Category Archives: Renaissance

The Book that Almost Turned me Atheist

Posted on 2009/05/28 by ngilmour

I can read most Enlightenment-era atheists without a problem; I taught David Hume and Tom Paine (both of whom or neither of whom was really an atheist, depending on whom you ask) this spring, and although I could reproduce the … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Renaissance | 7 Comments

In the Den of Errour

Posted on 2009/03/24 by ngilmour

I didn’t teach a great lesson today over Spenser’s Faerie Queene, but it was competent.? I suppose I should have expected to hit a rough patch after going straight from Anglo-Saxon poetry into Milton and then hitting the first text … Continue reading →

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Teaching Lit Crit

Posted on 2009/02/25 by ngilmour

Yesterday’s lesson on Sidney turned out better than I deserved. ?Because I’m more interested in intellectual history than I am in court intrigue, I’ve not spent as much time as I probably should have on Sidney’s works and biography. ?(O … Continue reading →

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My Inadequacy, Donne’s Perversity, or Some Mixture Thereof

Posted on 2009/02/17 by ngilmour

Whenever I teach John Donne, I always leave class feeling like I’ve communicated nothing but the incapacity of my own soul. In the abstract, I’ve read and agreed with theologies that say that there ought not to be, for the … Continue reading →

Posted in Renaissance, teaching | 2 Comments