HeyJaredThe Duck-Billed Reader
The Duck-Billed Reader is a newsletter that features essays on literature, sometimes dipping into art and philosophy.
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- Sep 25, 2026
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Latest issues
Philosemitism and Antisemitism in George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda (opens the original)
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This post, which addresses George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda (1876), is the third in a series on the portrayal of Jews in Victorian novels. Links to the other two posts are at the end of this essay. If you think others would be interested in this essay, please restack it!In what follows, I have avoided spoilers to the greatest extent possible. Those familiar with the novel will observe that I have not mentioned several important plot elements for this reason. Subscribe nowThe Legal B
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: Promising as a Test of Faith (opens the original)
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We all make promises, and we think that we understand what the act of promising entails. But the eerie pledges in the medieval poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight illuminate just what a deadly serious act promising can be. Gawain faces a test of his fidelity: will he keep his commitment to the mysterious Green Knight? But that test implicates many other challenges. Can he be honest even when no one will know if he lies? Can he submit himself to death to keep an oath?Subscribe nowI note that the
Charles Dickens's First-Person Narrators (opens the original)
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You’ve reached The Duck-Billed Reader, which features essays on literature and art. I hope you’ll subscribe.Charles Dickens’s masterpiece Bleak House (1853) introduces an
An Unexpected Affinity Between Whistler and Dickens (opens the original)
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Thanks for reading The Duck-Billed Reader. It features posts about literature and art. Please subscribe!As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’m traveling for academic purposes this summer, and
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