Anthony M. Esolen

Esolen shows how imagination is snuffed out at practically every turn, and then he confronts contemporary trends in parenting and schooling by reclaiming lost traditions. This practical, insightful book is essential reading for any parent.

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child

Play dates, soccer practice, day care, political correctness, drudgery without facts, television, video games, constant supervision, endless distractions: these and other insidious trends in child rearing and education are now the hallmarks of childhood. As author Anthony Esolen demonstrates in this elegantly written, often wickedly funny book, almost everything we are doing to children now constricts their imaginations, usually to serve the ulterior motives of the constrictors.
Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child takes square aim at these accelerating trends, in a bitingly witty style reminiscent of C. S. Lewis, while offering parents—and children—hopeful alternatives. Esolen shows how imagination is snuffed out at practically every turn: in the rearing of children almost exclusively indoors; in the flattening of love to sex education, and sex education to prurience and hygiene; in the loss of traditional childhood games; in the refusal to allow children to organize themselves into teams; in the effacing of the glorious differences between the sexes; in the dismissal of the power of memory, which creates the worst of all possible worlds in school—drudgery without even the merit of imparting facts; in the strict separation of the child’s world from the adult’s; and in the denial of the transcendent, which places a low ceiling on the child’s developing spirit and mind.
But Esolen doesn’t stop at pointing out the problem; he offers clear solutions as well. With charming stories from his own boyhood and an assist from the master authors and thinkers of the Western tradition, Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child is a welcome respite from the overwhelming banality of contemporary culture. Interwoven throughout this indispensable guide to child rearing is a rich tapestry of the literature, music, art, and thought that once enriched the lives of American children.
Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child confronts contemporary trends in parenting and schooling by reclaiming lost traditions. This practical, insightful book is essential reading for any parent who cares about the paltry thing that childhood has become, and who wants to give a child something beyond the dull drone of today’s culture.

Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of your Child

"An analysis of ways in which modern education, popular culture, political culture, and technology wittingly or unwittingly enslave children to compulsions. The book seeks to elaborate on the concept of freedom as for something and not merely from something, while laying out the case for lost wisdom and the meaning of being fully human"--

Ten Ways to Destroy the Humanity of Your Child

Life Under Compulsion

In Ironies of Faith, celebrated Dante scholar and translator Anthony Esolen provides a profound meditation upon the use and place of irony in Christian art and in the Christian life. Beginning with an extended analysis of irony as an essentially dramatic device, Esolen explores those manifestations of irony that appear prominently in Christian thinking and art: ironies of time (for Christians believe in divine Providence, but live in a world whose moments pass away); ironies of power (for Christians believe in an almighty God who took on human flesh, and whose “weakness” is stronger than our greatest enemy, death); ironies of love (for man seldom knows whom to love, or how, or even whom it is that in the depths of his heart he loves best); and the figure of the Child (for Christians ever hear the warning voice of their Savior, who says that unless we become like unto one of these little ones, we shall not enter the Kingdom of God).Esolen's finely wrought study draws from Augustine (Confessions), Dante (The Divine Comedy), Shakespeare (The Tempest), and Tolkien (“Leaf, By Niggle”); Francois Mauriac (A Kiss for the Leper), Milton (Paradise Lost), and Alessandro Manzoni (The Betrothed); the poems of George Herbert and Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Edmund Spenser (Amoretti); Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol), Dostoyevsky (The Brothers Karamazov), and the anonymous author of the medieval poem Pearl, among other works. Readers who treasure the Christian literary tradition should not miss this illuminating book.

The Laughter at the Heart of Christian Literature

Ironies of Faith

In our hearts, we know that every event in our lives is providential and that each of us plays a critical role in the unfolding of the story God has written. We believe that God's will is anchored deep within our soul, and so too is the desire to know it and to live it. In these pages, acclaimed Catholic author Anthony Esolen claims that the story of your life has already been written and can be discovered by considering the life and person of Jesus. Only in God does the world possess meaning, and therefore only in relation to God are our lives genuine stories. Here, Esolen offers a brilliant reflection in ways that only he can upon what it means for any of us, and for all of us together, to dwell in a world of stories. And he shows how we can take events in the life of Christ as the touchstone for all that happens to us on our journey from time to eternity. Indeed, this book will finally awaken in you the unshakable confidence that despite even the tragic stories of this life, the good things you've known and loved are not gone forever: all that is lost will be found; all will be restored; all will be perfected. Truly, there will be a new heaven and a new earth (Rev 21:1). Like the star that led the Magi to Jesus, the wisdom in these pages will lead you to Christ. It will instill in you hope that increases every step of your way.

