4,445 words
Why does Scruton not examine the role of Melot in Death-Devoted Heart more closely?
Tristan und Isolde echoes themes from Romeo and Juliet and Othello, so it is unlikely that Wagner did not have both plays in mind when he composed his opera. The Othello theme is especially clear in the regrets expressed by King Marke that he could not clearly see, just as Othello could not clearly see. Melot, like Iago, faces death if he cannot make good the claim of adultery; (more…)
5,223 words
Sir Roger Scruton, who died of cancer on January 12th, 2020 at the age of seventy-five, wrote more than fifty books, was the editor of the conservative publication The Salisbury Review, and in his final years was briefly chairman — dismissed and subsequently reinstated — of the Conservative Government’s “Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission.”
I once met Roger Scruton. He invited me to his flat in London in 1982 where I remember enjoying his excellent wine. (more…)
2,309 words
Richard Weaver
The Ethics of Rhetoric
Muriwai Books, 2017 (1953).
The great task that lies ahead of us is to persuade our people of the rightness of our ideas. It behooves us, then, to study the art of rhetoric, or persuasion. Richard Weaver’s The Ethics of Rhetoric is a rigorous and intelligent introduction to this vanishing art. (more…)
6,384 words
Part 1 of 2
Author’s Note:
The following text is a transcript by V. S. of the introductory lecture of an eight-lecture course called The Trial of Socrates. The lecture was delivered on September 1, 1998. I have previously published six of the lectures, but the Introduction and the final lecture, on Plato’s Phaedo, were thought to be lost. (more…)
