Reveille had the privilege of first publishing three short stories from Daniel Fitzpatrick, “Treat,” “Killings,” and “Love is What Happens,” which now appear in his newly released collection Red Robichaux and Other Southern Moralists. The collection is a largely interconnected anthology of 15 stories, most following two members of the same New Orleans family separated by two generations, with others unrelated to the interconnected saga interspersed throughout the book. The first story, “The Bridge” introduces readers to Janelle, the protagonist of four of the stories whose life bookends the collection. Janelle’s first three stories show readers her childhood and adolescence, while her final tale “Janelle Goes Home” shows Janelle much closer to the end of her life as she grieves the loss of both her husband and her adult daughter.

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Fitzpatrick, having never himself been a young girl, seems to do remarkably well at portraying one and writing from her perspective; though I, having likewise never been a young girl, may not be the ideal judge of that. Of the four Janelle stories, “Janelle Goes Home” was by far the strongest, and was a beautiful depiction of loss without. In some ways, Janelle has suffered as anyone who lives to old age can expect to suffer, through the death of a spouse, loved ones, friends, or parents, while in others, she has endured suffering that all would hope to avoid, the agony of losing a child. Nevertheless, Fitzpatrick’s story portrays Janelle’s pain without painting a picture of despair. She still has her daughter’s children, takes joy in them, and hopes to see her lost child again soon.

The other three Janelle stories, “The Bridge,” “Treat,” and “Red Robichaux’s Bum Steer,” stood out less on their own, though they certainly serve a purpose in the overarching tale and ought not to have been omitted. I am curious to learn why Fitzpatrick’s anthology draws its name from “Red Robichaux’s Bum Steer,” which I found to be the weakest of Janelle’s part of the saga, and my second least story favorite overall. Fitzpatrick’s stories never display a prudish fear of portraying reality as it is, with all its human failings and less appealing aspects, which is to be commended, but “Red Robichaux” seemed almost cartoonishly crass. It contrasts with the artfully subtle way he communicates to readers that Janelle’s father is having an affair in “The Bridge,” making the information obvious while showing it through the eyes, or ears, of a small child.

The other primary narrative thread follows Pud, Janelle’s grandson, with whom she shares her final tale. Throughout the collection, we see Pud grow from childhood to young adulthood; unlike with Janelle, readers are left to guess at how Pud’s story conculdes. The New Orleans setting is an essential part of both Janelle’s and Pud’s stories, and Fitzpatrick expertly portrays both the older setting of Janelle’s life and the more familiar time of Pud’s.

Pud is the protagonist of my favorite story in the collection, “Models.” In it, we see Pud abroad, studying at Oxford and hoping to draw the attention of a girl whom he sees in a church. That story is reminiscent of the first part of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, “Et In Arcadia Ego,” and the characters in it reference him directly. Due to his unconventional and somewhat archaic academic habits and dress, Pud eventually draws the attention of the girl though not necessarily the sort of attention for which he hoped. The short vignette from Pud’s college life feels true to the experience of a young man newly arrived at college, enamored of his new friends and surroundings.

While “Models” was my favorite story, I think that generally the stories that didn’t tie into the Janelle/Pud saga worked better as individual works. “Leaving Fiesole,” which I helped to edit and publish in the now defunct Incarnation Journal, is my favorite of the standalones. It depicts a group of young adults on a trip to Italy, and Fitzpatrick masterfully matches its writing style with the decadent feeling of the story, using more elaborate and florid language than in other parts in the collection. “The Baby” seemed to be the darkest tale in the book, though, despite its depressing subject—the disfiguring injury of a child—the story ends on a hopeful note without straying into the saccharin. “Just Another Lawyer” was the strangest story in the collection, and seemed the most out of place with the work as a whole; nevertheless, it is well crafted and worth reading, with a darkly comic conclusion.

“Purgatory” was my least favorite story in the collection. In the vast majority of the stories, Fitzpatrick handles the faith of his characters, a faith I share, well, portraying it as a fact of their lives while never preaching to his audience. In “Purgatory” however, the Catholicism of the characters seems far less natural; they exude a sort of excessive, saccharine piety that I find extremely off-putting.

