Arts & Letters
A selection of recent articles on this topic
Knausgaard and His Time
Karl Ove Knausgaard treats the stage business of life with gravity, seeking in it, perhaps, some key…
A Guide to the Oscars
Who even watches the Oscars?” said First Things editor R. R. Reno when I proposed to write…
An Endless Bookshelf
Sometimes when I am starting a column, I look back to see what I wrote for this…
Fiction and Last Things
The latest installment of an ongoing interview series with contributing editor Mark Bauerlein. Cassandra Nelson joins in…
Cicero the Comedian
The latest installment of an ongoing interview series with contributing editor Mark Bauerlein. Michael Fontaine joins in…
Cathedrals and Us
The Cathedral Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in the nation’s capital is a magnificent neo-Gothic…
Dostoevsky’s Credo
What does it mean to believe something? Is it possible for a person to profess an idea…
Large Language Poetry
In my ideal undergraduate course in literary criticism, the first semester would include a brisk introduction to…
On Getting Old
Two years plus a couple of weeks ago, I wrote a column that began thus: “I am…
The End of March
Stands of bearded iris, purple in mourningSpring up, early, among their cool green speartips,Pale and pointed, palmlike,…
Letter to a Middle-Aged Poet
Nature and history have made us what we are, fat hapless amateurs stranded some ninety million miles from the nearest…
Birds of the Air
Look— crimson berries for songbirds, writhing worms for red-breasted early birds, swarming mice and astonished doves plucked…
Local Weather
Moving slowly among her solemn friends,she speaks of him in the present tense.Hail flays the roof, its…
Letters
In a beautiful essay (“Against Christian Civilization,” January 2025) somewhat reminiscent of Kierkegaard’s Attack Upon “Christendom”, Paul…
What We’ve Been Reading—January 2025
R. R. Reno A friend was shocked that I had not read Saul Bellow. He sought to…
