Friday Links
August 15, 2025
Collegium Institute Fall Events
As always, our friends and partners at Collegium have a host of wonderful events and classes and seminars planned for the fall, including: The Catholic Writer Today: A Retrospective Interview with Dana Gioia a Decade Later. Information and registration at the link. Why not join us?
“Ars Poetica” by Clarence Caddell
Listen to Clarence Caddell read his excellent poem “Ars Poetica”, from his forthcoming collection, Broken Words (Bonfire Books, September 15th).
Literary Matters
The latest issue of LM is chock-full of goodness: translations from Ryan Wilson, a poem from Rachal Hadas, reviews from Matt Kirby and Mary Grace Mangano, a poem and translations of poems from Elijah Blumov, poems from Niall Campbell, Shane McCrae, Morri Creech, Maya Venters, and more.
Josh Appel on C.S. Lewis in the Age of Bleakness
This rejection of the pessimistic life is the leitmotif throughout Lewis’s fantasy magnum opus, The Chronicles of Narnia. Narnia is at first glance a routine work of child fiction. It tells the story of the four Pevensie children whisked away on the adventure of a lifetime complete with knights, witches, talking animals, and a miraculous lion named Aslan. However, it is clear that Lewis is not only telling a story but trying to impart a message about the role of childlike wonder. The subject of the stories in Narnia is the children. In fact, when a child becomes an adult they are no longer allowed to enter Narnia. Moreover, it is Lucy, the youngest of the children, who discovers Narnia – much to the skepticism of the more “advanced” older siblings. It is of no surprise then that in later books in the series it is Lucy, too, who has the strongest belief in Aslan in moments of doubt from others.
Lois McClatchie Miller on The Subversive Brilliance of Barbie
Barbie may not have intended to champion traditional marriage, but it does. The moral of the story is this: She’s not everything, and he’s not just Ken. Barbie and Ken may not end up together, but the other residents of Barbieland make the critical realization that partnerships that enable men and women to flourish equally lead to a much better society.
The Fate of Aristotle’s Library
We’re now in a position finally to resolve the apparent contradiction between the very solid tradition (in Posidonius, Strabo, and Plutarch’s Life of Sulla 26) about how Aristotle’s works disappeared because of Neleus and then, years later, reappeared; and, on the other hand, the no less respectable report of Athenaeus (Epitome I.3A–B) that Neleus sold to Ptolemy II (reigned 284–246 BC) ‘Aristotle’s library’.
Why Tolkien Hated Disney
What troubled Tolkien most, however, was not just the aesthetic change, but the deeper consequence: suffering had been made optional. There was no cost for redemption, and no consequence for evil. It all made for a fantasy with the edges dulled and the moral center hollowed.