Overall, Fitzpatrick’s Red Robichaux and Other Southern Moralists is exactly the sort of literature I hoped to promote and publish through Reveille: work that gets at the good, true, and beautiful without artlessly preaching to its readers.

You can find Fitzpatrick’s book on the publisher’s website here or on Amazon here.

Seamus Othot is the head editor at Reveille. When he’s not reviewing submissions, he is working as a full-time investigative reporter. He graduated from the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts with a bachelor’s degree in 2023.

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In many ways, modernity has sought to sterilize the world. But, in addition to more overt movements such as eugenics and birth control, modern society and culture have waged a more subtle, more dangerous, and more pervasive war on joy. That is to say, the societal prioritization of efficiency and convenience over all else systematically banishes joy from every aspect of life, and especially from the home. For it is in the home, in the everyday economy of spousal and family life, where the majority of people find the source and heart of their joy; marriage and the family not only constitute for their members a figure of the Divine economy wherein true joy is found, but they also provide the primary context in which Grace is merited. But the familial economy, like the national economy, developed along with modern industry and technology into a merely utilitarian affair. The home, once the source of endless unseen and intimate wonders, has become instead the breeding ground of acedia, or boredom. This is, of course, deeply harmful to the human person. In the modern world, man harbors a deep desire he cannot quite explain; he has nostalgia for a home and a family he never had, and may never find. Throughout the 20th Century, many authors have offered variations on this theme. Among others, Wendell Berry, Giuseppe di Lampedusa, and G.K. Chesterton identify nostalgia with the domestic boredom brought about by the modern idolization of potency.

The concept of spiritual boredom (acedia, ἀκηδία) is as ancient as Homer, and has been widely recognized since the beginning of the Christian spiritual tradition. In the Secunda Secundae of his Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas defines this vice as an oppressive sorrow when occasioned with a cause for legitimate spiritual joy. This sorrow so weighs upon man that he ceases to desire to act toward the cause for joy in question; for this reason, “acedia” is also translated as “sloth.” Neither is this boredom a purely personal vice; it can infect an entire community, rendering the good which the community strives for lifeless and forgotten. Hence, St, Benedict counsels in his Rule that such a vice is “not only unprofitable to [an individual] but a hindrance to others.” In the modern world, this spiritual sorrow is brought about by the prioritization of the lower goods of power and convenience over the simple flourishing of families.

Another way to consider this reversal is by reference to act and potency. The modern world desires above all the ability to do more and have more, without considering why more is better. Technology and the industrial economy seek merely to increase efficiency and multiply profits; farmers like Troy Chatham in Wendell Berry’s novel Jayber Crow exemplify this mentality. They embrace the new technological way of life in order to gain more potency in the form of wealth and technological advancement. What the Troy Chathams of the world neglect, however, is that every potency ought to be for the sake of an actuality; prosperity and convenience ought not to be sought for their own sake, but for the sake of living well. Unfortunately, the modern world has no concept of such goods. Profits must increase, and technology must advance, irrespective of their contributions to human flourishing. Ultimately, like Troy’s leveraging of his farm and sale of his timber, the modern family must sell itself out to such advancement, becoming instead an instrument for the sake of constant material progress, a merely utilitarian institution.

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Many novelists present examples of this utilization of marriage and family for the sake of progress, and the domestic unhappiness which comes from it. The Salina family in Lampedusa’s Leopard seems to have traded any vestige of virtue and nobility it once had for the opportunity to stay in power via empty political posturing and ceremony. Although liberalism, in the form of the Italian Risorgimento, is changing the world around them, their concern is not whether the new values proposed by the new government will effect their happiness but whether it will render them powerless or not. All the efforts of Don Fabrizio to maintain power, however, preserve nothing; they instead make him and his family miserable, longing for the stability and grandeur of a bygone era. Cecelia and Roy Overholt in Jayber Crow experience a similar disillusionment. Cecelia, who is mesmerized by the progressive and fashionable culture of Los Angeles, places social advancement over familial good. She consequently sees her husband as, “good raw material, a man she could make something out of.” This, of course leads her to a life of unhappiness with what she has, which comes to an end after she is betrayed by the progressive culture she idolizes, which places her in a nursing home in return for her devotion. Finally Chesterton includes commentary on the subject in his novella Manalive, where Dr. Pym the scientist reduces marriage to a mere stage “in the long advance of mankind,” which has no discernible goal and which has in fact been outlived. In other words, Pym thinks that marriage is but a mere social construct that has outlived its usefulness. This opinion echoes the initial attitudes of the inhabitants of Beacon House towards matrimony, which they all desired, though they did not know it. In all three cases, the characters long for something lacking in their lives, and seek to fill the void with the trifling pleasures and positions of modernity. Little do they know that the remedy to their nostalgia is right in front of them, in their very domestic life.

