Essays

Plato’s Idea of the Teacher Spring 2013

In this essay, the second of two parts, philosophy professor Pedro Blas González explores critical themes from Plato’s classic dialogue.

Human Nature, Allegory, and Truth in Plato’s Republic Spring 2013

In this essay, the first of two parts, philosophy professor Pedro Blas González explores critical themes from Plato’s classic dialogue.

Marital Distress and the 2012 T. S. Eliot Poetry Prize Winter 2013

Sharon Olds’s “marital distress poetry” was awarded the 2012 T. S. Eliot Prize. The Wall Street Poet looks for some cultural or poetic significance in Olds’s verse.

The State of American Liberal Education These Days Fall 2012

Peter Augustine Lawler says that the requirements of being middle class—of living in a meritocracy based on productivity—gradually destroys liberal education in America, but two countercultures continue to preserve serious education that teaches people to live well.

Jacques Barzun, 1907–2012 Fall 2012

“Neither an unthinking optimist nor a congenital pessimist, Barzun took the long view that only history can provide.”

To College Students Considering a Course in American Poetry Summer 2012

The Wall Street poet advises students, before registering for a class on poetry, to browse the poems of the last decade. We live in a period of strife—to say the least. Surely some contemporary American poet has observed something memorable in verse?

Joseph Mitchell and the Free Life Summer 2012

The New Yorker’s Joseph Mitchell wrote with an almost Burkean enthusiasm for the neighborhoods, physical and metaphysical, of his city, the communities in which lived an array of eccentrics, oddballs, misfits, lonely, gifted, strange, surly, lovable people that could not be found so concentratedly in any other city in the world.

Searching while Blindfolded Summer 2012

A comment on a silly piece by Russell Jacoby.

On Statesmanship: The Case of John Adams Spring 2012

‘The Farther from the Scene of Horror, the Easier the Talk’ Spring 2012

Paul Fussell, who died this month, was perhaps more a curmudgeon than a conservative, but his harsh language was intended to counteract propaganda and euphemism and so recover the reality of the human in the face of war and other cultural assaults. Robert Stove provides an obituary appropriate for Memorial Day.

On Statesmanship: The Case of John Adams Spring 2012

Adrienne Rich and an Assessment of Contemporary American Poetry Spring 2012

Even measured against the hyperbole of her obituaries, which are less about the quality and resonance of her poetry and more about the ideologies of her admirers, it is possible to assess the public value of contemporary American poetry in the context of Adrienne Rich’s words.

Herrick and Donne and the Problems of Modernist Poetics Fall 2011

Signorelli looks at past critiques of the metaphysical poets to suggest the problematic nature of modernist poetry. Do poets like Eliot and Wilbur give delight, or are they masters of frigidity?

Fortunate Friendships Fall 2011

In this excerpt from his new memoir, The Man in the Middle, Tim Goeglein discusses the profound influence on his life of the thought and friendship of Russell Kirk.

Santayana’s Standing Fall 2011

In this response to David Dilworth's review of his edition of two books by Santayana, James Seaton argues that Santayana was attacking the self-contradictions of the political correctness of his day.

Peter J. Stanlis (1920–2011) Summer 2011

Farewell to a great friend, Burke scholar, and one of the most influential American men of letters in the twentieth century.

Otto von Habsburg (20 November 1912–4 July 2011) Summer 2011

A eulogy for one of the great defenders of Christian Europe. May he rest in peace.

Poetry and the Common Language Spring 2011

Signorelli argues that contemporary poetry's quest for natural, colloquial expression is fundamentally misdirected. Poetry truly is an "artificial" mode of narrative expression, which is necessary to rise above the debased rhetoric of the modern age. We do not stand in need of a return to nature; we need a return to art.

Newman’s ‘Idea’ and the Crisis of the Secular University Spring 2011

Craig Bernthal of California State University, Fresno, looks candidly at the current state of university education in light of John Henry Newman's enduring work, The Idea of the University. As Newman well knew, education has its own built in set of laws. The consequences for evading these laws may not long be avoided.

The Public Responsibilities of Known American Poets Winter 2011

In this original essay, Gene Schlanger, the Wall Street Poet, reflects on the potential good of poetry in an age when the known poets cannot attract an audience or attention.

Conservatism in Germany Volume 47, Number 3–4 (Fall 2010)

The Story of Carlton Hayes Volume 47, Number 1 (Winter 2010)

A Foreign Policy for (Probably Not Very Many) Americans Volume 46, Number 4 (Winter 2008)

‘And Therefore as Stranger Give It Welcome’ Volume 46, Number 4 (Winter 2008)

The Sword of Education Volume 46, Number 4 (Winter 2008)

From Tradition to ‘Values Conservatism’ Volume 46, Number 4 (Winter 2008)

The Many Roots of American Order Volume 46, Number 4 (Winter 2008)

Lost Causes and Gained Causes Volume 46, Number 4 (Winter 2008)

Stealing Dorothy Volume 46, Number 3 (Fall 2008)

The ‘Time’ of Elizabeth Madox Roberts Volume 46, Number 3 (Fall 2008)

Robert Traver: Anatomy of a Fisherman Volume 46, Number 3 (Fall 2008)

On Brooklyn’s Side Volume 46, Number 3 (Fall 2008)

What About Booth? Volume 46, Number 3 (Fall 2008)

The Conservative Exiles’ Reading List Website Exclusives (2007–2008)

In Memoriam: Richard Durant Volume 46, Number 2 (Summer 2008)

The Non-Human World of China Miéville Volume 46, Number 2 (Summer 2008)

The Witness Revisited Volume 46, Number 1 (Spring 2008)

Sketches of Painterly Lives Volume 46, Number 1 (Spring 2008)

From the Nightstand of a Bookman . . . Volume 46, Number 1 (Spring 2008)

The State of Biography Volume 46, Number 1 (Spring 2008)

A Tribute to Jacques Barzun on His Centennial Volume 45, Number 3 (Fall 2007)

Red Mist Volume 45, Number 1 (Winter 2007)

Ernest van den Haag (1914–2002) Volume 43, Number 1 (Fall 2003)

Letter from Italy Volume 44, Number 3 (Summer 2006)

The Splendor of Dedication Volume 34, Number 2 (Fall 1994)