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Daniel E. Ritchie, professor of English and founder of the Humanities Program at Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota, is author of The Fullness of Knowing: Modernity and Postmodernity from Defoe to Gadamer (Baylor University Press, 2010) and editor of a collection of Edmund Burke's writings, Further Reflections on the Revolution in France (Liberty Fund, 1992).

September 27, 2019|Abraham Lincoln, Edmund Burke, Greg Weiner, prudence

The First Virtue of Old Whigs: Prudence in Burke and Lincoln

by Daniel E. Ritchie|3 Comments

Image of Abraham Lincoln from Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, LC-DIG-ppmsca-19200 (digital file from original photograph) LC-USZ62-15303 (b&w film copy neg.) and Portrait of Edmund Burke from studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds oil on canvas, circa 1769 or after, National Portrait Gallery, London, NPG 655

Weiner’s Old Whigs offers a persuasive account of how Burke and Lincoln negotiate the tensions between principle and prudence.

August 31, 2018|Anthony Trollope, Doctor Thorne, Erica Jong, Harvey Mansfield, honor, masculinity, The Chronicles of Barsetshire, The Small House at Allington, The Warden

Anthony Trollope and the “Trouthe” about Manhood

by Daniel E. Ritchie|4 Comments

Anthony Trollope's character Louis Trevelyan from "He Knew He Was Right"

He isn’t known for tough-guy fiction, but Trollope’s characters enact what it means to be a man.

January 23, 2017|David Bromwich, Statesmanship and Party Government, The Intellectual Life of Edmund Burke

Powerful Sympathies Powerfully Restrained

by Daniel E. Ritchie|1 Comment

Watching the NCAA Final Four with my teenage boys some years ago, I began to lament the vanity of human wishes. “Just think, boys, this game is the high point of life for many of the athletes on the floor.” “That’s right, Dad,” replied the older. “They’re never going to give a lecture on Edmund Burke or write an article on Edmund Burke. All they’re going to do is lead their team to a national championship in front of 50 million people.” Well! Even if there are fewer than 50 million of you, I feel immensely privileged to write about David…