Of these three insightful novelists, Chesterton gives the clearest and most direct solution to domestic boredom: to elope. Marriage and the family are so ground down, he observes, that one must take drastic measures to be fully alive in one’s domesticity. In order to break out of the utilitarian monotony of everyday life, the character Innocent Smith periodically leaves his wife so that he can come and take her away to be married again. It is a shocking thing to do, but that is what modernity warrants; it takes something drastic to affect a radical re-prioritization of the good of matrimonial and domestic love over those of power and convenience.

Chesterton’s advice still holds true today; with our culture continually becoming more subservient to inhuman forces of progress, the longing for a family and home which we never had and which we scarcely recognize is reaching a fever pitch. Thus, like Chesterton, we must be bolder in our efforts, in the family and otherwise, and fight against a culture of utility by choosing what seems pointless and useless, because it is good for its own sake.

Jonathan M. Wright is PhD student at the University of St. Andrews School of Divinity, and the non-fiction editor of Reveille Journal. His essays can be found in Antigone Journal, Magnus Articles, and Colloquy Journal.

Amid a deluge of bad literature, overwhelming bookstore shelves with poor prose and worse content, and relegating classics to a single oft-neglected shelf, it is essential to provide a place, like Reveille, for aspiring authors to release well-written work. Though offering a platform for new authors who may not otherwise receive mainstream attention is an important step in restoring the Western literary tradition, it cannot be the only step. The world needs new works to continue and revitalize a dying literary tradition, but it also needs old works. We must dust off the classics sitting untouched at the bookstore, and harken back to authors who no-longer even appear on the neglected classics shelf.

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Authors working to restore literary tradition must necessarily be familiar with the works that make up that tradition. Without knowledge of the literary past, how can aspiring writers form its future? How can they harken back to the prose stylings of Austen or Conrad if they have never read their works? How can new works wrestle and converse with the ideas of past authors if those ideas lay unseen under a patina of dust, accumulated over decades of inattention and neglect? A restoration of literature for the future requires a restoration of the literature of the past, because, without the past, there is no literary tradition to restore.

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While some works, such as Crime and Punishment or Moby Dick, remain in the cultural zeitgeist (though they are rarely read) others have faded more completely. Though many important works have faded from our public consciousness, they remain in the public domain. Some of history’s best novelists also wrote exceptional, though rarely read, short fiction. While continuing our mission of providing an outlet for new creative works, Reveille intends to remove that patina of dust obscuring past authors by re-publishing public-domain short stories, and works that have faded into obscurity despite their merits and important contributions to the literary tradition we hope to restore.

-Seamus Themistocles Othot

Perhaps the first accusation the puzzled and frustrated novice may level at Shakespeare, and poetry in general, is that the poet’s way of speaking is affected, obscure, and superfluous. Indeed, in a culture of compartmentalized communication and efficient informational exchange, the language of the poets seems thoroughly foreign (I find it telling that as I peruse the online Folger edition of the Sonnets, Google wants to know if I would like the page auto-translated from French). It would understandably be uncomfortable for a people used to emoting with emojis instead of emotions to attempt to comprehend some of the deepest-feeling English ever written. And yet, these contemporary critics have a point: there is something strange about the way poets speak. While in Shakespeare’s case, Sixteenth-Century diction may have a role to play in this issue, the fact remains that poets’ lines simply do not read like any other form of written or spoken language. No doubt, scholars have spilled oceans of ink on what defines “poetry,” but I will be content here simply to note that the expression of poets is peculiar, in that the precise word choice and word placement of a poet seems to be more delicate and more significant; poets’ words simply work harder.

