Showing results for "Literature and Science" in Classics & Allegories

In this terrifying fable of a world without faith, first there were the changes in weather. Lack of rain was turning the plains of Iowa, Kansas, and Idaho into arid blocks of parched earth. In the North, it was already January, and no sign of snow. All over the world, the seas were shrinking, and creeks and rivers looked like dried scars. But for Pete, the terrified son of a Midwestern farming family, the first great omen came one unseasonably warm winter night when the moon simply vanished from a cloudless sky and the clocks stopped.

Stephen Mitchell's marvelously clear and vivid rendering recreates the robust masculine music of the original. It both hews closely to the Old English and captures its wild energy and vitality, not just as a deep "work of literature" but also as a rousing entertainment that can still stir our feelings and rivet our attention today, after more than a thousand years. This new translation - spare, sinuous, vigorous in its narration, and translucent in its poetry - makes a masterpiece accessible to everyone.

In this allegorical short story, Nathaniel Hawthorne parodies John Bunyan’s famous book, The Pilgrim’s Progress. Rather than take the long and arduous road to the Celestial City, Hawthorne’s narrator hops on the express train to paradise. As he gets closer to his destination, however, he realizes that the clever-talking Mr. Smooth-It-Away may not be who he claims. While a caricature of Bunyan’s original tale, “The Celestial Railroad” ultimately drives home a similar point: there is no easy road to Heaven, so tough it out on the straight and narrow.