Jules Chéret, 1880 Parisian advertisement for a recurring Saturday masque performance
8,691 words
This past winter I lost my last grandparent — the most stubborn one, still to the end a strict English schoolteacher after having long since retired from the profession in the 1970s. She suffered through the desegregation years while working at Marshall High and was never dishonest about the experience. She possessed that combination of Southern decorum and irascible (and accurate) bluntness, which gave her the ability to reduce anyone, including 250-pound, six-foot-three black football players, to tears. (more…)
The Outsider becomes an inside man.
3,486 words
The Hater (2020) is a slow and gritty tale of an outsider working at a troll farm in Warsaw as the city’s political factions are in an upheaval. Liberal politicians are confronted in the streets and on social media as nationalist Poland pushes back against anything akin to the oppressive socialist regime of the twentieth century. (more…)
Promotional image from the UK’s Almeida Theatre production of The Duchess of Malfi (performed from November 30, 2019 through January 25, 2020)
5,736 words
I. Classical Western Thought on Justice and Revenge
One of the most fascinating discussions to emerge from our collective Western inheritance concerns the definition of justice and the double-sided nature of justice or vengeance (personified memorably in pop culture through the literal “two-faced” character of Harvey Dent and his Janus-faced coin). Aristotle (384-322 BC) determined that “justice” had at least two different meanings: (more…)
Stanisław Wyspiański, Self-Portrait
2,302 words
Stanisław Wyspiański
Acropolis: The Wawel Plays
Translated by Charles S. Kraszewski
London: Glagoslav Publications, 2017
Stanisław Wyspiański was a Polish dramatist, painter, and poet and is widely regarded as the father of modern Polish theatre. He was a central figure in the Young Poland movement. (more…)
The Uffington White Horse, Oxfordshire
2,486 words
Peter Shaffer’s 1973 play, Equus, is arguably the most pagan work of art created in the 20th century. Ostensibly an extended dialogue between a mentally ill boy and his psychiatrist, Shaffer’s play goes far beyond the realms of psychoanalysis and begins to stir the surface of an incipient numinous awakening. (more…)
Tintoretto, Tarquin and Lucretia, circa 1580
4,836 words
Editor’s Note:
This is the transcript by Lee and Donna Hancock of Jonathan Bowden’s talk on William Shakespeare, which you can listen to with dramatic examples here. Please post any corrections below as comments.
We’re here today to talk about William Shakespeare, (more…)
5,079 words
Part 3 of 3
Author’s Note:
The following text is a transcript by V. S. of a discussion of Aristophanes’ Clouds, which took place prior to a lecture on Plato’s dialogue Theages. (more…)
7,204 words
Part 2 of 3
Author’s Note:
The following text is a transcript by V. S. of part of my lecture on Aristophanes’ Clouds. As usual, I have edited this transcript to remove excessive wordiness and any factual errors. (more…)
3,000 words
Edited by Kerry Bolton
Roman masks, Baths of Decius, Rome, 2nd century CE
Editor’s Note:
With the 1953 notes on “Culture,” Yockey develops a theme that repudiates rationalism, positivism, and other such 19th-century materialistic philosophies, presenting the post-rationalist era of History as the unfolding of a great drama that is beyond rational or scientific interpretation, (more…)
Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner
6,769 words
A number of years ago I wrote an essay offering an interpretation of the cult TV series The Prisoner (anthologized in Summoning the Gods, published by Counter-Currents).
(more…)
Socrates: among other things, a good 5 cent cigar
6,365 words
Author’s Note:
The following text is a transcript by V. S. of the second part of my lecture on Aristophanes’ Clouds. As usual, I have edited this transcript to remove excessive wordiness and any factual errors. The quotes come from the translation of the Clouds in Four Texts on Socrates
.
(more…)
1,340 words
Edited by Alex Kurtagić
Editor’s Note:
The following is excerpted from Jonathan Bowden’s Skin, a book he wrote in the early 1990s. The text has been lightly edited, mainly for punctuation, spelling, and capitalization.
In Samuel Beckett’s work . . . , which has become emblematic of the modern condition, (more…)
2,373 words
Bryan Magee
Aspects of Wagner
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988
In preparation for the Wagner bicentennial on May 22, I have been listening to, watching, and reading about Wagner non-stop. But one’s enjoyment of art and ideas is magnified by sharing them with others. So I am going to get you in the Wagner spirit, or drive you crazy trying, (more…)
Aristophanes
36:31 / 374 words
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This is the third of three podcasts on Aristophanes’ Clouds.
(more…)
45:43 / 463 words
[jwplayer file=”http://cdn.counter-currents.com/radio/CCR-Johnson_Trial-of-Socrates-Aristophanes-CLOUDS-2-of-3.mp3″ streamer=”rtmp://s3cxt7hxkp9tvh.cloudfront.net/cfx/st” provider=”rtmp” duration=”2743″]
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This is the second of three podcasts on Aristophanes’ Clouds.
(more…)
Seated Socrates, fresco from ancient Ephesus
54:53 / 472 words
[jwplayer file=”http://cdn.counter-currents.com/radio/CCR-Johnson_Trial-of-Socrates-Aristophanes-CLOUDS-1-of-3.mp3″ streamer=”rtmp://s3cxt7hxkp9tvh.cloudfront.net/cfx/st” provider=”rtmp” duration=”3293″]
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This is the first of three podcasts on Aristophanes’ Clouds. This lecture opens with a discussion of the Sophist Antiphon.
(more…)
Richard Burton as Hamlet at the Old Vic, 1953
4,551 words
For 250 years Shakespeare has been central to the Western literary canon. No other writer of any land or age has enjoyed popularity and renown on such a colossal and astounding scale. (more…)
895 words
Jonathan Bowden
Lilith Before Eve
London: The Spinning Top Club, 2009
This book contains four plays which are more likely to be read than played in the theater. (more…)