In the case of Shakespeare, this peculiar expression often takes on a recognizable pattern of syllables and stresses, which we now call meter and foot. On this point, the dissatisfaction of the erudite often joins the complaints of beginners. A superfluous form, it seems, could not in any conceivable way aid expression, and if anything, limits it. My purpose here is to show through a brief analysis of Shakespeare’s Sonnet Twelve, that the Bard’s language is in fact very expressive, and that the form he employs in the sonnet is crucial to his poetic project. I believe that when one reads the sonnet attentively, they will make the realization that the form is neither constrictive nor superfluous. Rather, it provides the proper setting, the canvas on which Shakespeare paints a masterpiece.

Sonnet Twelve depicts the meditations of an aging speaker on death and decay, culminating in the speaker’s injunction to a young companion to have children, or if read another way, to die well. A close examination of the rhythm and stresses in this poem affirms that not one syllable is out of place— if one pays attention to what the syllables are up to at any given time.

Shakespeare’s interpretation of the sonnet involves fourteen lines divided into three quatrains and a couplet— stanzas, or groups of lines, composed of four and two lines respectively. In the poem, these sections can be identified by the rhyme scheme preserved in each stanza, which alternates in the quatrains and repeats in the couplet. For example, the first stanza’s lines end with the words, “time (...) night (...) prime (...) white,” (lines 1-4) and the couplet simply ends, “defense (...) hence,” (lines 13-14). This structure proves to be quite flexible; one could conceivably include three separate perspectives on a subject in each of the three quatrains, or wait until the final couplet to turn the first twelve lines on their head. In Sonnet Twelve, he employs such a strategy, emphasizing the inevitability of death for the three quatrains, before offering a solution in the couplet.

Shakespeare’s preferred line structure is called iambic pentameter. This structure denotes a string of five iambic feet, an iamb being an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one. A consistent scheme like this provides stability and rhythm, and could be conceived as a kind of time signature within which Shakespeare intends to operate. Note, for example, the auditory consistency of the first line, created by the even distribution of stressed syllables (italicized and emboldened): “When I do count the clock that tells the time,” (line 1). The effect of this scheme is like that of a metronome, which in establishing a lyrical baseline, supports the bare words of a poem with structure in the way a time signature may support a set of musical notes.

Shakespeare does not, however, adhere dogmatically to his baseline of iambs; they instead constitute a kind of regularity which allows him to employ other syllabic feet as expressive flourishes. These can include trochees, made up of a stressed syllable followed by an unstressed syllable, spondees, two stressed syllables, or even dactyls, a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables. Because the consistency of iambic pentameter is expected, the inclusion of these different feet becomes ubiquitous, giving Shakespeare another tool to emphasize and develop the meaning of his words.

This particular artifice is on display throughout Sonnet 12. Even the opening line, a perfect example of iambic pentameter, conveys significance by its very regularity. Again, “When I do count the clock that tells the time,” (line 1) proceeds in metronomic fashion, setting the rhythm, but also calling attention to the significance of the words themselves. The speaker in this poem is transfixed by the timepiece, which organizes time into regular intervals; Shakespeare’s monosyllabic iambs perfectly imitate this proverbial ticking of the clock.

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On the other hand, one does not have to travel far to find Shakespeare’s first flourish of the poem. The second line reads, “And see the brave day sunk in hideous night” (line 2). The attentive ear will notice a slight divergence from the iambic rhythm in the third foot. After the stressed syllable “brave,” one expects another iamb, but they receive the opposite: a trochee (“day sunk”). This insertion has the effect of creating a kind of peak of two stressed syllables in the middle of the line, in “brave day,” followed by a valley of two unstressed ones, in “sunk in.” One does not have to think very deeply to glean significance from this; the day epitomizes youth and fullness, but it is sinking into the night of old age. The rise and fall of the line’s cadence underscores this sentiment.

