In Plain Engel-ish

When you read this column, you might still be suffering from H.O.S. (Holiday Overload Syndrome). Not only did we recently stagger through such a strange Christmas, Chanukah, and New Year’s, but we are now firmly wedged between Martin Luther King Day and Valentine's-President’s Day.     I think that a glance at the holidays we Americans do celebrate each year might tell us quite a lot about our values as a nation. If we eliminate religious holidays, since they exclude those not of a certain faith, and eliminate the Birthdays (Lincoln, Washington, King), since they celebrate a life rather than an...

Long before our current January Covid pandemic, there was another plague—bubonic to be specific—devastating London in January of 1593. Young William Shakespeare had just written his first two plays, but when the plague closed all the theaters (sound familiar?), he switched to writing long poems. When the disease disappeared eighteen months later, he so missed the theater that he dedicated himself as foremost a playwright, not a poet, from then until his retirement, thirty-five immortal dramas later in 1611. And so I dedicate this pandemic January essay to him.   I came to the Bard after being “Dickens”-ed out. When...

I vowed that when I wrote this essay about new years and Januarys, I would not say one word about how horrible 2020 was or how 2021 is bound to be better. We’ve all shared that sentiment far too many times, haven’t we? Enough already! I wished to escape the timely bemoaning here and concentrate on the timeless beckoning of change. The ancient Romans, who named the month of January, certainly recognized it as a time of transition. They named it after Janus, the god who had two faces so that he could look both forward and backward at the same...

Now that I’ve been on the road lecturing for forty years, I’ve discovered that after my presentation on Dickens, I can usually count on at least two questions being asked. Since my lecture credits Dickens with inventing the mass-market paperback book, the cliff hanger, and the soap opera, there is always someone who will politely but dubiously ask: “Can everything you said really be true?”I’m always delighted with this question because it shows the innate optimism of my audience. Here is someone who seriously doubts that I’ve stayed within the broadest bounds of truth during the lecture; yet by asking...

With the gazillion hurricanes (that’s just a rough estimate) which have plagued this 2020 tropical storm season, I am remembering 1989 here in North Carolina. Actually, the most deadly hurricane ever to strike here was Hazel in October of 1954. But thirty-five years later in September of 1989 Hurricane Hugo terrorized both North and South Carolina and gave me a blind date I shall never forget. When the breath of Hurricane Hugo began blowing toward South Carolina, we in North Carolina began holding ours. As an English professor, I was intrigued by his name since he was the only literary-named...