Reading for the Lustres

An introduction and welcome

Dante and Beatrice from Botticelli’s unfinished illustrations for the Commedia

Welcome to Apple Blossoms in a Mournful Wood, a Substack devoted to the intersection of poetry and philosophy. I have taught great books courses at the high school level for over six years. I hope to provide a range of philosophical investigations into literature and poetry, occasional observations on classical education and fine art, and share a small collection of essays which may be of general interest that I have been slowly polishing over the years.

My intellectual life tends towards the eclectic—while I plan to focus on Dante and Shakespeare, of whom T.S. Eliot said there is no third— you may encounter thoughts on the Desert Fathers, the late writings of Martin Heidegger, environmentalism, classical political philosophy, iconography, Russian novels, the poetry of Emily Dickinson and Gerard Manley Hopkins, the plays of Sophocles, and other works.

I believe that great books are perennially relevant and intrinsically worthy of study. I also think that they ought to be available to all, and I am inspired by the increasing availability of seminars and other online forms of great books education. To contribute a small effort to this end, I aim to provide many introductory analyses of works that are central to the life of the mind. Other essays will dive deeper, focusing on rhetorical technique and philosophical undercurrents. I do not read from any particular school, or through any lens. Instead, I try to let the books speak as directly as possible, informed by the belief that the best authors are both accessible to the common reader and worth listening to in all times and places. As Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “the modernness of all good books seems to give me an existence as wide as man” and therefore,“I read for the lustres,” those luminous moments of insight that strike deep enough to remain perpetually new. Like Hopkins, I aim to appreciate “all things counter, original, spare, strange” that lie buried in the great works.

In the coming months, you might find essays on trees in Dante’s Divine Comedy; on Mary Shelley’s critique of Jean Jacques Rousseau in Frankenstein; or the significance of the motif of sleep in Shakespeare’s Tempest. While I value irony, I think that earnestness is an underrated virtue in our age, and therefore do not hesitate to exhibit genuine enthusiasm. Expect substance over flashiness, delight over despair, and a pursuit of the beautiful in all its splendor. Let’s savor some great literature together.