Classics Considered

October 7, 2025

Shackleton’s Endurance – Doomed from the Start?

Fascinating new insights on why the Endurance sank, with implications for Shackleton’s legacy: A broken rudder wasn’t what doomed the Endurance, new analysis suggests Shackleton blamed the sinking of the Endurance on the destruction of its rudder; for more than a century, historians accepted this explanation. Now, an analysis suggests that structural weakness caused the Read more >>

2 comments on Shackleton’s Endurance – Doomed from the Start?

ernest shackleton, history
October 5, 2025

The Duino Elegies – Through Christian Eyes

The Swan: Finding Rilke In this year of personal joy and public tragedy, a little poem called “The Swan” crossed my path. The Austrian poet Rainier Maria Rilke was not unknown to me by name, but it was the first time I had read anything of his. Geoffrey Lehmann’s translation (to be released in a Read more >>

2 comments on The Duino Elegies – Through Christian Eyes

Christianity, Rainer Maria Rilke, Soren Kierkegaard
October 1, 2025

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

My main exposure to Sleepy Hollow has been through the Disney animation, a yearly viewing tradition in my family. Bing Crosby—my favorite old-time crooner and Washingtonian celebrity—narrates and sings the whimsical musical version of Washington Irving’s stately tale. In it, the hapless schoolmaster Ichabod Crane is thwarted in love and money by his archrival Brom Read more >>

2 comments on The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

history, Washington Irving
September 24, 2025

Sharpe’s Eagle (1993) – and some unnecessary yet unrestrainable comparisons to Hornblower…

Recently I found myself in a hotel room with nothing to do and a modestly sized TV playing lots of oldies. I was tickled to see that the Richard Sharpe series was on (all evening, at that). Being a Horatio Hornblower fan—which exists more or less in the same cinematic universe, i.e. the Napoleonic Wars Read more >>

5 comments on Sharpe’s Eagle (1993) – and some unnecessary yet unrestrainable comparisons to Hornblower…

Bernard Cornwell, Richard Sharpe