How Our Story Is God's Story

Reflections on the Christian Life

In Ironies of Faith, celebrated Dante scholar and translator Anthony Esolen provides a profound meditation upon the use and place of irony in Christian art and in the Christian life. Beginning with an extended analysis of irony as an essentially dramatic device, Esolen explores those manifestations of irony that appear prominently in Christian thinking and art: ironies of time (for Christians believe in divine Providence, but live in a world whose moments pass away); ironies of power (for Christians believe in an almighty God who took on human flesh, and whose "weakness" is stronger than our greatest enemy, death); ironies of love (for man seldom knows whom to love, or how, or even whom it is that in the depths of his heart he loves best); and the figure of the Child (for Christians ever hear the warning voice of their Savior, who says that unless we become like unto one of these little ones, we shall not enter the Kingdom of God). Esolen's finely wrought study draws from Augustine (Confessions), Dante (The Divine Comedy), Shakespeare (The Tempest), and Tolkien ("Leaf, By Niggle"); Francois Mauriac (A Kiss for the Leper), Milton (Paradise Lost), and Alessandro Manzoni (The Betrothed); the poems of George Herbert and Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Edmund Spenser (Amoretti); Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol), Dostoyevsky (The Brothers Karamazov), and the anonymous author of the medieval poem Pearl, among other works. Readers who treasure the Christian literary tradition should not miss this illuminating book.

Dante Alighieri

An introduction and notes accompany this classic epic poem about a spiritual pilgrim being led by Virgil through the nine circles of hell.

The Inferno

Defending Marriage: Twelve Arguments for Sanity is a rousing, compelling defense of traditional, natural marriage. Here, Anthony Esolen—professor at Providence College and a prolific writer uses moral, theological, and cultural arguments to defend this holy and ancient institution, bedrock of society—and to illuminate the threats it faces from modern revolutions in law, public policy, and sexual morality. Inside, discover: - Traditional marriage’s roots in age-old religious, cultural, and natural laws - Why gay marriage is a metaphysical impossibility - How acceptance and legal sanction of gay marriage threatens the family - How the state becomes a religion when it attempts to elevate gay marriage, and enshrine as a civil right all consensual sex - How divorce and sexual license have brought marriage to the brink - How today’s culture has impoverished and emptied love of its true meaning In Defending Marriage Esolen expertly and succinctly identifies the cultural dangers of gay marriage and the Sexual Revolution which paved its way. He offers a stirring defense of true marriage, the family, culture, and love—and provides the compelling arguments that will return us to sanity, and out of our current morass.

Twelve Arguments for Sanity

Defending Marriage

Defending Marriage: Twelve Arguments for Sanity is a rousing, compelling defense of traditional, natural marriage. Here, Anthony Esolen--professor at Providence College and a prolific writer uses moral, theological, and cultural arguments to defend this holy and ancient institution, bedrock of society--and to illuminate the threats it faces from modern revolutions in law, public policy, and sexual morality. Inside, discover: - Traditional marriage's roots in age-old religious, cultural, and natural laws - Why gay marriage is a metaphysical impossibility - How acceptance and legal sanction of gay marriage threatens the family - How the state becomes a religion when it attempts to elevate gay marriage, and enshrine as a civil right all consensual sex - How divorce and sexual license have brought marriage to the brink - How today's culture has impoverished and emptied love of its true meaning In Defending Marriage, Esolen expertly and succinctly identifies the cultural dangers of gay marriage and the Sexual Revolution which paved its way. He offers a stirring defense of true marriage, the family, culture, and love--and provides the compelling arguments that will return us to sanity, and out of our current morass.

Anthony M. Esolen

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