Paideia Today Wil Friesen

William Faulkner is acknowledge to be one of the greatest American authors of the 20th century. His scintillating writing, masterful plots, mesmerizing characters, and shocking perspective make him the other great pioneer of Southern Gothic (along with Flannery O'Connor) and one of the Southern Renaissance's most intriguing voices. In this episode, Drs. Masson and Friesen focus in on one of his best known short stories, "A Rose for Emily," exploring its curious mix of the macabre and the illuminating.

Today we discuss a flagship work of Post-Modernism, Waiting for Godot. This is one of the seminal works which signals the way forward for culture and its art in the Post-Modernist era (1945-2001). We explore the evolution of our current angst, nihilism and vast loneliness. It is easy to dismiss this play as ridiculous, which it is, but that does not keep it from being incredibly important to where we find ourselves today. 

J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) is the greatest author of the the twentieth century.  At least he is by popular acclaim.  In the eyes of the critics and the literary establishment, he has been virtually ignored.  In this episode we open what could be a lengthy discussion of this author, seeking to explain the utter divergence of opinion on Tolkien.

Franz Kafka (1883-1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature.  His reputation, however, only really advanced in the light of the atrocities of the Nazi regime.  Kafka was Jewish.  Like Orwell, Kafka's name has become synonymous with the type of world he portrays, in Kafka's case a world operating under an absurd series of conditions in which human freedom is rendered meaningless, and in which human nature becomes utterly dehumanized.

Today's episode focuses on Flannery O'Connor (1925–64), an American writer famed for her 'southern Gothic' style.  We will read O'Connor as a Christian realist who portrays the depravity of the human condition with unusual acuity, set as it is in sharp relief against the backdrop of Southern gentility.

In today's episode of Paideia Today, we look at the famed British novelist George Orwell (1903-50), whose work is so harrowing the adjective Orwellian has come to describe the peculiarly modern form of totalitarian technocracy.