“God Helpe the Man”

What does it mean to be a man? This is a question that often touches upon the greatest issues of an age, and such was certainly the case for Edmund Spenser. This essay seeks to express the centrality of humility in the face of divine mercy as a part of Spenser’s view of the masculine male initiation into maturity, tracing it from a historical debate on the conflict between both secular warrior and religious scholarly cultures, through Renaissance discourse on courtly virtue, and finally in the tale of Spenser’s Redcrosse Knight itself.

Come, the Flight of the Heterodox

When tech giants like Facebook, Google, and Twitter have continued to openly collaborate in suppressing dissenting ideas and promoting false information only to testify that their algorithms are “completely neutral,” one needs to wonder in what other ways we are being manipulated.

From Warrior to King

Beowulf is the story of a tragic hero from a forgotten age who is thrust into kingship, and ultimately fails in his duty. By identifying Beowulf as the archetypal hero, demonstrating his rise into a fully-realized warrior, and subsequently explaining his failure to adapt as king, we might learn more about duty and how to mature with wisdom.