Grant Wood, New Road, 1939
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
In the Nation's Capital
HUMAN AFFAIRS
Dialogues on events
that shape our world
MEMORY AND
IDENTITYExploring our
heritage
Testing our tradition
BEAUTY WILL SAVE
THE WORLD
Discovering the world
of arts: performances
and presentations
MEETINGS AT
THE CROSSROADS
Face to face with...
A place where roads meet. A time of change.
"If thou among the
eternal
Ideas art numbered,
which the eternal
mind
Deigns not should
e'er be clothed in
fleshly form,
And in frail human
frames
Learn with what ills
our mortal life doth
swarm;
Or if some other
earth be mine of
those
Innumerable worlds
wherewith heav'n
flames,
And, brighter than
the Sun, the nearest
star
Through kinder
atmosphere above
thee glows:
From here, where
days are brief and
skies soon darken,
To this, an unknown
lover's hymn, oh
hearken"

Giacomo Leopardi
"To my lady"
BEAUTY WILL SAVE THE WORLD
Discovering the world of arts:
performances and presentations
CROSSROADS LITERARY SERIES

Pursuit of Happiness in Literature

Shakespeare: We are such stuff as
dreams are made of
The Tempest (IV,156-157)  
With Dana Gioia, November 13, 2007

PHOTO GALLERY




Jack Kerouac: All that road going, all the people
dreaming...
With Kevin Starr - January 16, 2008


PHOTO GALLERY



Flannery O'Connor: The life you save
may be your own
With Paul Elie - February 2008









F. Scott Fitzgerald: Gatsby and the Green Light
With Matthew J. Bruccoli
ABOUT THE SERIES

Little wonder that the
desire for happiness
occupies so much space
in the world of literature.  
It is the expression of the
drama that we all live, the
mystery of ourselves that
inevitably spurs us on
toward meaning.  We find
it at the very dawn of
literary creation, with the
quest of Gilgamesh, the
king, for immortality. As
Shakespeare reminds us,
literature is a mirror held
up to life.  So every age
provides new heroes,
whose many paths we
trace in an effort to
discover our own human
face.  Is there one who
has not suffered the
anguish of Achilles at the
death of his friend or with
Odysseus has not felt his
heart swell as he
ventured out on the sea
of life?  Even in his old
age, Tennyson’s Ulysses
successfully bids his
mariners (you and I, that
is) to follow him, “It is not
too late to seek a newer
world … for my purpose
holds to sail beyond the
sunset.”  Who among us
is not tempted to board
the ship once more?  
What is it that holds sway
over our hearts?  It is the
moon, so impossible to
obtain and yet so dearly
desired, of Camus’
Caligula; it is Leopardi’s
“Dominant Thought”, it is
the Old Man and the Sea’
s biggest catch, Gatsby’s
Green Light.  We find
ourselves moved, again
and again, by the
thought, the hope, that
our lives are made for
something, something
both mysterious and
great.   In this series, we
gladly return to the
pursuit of happiness as
portrayed by some of our
favorite authors.  No
matter how vaguely this
desire is expressed, we at
Crossroads recognize it
as the thirst for the Infinite
that defines each one of
us, as the elementary
proof that an Ultimate and
Beautiful answer waits us.