2,418 words
Tom Wolfe
The Bonfire of the Vanities
New York: Bantam, 1987
When the Left finally gets around to banning (or burning) classic novels, Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities will likely be on the top of the list. Unlike Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Bonfire’s great sin is not merely being linguistically taboo but substantively taboo as well. Read more …
“Black Deeds Must Be Cur’d with Death”: Justice & Revenge in Renaissance Drama
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: Read more …