the norms of…
Dante is awoken by a loud clap of thunder. He gets up to his feet, looks around, and tries to comprehend where he is. He is standing on the edge of a deep, dark, misty valley reverberating…
French economist Frédéric Bastiat famously observed two centuries ago that Parisians slept peacefully each night confident that others all over France worked “in concert and without agreement” to supply the capital with food in a…
Mentre Dante e Virgilio entrano nell'anticamera dell'Inferno, Virgilio dice a Dante che tutto il lamento agonizzante che sente sono le voci di coloro che <<visser sanza ‘…
With Marvel's Eternals out in the theaters, and Garth Bond's post this week on the Eternals and Euhemerism, I'm thinking a lot about Marvel's other recent releases, and getting ready to rewatch their Disney+ series Loki. When Loki…
As Dante and Virgil enter the antechamber of Hell, Virgil tells Dante that all the agonized wailing he’s hearing are the voices of those who “lived without infamy or praise”—those who…
The Eternals, the latest installment in the Marvel cinematic universe, premiered this weekend. While the Marvel universe has not been incorporated into the Online Library of Liberty—surely a temporary oversight—one of the film’s…
Dante è finalmente pronto per entrare all'Inferno, o almeno così crede. Giunto all'ingresso dell'Inferno, legge un'iscrizione sulle porte che, racconta a Virgilio, lo fa fermare:
Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth, scheduled for theatrical release on Christmas and streaming on Apple TV+ three weeks later, offers as good an excuse as any to reflect on earlier film productions of Shakespeare’s classic…
Dante is at last ready to enter Hell—or so he thinks. As he reaches the entrance of Hell he reads an inscription on the gates which, he tells Virgil, makes him pause:
In July’s Liberty Matters Discussion of the Declaration of Independence, a main theme of our deliberations was on the role and purpose of history. A distinction was made between an older ethic of understanding the past in its own…
Virgilio, sentendo per caso i dubbi di Dante che potrebbe essere indegno per questo viaggio, rimprovera Dante per la sua codardia e cerca di rassicurarlo sul fatto che varrà davvero…
I’ve never really been a fan of horror fiction. With the exception of spooky Victorian gothic novels, a long-standing affection for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the occasional particularly creepy Neil Gaiman moment, I just don’t…
Virgil, overhearing Dante’s doubts that he might be unworthy for this journey, chides Dante for his cowardice, and tries to reassure him that it will indeed be worthwhile for Dante to…
At Halloween, the monsters gather at our doors for tribute. We expect the caped figures with fangs askew, the werewolves growling for candy, the square-headed toddler with bolts glued to his neck. We are not afraid, because we are…
Prima che Dante intraprenda il suo viaggio attraverso l'inferno con Virgilio, invoca le muse (gli spiriti classici delle arti, nell'antica Grecia e a Roma) per aiutarlo a ricordare -…
“It was a beautiful place – wild, untouched, above all untouched, with an alien disturbing, secret loveliness. And it kept its secret. I’d find myself thinking, ‘What I see is nothing – I want what it hides – that is not nothing.”…
A Reading Room Seriesby Daniel Ross GoodmanBefore Dante embarks upon his journey through hell with Virgil, he invokes the muses (the classical spirits of the arts in ancient Greece and Rome) to assist him in being able to remember—…
Francis Spufford’s Light Perpetualwas released last May to considerable praise, unsurprising given the multiple awards received by its predecessor, Golden Hill. This new book is regularly referred to—by the author himself, as well…
La scorsa settimana abbiamo iniziato il nostro epico viaggio con Dante accompagnando Dante mentre si perde nei boschi, prima di incontrare il suo idolo letterario Virgilio e…
Pedaling my exercise bicycle is made tolerable by watching history lectures from The Teaching Company’s Great Courses. Today I watched part of a course on the French Revolution and Napoleon.