One finds similar use of trochees in lines five and eight. Line five reads, “when lofty trees I see barren of leaves” (line 5). The valley created here by the trochee in the fourth foot (“barren”) is more naturally emphasized than the peak, as the stresses before it are not particularly strong. This too follows the sentiment of the poem, as the primary observation the line makes is of the trees’ regrettable barrenness, and its reminiscence of old age. As the leaves drop, so does the stress, accentuating the feeling of departure. Nearly the same device occurs in line eight, the last line of the same stanza: “Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,” (line 8). The trochee in line eight instead appears on the first foot of the line, again naturally emphasizing the valley more than the peak. Here, as before, it corresponds with both the placement and sentiment of the line’s controlling action: the bearing of Summer’s green on the bier.

Conversely, the final line of the poem, line fourteen, contains a trochee which naturally accentuates the peak instead of the valley. The line, “Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence,” (line 14). takes advantage of the stressed verb “brave” in the second iambic foot, and the trochee “him when” to give the result of whatever Shakespeare means by “breed” pride of place in the poem’s final injunction.

The climax and recession denoted by trochees is not Shakespeare’s only trick in this poem, however. Lines three, thirteen, and fourteen also employ spondees, using groups of stressed syllables to further express Shakespeare’s meaning. Line three’s stress occurs on the last foot: “When I behold the violet past prime” (line 3). The pair of stressed syllables “past prime” joins with the stressed syllable of the previous iamb “-let” to create a powerful three-syllable emphasis at the end of the line. This formulation calls attention to the most important part of the violet the poem’s speaker is beholding: that it is past its prime. It is almost as if Shakespeare is underlining these final words for the reader, bidding his audience to pay closer attention to time’s destructive power. This attitude appears even more strongly in one last notable metric deviation of the sonnet, a spondee in the middle of line thirteen. It reads “And nothing ‘gainst Time’s Scythe can make defense” (line 13). As the ostensible antagonist of the poem, it is natural that Time’s Scythe would be given special attention when he finally makes his appearance.

Without the expectation of regularity determined by the form, the mere association of stressed or unstressed syllables would not draw nearly as much attention as it does in this masterwork of Shakepeare’s. Clearly, iambic pentameter is one of the Bard’s primary means of poetic expression; if it were disregarded, his verse would lose an entire dimension of meaning. This is not to say that all poets must adopt a rigid form; the richness of language allows for many kinds of verse, employing many different aspects of speech. But it is to say that one cannot write off Shakespeare’s chosen form as constrictive, or affected; one may just as well critique the artist for limiting himself to his paintbrush, or the musician for limiting himself to his instrument.

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Jonathan M. Wright is an incoming PhD student at the University of St. Andrews School of Divinity, and the prose editor of Reveille Journal. His essays can be found in Antigone Journal, Magnus Articles, and Colloquy Journal.

Why should a man spend hours poring laboriously over the scrawlings of some long dead or miles distant author, when instead, he could spend that time in a myriad of other, more materially productive, or evidently entertaining ways? Men throughout history have questioned the value of literature: from the modern working American, wondering why he should devote his precious few free hours to reading Evelyn Waugh’s elegy to a way of life then passing—and now long-lost—in Brideshead Revisited, to the scholar who question the moral and spiritual value in studying Dante’s Divine Comedy. Those asking the question must contend with the weight of Western, and in many cases Eastern, civilization, which has produced, studied, and praised great literary works for thousands of years. The burden of proof lies with them, to show that literature is not worth reading, that Western civilization is wrong.

The importance of literature throughout human civilization ought, perhaps, to make one question his belief that it is merely a frivolous distraction from modern practicalities. Literature offers an alternative to the mental and societal degradation brought about by modern culture and technology. That degradation can be seen in the growing reliance on artificial intelligence to outsource thought, our all too frequent trawls through the depths of social media, and the prioritization of cheap entertainment over true leisure. When a man spends hours of his day scrolling through social media, or watching seconds long clips on TikTok, he loses mental acuity. He loses any semblance of an attention span, and erodes his capacity for contemplative thought. Every person living in a developed country knows this; we don’t need a scientific study to prove it to us. The evidence is always with us, either through friends and family who can’t participate fully in a conversation without opening social media to scroll, or in our own minds as we succumb to worthless distractions and shallow thoughts, nourished by six-second sound bites and sentence-long memes.

