Showing results by narrator "Denis Daly" in All Categories

First published in 1847, Jane Eyre was the last and most popular of the novels composed by the Brontë sisters. The narrative bristles with energy and passionate conviction, and is one of the first novels written from the perspective of a child.

This book is a critical analysis by an ex-Muslim activist of religion in general and of Islam in particular. It describes the author's journey out of Islam and discusses in depth the many common misconceptions about Islam that are prevalent both within and outside the Islamic world.

Sense and Sensibility follows the fortunes of sensible Elinor and her volatile younger sister, Marianne, as each searches for a spouse—a quest made urgent by the family’s financial embarrassment. While Elinor pursues the heart of clergyman, Edward Ferrars, Marianne impulsively falls in love with a glamorous but unscrupulous adventurer, Willoughby. Elinor sees trouble brewing but the enraptured Marianne does not. The sisters question each other’s choices in love.

Among the monuments of world literature, few works have been as influential as the Divine Comedy. Dante's compendious allegory of a journey through the world of the afterlife is significant on many levels. It established Italian as a literary language, and consolidated the position of Florentine Italian as the lingua franca of the Italian peninsula. As an engaging portrait of the social and intellectual life in medieval Florence it is unrivalled

The story concerns the young and vivacious Emma Watson, one of six children of a widowed clergyman. Emma has spent most of her life under the care of a wealthy aunt of liberal views, and has received a good education. However, when her aunt enters into a second marriage, Emma is forced to return to the family home, where she is affronted by the crass hunting for husbands undertaken her sisters, Penelope and Margaret.

Asoka, who reigned from 268 to 232 BC, was the most famous emperor of the Maurya Dynasty, which was the ruling clan of the Indian subcontinent from 321 BC to 185 BC. He was one of the most famous early converts to Buddhism and became one of its greatest evangelists. Today Asoka has a twofold interest for us: political and religious. The illustrious member of the great dynasty, of which he was the most celebrated representative, has left indelible traces of its achievements in Indian history. Moreover, he was the leader of a spiritual movement that spread rapidly throughout the East.

Joseph McCabe's study of papal history is unusual in that he takes a hostile view of the Roman Catholic Church in general, and of the papacy in particular. Raised as a Catholic, McCabe was ordained as a Franciscan priest in 1890, but by 1897 had abandoned both the priesthood and the Catholic faith and was in the process of establishing himself as an ardent secularist. He published over 200 books, many of which were critiques of the history and contemporary activities of the Catholic Church. 

Joseph McCabe (1867-1955) was a Catholic priest and scholar who abandoned his faith in the 1890s and later became a very prominent secular activist. He published over 250 books and pamphlets, covering a wide range of genres, including history, politics, biography, and popular science.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is a poetic marvel, a work that has survived translation into many languages, while losing little of its force and its wry character. As a source of literary imagery and memorable quotations it ranks with the Bible and the works of Shakespeare. While Edward Fitzgerald was neither the first nor the most scholarly of the English translators of the Rubaiyat, his translation has been largely responsible for the world-wide popularity of this monument of classic Persian poetry.

The Witch of Atlas is a poetic narrative, written in 1820 and published posthumously in 1824. The witch is the daughter of the Pleiades, the seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione. The plot is built around her adventures, during which she creates an androgynous creature, Hermaphroditus, who is both the companion of and the servant to the witch. She plays a series of pranks upon mankind, with the ultimate aim of revealing the essential foolishness of oppression and conflict and enabling the realization of a final Utopia.

Amongst all the figures in the history of Western art forms, Beethoven is one of the most radical and influential. Not only did he produce some of the most celebrated and recognizable music of all time, but his influence dramatically accelerated the development of musical composition. He was instrumental in raising the status of the composer from that of a court servant to one of an independent artist.

Although he was well known as an authority on spiritual traditions, Paul Carus was unusual in that he refused to align himself with any particular form of organized religion. In any case, his universalist view of God would probably have put him outside the allowable boundaries of Christian belief. Carus was particularly active in raising awareness of Eastern spiritual traditions in the West.

While he is most famous for his didactic fable, The Prophet, the works of Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) address a wide range of philosophical and social issues. The overriding theme of his narratives is not the religious universalism that he is supposed to represent, but rather the inevitable conflict between human aspirations and the remorseless machinations of fate.

As the Enlightenment movement was gathering strength in the early 18th century, various challenges to established religious faith were launched. In response, a number of celebrated commentators produced defences of religion and morality, and among these was Alexander Pope, who was inspired to write "some pieces on Human Life and Manners." The result was a collection of poems in rhyming couplets, designated "Epistles", which were published in instalments.

In As You Like It, a wicked Duke expels his virtuous brother, the lawful ruler, from his domains. The banished Duke takes refuge with his followers in the Forest of Arden, where they live as free a life as did Robin Hood and his merry men.

Carlo Collodi's whimsical recasting of the myth of Pygmalion and Galatea was first published in 1883 and has since become an established classic of children's literature. Geppetto, a poor wood carver, receives a piece of wood from which he carves a marionette. Much to his surprise, the puppet springs to life and embarks on a wild series of adventures.

Unlike their biblical precursors, Kahlil Gibran's parables espouse the importance of personal spiritual insight rather than moral rectitude. In Gibran's view, sin and virtue, mercy and justice, and sanity and madness are all sides of the one coin - one cannot exist without its opposite.

The secret to success has been around since our ancestors crawled out of their cave, and went looking for a Mastodon for lunch. It’s a positive attitude. But even those with that attitude need a boost now and then, and here’s an hour of great ideas to listen to on that commute, so you will hit the ground running. A story masterfully told by that voice from “Down Under”, Denis Daly.

Unlike many of his contemporaries, the English poet Francis Thompson (1859-1907) was a true mystic. While more celebrated poets, like Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Arnold, were content to express their religious leanings in traditional devotional formulae, Thompson strove to portray the divine directly, in all its terrifying majesty. In this way he is more akin to earlier masters, like Henry Vaughan and George Herbert, than to the poets of his own day.

This pacifist manifesto was published in 1917, as the First World War was dragging to a close. The resolution of this catastrophic conflict resulted in a reconstruction of Europe, the fallout from which led to an even more cataclysmic war. Russell delineates the problem as being due to the institutionalizing of national hostilities and the consequent apportioning of blame among the warring parties. In his exposition Russell considers the roles played by a number of institutions, social and political, reserving some his sharpest criticism for organized religion.