Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.
As always, listeners asked more mailbag questions than we could respond to in one episode, so we continue answering them here for subscribers. In this second round we take up: a playlist of KYE's Straussian-related episodes; (Straussian) esoteric writing versus (French) death of the author and the art of writing (and interpretation); prose style—what it is, why it matters, its relationship to poetry, and the rhythms of Norman Maclean; a "Straussian" reading of Steely Dan; and why liberalism is (mostly) worth defending.
Thank you to everyone who attended our live event in NYC on Thursday! We had a great time.
Sources:
Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing (1952)
— Thoughts on Machiavelli(1958)
Stanley Rosen, Hermeneutics as Politics(1987)
Wallace Stevens, "The Snow Man," Poetry, Oct 1921
Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories(1976)
— The Norman Maclean Reader(2008)
Edmund White, Nocturnes for the King of Naples (1978)
Marilynne Robinson, Gilead(2004)
W.H. Auden, "Friday's Child," (1958)
Sam Adler-Bell, "Can Liberalism Stop Being So Darn Liberal?" The New Republic, June 20, 2024.
