Listen to the rest of this premium episode by subscribing at patreon.com/knowyourenemy.

As always, listeners asked more mailbag questions than we could respond to in one episode, so we continue answering them here for subscribers. In this second round we take up: a playlist of KYE's Straussian-related episodes; (Straussian) esoteric writing versus (French) death of the author and the art of writing (and interpretation); prose style—what it is, why it matters, its relationship to poetry, and the rhythms of Norman Maclean; a "Straussian" reading of Steely Dan; and why liberalism is (mostly) worth defending.

Thank you to everyone who attended our live event in NYC on Thursday! We had a great time.

Sources:

Leo Strauss, Persecution and the Art of Writing (1952)

— Thoughts on Machiavelli (1958)

Stanley Rosen, Hermeneutics as Politics (1987)

Wallace Stevens, "The Snow Man," Poetry, Oct 1921

Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories (1976)

— The Norman Maclean Reader (2008)

Edmund White, Nocturnes for the King of Naples (1978)

Marilynne Robinson, Gilead (2004)

W.H. Auden, "Friday's Child," (1958)

Sam Adler-Bell, "Can Liberalism Stop Being So Darn Liberal?" The New Republic, June 20, 2024.