Revenge Of The Dwems -- By: Donald T. Williams

Journal: Global Journal of Classical Theology
Volume: GJCT 05:3 (Oct 2006)
Article: Revenge Of The Dwems
Author: Donald T. Williams


Revenge Of The Dwems

A One-Act Play/Socratic Tetralog

Donald T. Williams

(B.A., Taylor University, MDiv, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, PhD, University of Georgia) is Professor of English and Director of the School of Arts and Sciences at Toccoa Falls College in the hills of NE Georgia. A past president of the Evangelical Philosophical Society, he is the author of The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit (Broadman, 1994), Inklings of Reality: Essays toward a Christian Philosophy of Letters (Toccoa Falls College Press, 1996), and The Disciple’s Prayer (Christian Publications, 1999), as well as numerous articles, poems, and reviews in The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Philosophia Christi, Christian Scholar’s Review, Christianity and Literature, Christianity Today, etc. His most recent book is Mere Humanity: G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien on the Human Condition (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 2006).

Author’s Note: I have argued in Inklings of Reality: Essays toward a Christian Philosophy of Letters (Toccoa Falls, Ga.: Toccoa Falls College Press, 1996) that reading is a conversation in which the writers of the past and present conduct an ongoing dialog about the Great Questions, a dialog in which the Reader is enabled to participate. I offer the following as an example of what might happen in the kind of dialog (or tetralog, in this case) that can result in the Reader’s mind. Lest it be thought that I have created a Straw Man, I should say that I have actually had contemporary scholars say to me (with a straight face!) many the things that I have put into the mouth of Post Modernicus. If he is a Straw Man, it is because he fulfills T. S. Eliot’s prophecy: “We are the hollow men / We are the stuffed men / Leaning together / Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!”

Dramatis Personae:

Socrates of Athens

Erasmus of Rotterdam Novus Criticus Post Modernicus Three men occupy comfortable chairs in what seems to be the Senior Common Room of a well-endowed university. The first, wearing a threadbare black robe and a skull cap, is meticulously copying passages in Greek and Latin from large codexes into a smaller notebook. The second, clad in a somewhat outdated suit, the thin lapels of which seem to place him in the 1950’s, clenches a pipe between his teeth. He is going over the pages of a book of lyric poetry with a fine-toothed comb, aided by a magnifying glass. The third gentleman wears proudly an almost new suit of clothes recently purchased second hand from a slightly disreputable Emperor. He is, in plain terms, buck naked, but the first two are either too polite--or too absorbed in their own work--to notice. He is slowly dripping acid onto the pages of his book with a medicine dropper. They are joined b...

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