Last week we began our epic journey with Dante by accompanying him as he is lost in the woods, before meeting his literary idol Virgil and agreeing to set forth with Virgil upon another…
This month’s featured birthday anniversary is the Swiss-born French political philosopher, activist and statesman, Benjamin Constant. Along with his long-time friend and lover Germaine de Stael, and Democracy in America author…
La settimana scorsa abbiamo visto come Dante scrivesse del suo viaggio attraverso l'inferno, il limbo e il paradiso come se si trattasse di un viaggio vero, realmente intrapreso (a…
I recently had a chance to host a book discussion with Reading Room blogger, Garth Bond, and our friend Steve Pincus about Nicholas McDowell's new book Poet of Revolution: The Making of John Milton, which considers the question of…
A Reading Room series on The Divine ComedyLast week we saw how Dante wrote about his journey through hell, limbo, and paradise as if it were a real journey that he really undertook (beginning, in his recounting of it, on Good Friday…
In Marvel's film Black Widow (2021), the Red Guardian (Alexei) praises the achievements of the two women he had pretended to father as part of a Russian sleeper cell: "Yelena, you went on to become the greatest child assassin the…
di Daniel Ross GoodmanLa scorsa settimana abbiamo concluso la nostra introduzione alla Divina Commedia di Dante presentando le sette lezioni cardinali che il poema epico può insegnarci oggi. Questa è una serie incentrata sulla…
Robert Molesworth’s An Account of Denmark(1694; hereafter Account) is intended as a contribution to the “arts of peace.” The reader quickly realizes that seventeenth century Denmark is held up as a kind of anti-exemplar or…
Last week we concluded our introduction to Dante’s Divine Comedy by presenting the seven cardinal lessons that the epic poem can teach us today. If you missed this introduction you…
This month’s featured birthday anniversary is the American Political Economist Henry George, best known as the founder of an economic and political philosophy subsequently called “Georgism.” His work was tremendously influential…
La scorsa settimana abbiamo iniziato la nostra introduzione alla Divina Commedia di Dante con le prime tre delle sette lezioni generali che possiamo imparare dall'immortale italiano…
The classic collection of middle eastern stories known as The Arabian Nights is not in the Online Library of Liberty, which is perhaps understandable given its emphasis on irresponsible liberties taken and arbitrary exercises of…
A Reading Room blog series on The Divine ComedyLast week we began our introduction to Dante’s Divine Comedy with the first three of the seven overarching lessons that we can learn from the immortal Italian about work, art, love,…
Whenever economic times get tough, the debate over luxury--what defines it and how much of it is too much--reappears as part of public discourse. Photos from this year’s Met Gala, and the recent return of “maximalism” and its “too…
Quest'anno ricorre il 700 anniversario della morte di Dante. Numerosi eventi sono stati programmati in tutto il mondo, soprattutto nella nativa Italia di Dante, per celebrare l'eredità del Il Sommo poeta. Ma di gran lunga il modo…
This month’s featured (belated) birthday anniversary is the English author Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. Best known for writing Frankenstein, she also wrote a number of plays, poems, and novels, all strongly embodying a philosophy of…
A Reading Room SeriesThis year marks the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death. Numerous events have been planned throughout the world, especially in Dante’s native Italy, to celebrate the supreme poet’s legacy. But by far the best way…
Many enslaved people who learned to read were actually taught or encouraged by their masters or owners for religious reasons. Janet Cornelius found that “the majority of owners who taught slaves were concerned with Bible literacy,…
Fairy tales have long conveyed lessons about morality, survival, and even success. Charles Perrault's "Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper" (1697), for instance, illustrates the values of not only kindness and grace but…
David Lowery’s film adaptation of the 14th Century alliterative romance, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, is a thoughtful and provocative response to its source, at once more faithful and more innovative than previous film versions.…
In The Name of the Rose Umberto Eco speaks of a library as a “place of a long, centuries-old murmuring, an imperceptible dialogue between one parchment and another, a living thing, a receptacle of powers not to be ruled by a human…