Just as inundating our minds with meritless memes alters the way we think, speak, and interact, so too can immersing ourselves in literature. Great literary works offer a subject for contemplation; a reader must use his mind actively while experiencing a work. Without actively considering a work, he risks failing to understand what is being said, the beauty of the prose itself, or the truth in what the author conveys. Exerting the effort required to appreciate a work of literature will habituate the reader to examine his own life and the world around him more deeply. Through this deeper examination, a reader can be cured of the intellectual vices imparted by a modern culture, that asks, and often requires, nothing more than a cursory consideration of the merely material. In contrast to the active participation required in reading, many forms of modern media require nothing of us; we can sit, blank faced, and merely absorb the images flashing before us on a screen. Good literature can change the way we think. It can alter our perception of the world around us, and it can give us a greater reverence for that which came before. Reading literature is an activity proper to a free man, and worthy of his time, effort, and consideration.

The very words themselves, and their construction, help us order how we speak and think. Nourishing one’s mind on clearly and beautifully written prose will increase the clarity, and eloquence of one’s own speech. This can be seen in the drastic difference in vocabulary and clarity of speech between readers, and those who look on books with scorn. We can often tell whether someone reads simply based on the extent of their vocabulary and their ability to communicate effectively. People who spend their time listening to rudimentary or barely passable English, whether that be through social media, music, or bad writing, will in turn come to speak and write in barely passable English. In contrast, studying the melody, vocabulary, and order of well-wrought prose, will elevate a reader’s ability to speak and write. With a greater mastery of language, a student of literature will achieve a greater mastery over his own mind. Our thoughts, particularly complex, abstract, and contemplative thoughts, are often filtered through our native tongue. A greater mastery and understanding of that language grants the tools necessary to form more perspicacious, ordered thoughts.

Although good literature does come with practical benefits, it is not primarily practical, nor is it, as some argue, primarily intended to teach. Though great literature can—and often does—teach its reader or come with practical benefits, both of those assessments seem to reduce it to something less than it is. Both assessments reduce literature to the level of a tool, either for self-improvement, or for teaching, placing it below the level of a fine art. It is enough for a painting or a symphony to be beautiful, to carry some element of truth, to be good. No one demands of a painting that it teach something, or provide some practical benefit for it to be called good; it must simply be beautiful. Inasmuch as a painting is beautiful, it is good, and it must do no more to justify its own existence. Literature, likewise, is a fine art, and it must do no more to justify its existence than be beautiful, true, and good.

Of course, not all literature is good, true, and beautiful. Some, though it may have small elements of those qualities, buries them beneath ugliness, or poor prose, and does little to habituate the reader towards any good whatever—whether practical or spiritual. Much modern popular literature provides little to benefit to its reader, and presents little beauty. Many of the current best-sellers are pornographic “supernatural romances” that intend primarily to appeal to a reader’s sexual fantasies. Many modern authors aim exclusively for the highest possible level of commercial success, without regard for beauty in their prose. Instead of elevating their readers through their prose, authors are often brought down to the level of their least erudite readers. The value of prose is discounted, and the author aims instead for maximum “readability,” hoping that his work will be understood by the least educated of his readers, without burdening those readers with any mental exertion. The quality of literature will only continue to decline, especially with the advent of artificial intelligence, which can remove the artistry from writing entirely, as long as writers intent on making their work beautiful and true remain in obscurity.

Modern literature needs an awakening, a trumpet-call, a Reveille, to restore it as something worthy of praise and contemplation. The modern world has fallen out of love with literature. That love can, perhaps, be restored, but only through studying great literature ourselves, extolling its virtues to others, and encouraging new authors who write literature that strives to be good, true, and beautiful.

Seamus Themistocles Othot is the editor-in-chief of fiction for Reveille Journal. A reporter, poet, and essayist, he hails from and resides in northern New England.