In the wellspring of classic nineteenth-century American literature, a spectacular theme unites our greatest authors. They, in various ways, challenge the naïve optimism of the “American Adam” and American liberalism. They are deeply conservative in their skepticism toward human and civilizational progress and perfection. It is true that the classics, especially Virgil and Cicero, along [...]
Responding to the great bloodshed of young men, women, and virgins he experienced during the Peloponnesian War, Euripides exposes the horrors of war and its damaging effects on humans, particularly on women, in his war plays. Euripides’s dramatic tragedies appeal to our sense of pity and call for peace. The acme of Euripides’s literary genius [...]
“Sense and Sensibility” is a profound achievement of romantic realism. Jane Austen demonstrates that to surrender oneself to romantic sensibility is the highway to ruin, but that the unity of logos and eros is beautiful and wholesome. Jane Austen, to my mind, was the preeminent romantic realist writer. Born into a modest clerical family, she [...]
Like moths attracted to the flame, students from all continents came together to study and discuss everything from music and aesthetics to politics and metaphysics with Sir Roger, who seemed to be the incarnate flame of wisdom. He was our Virgil through hell and purgatory, and he left us at the top of the mountain, [...]
Every time I hear the music of Beethoven, the spirit of Christmas touches my heart. Because Beethoven is bound up with love, Beethoven is bound up with Christ. During Advent, Christians everywhere are reminded of the great testament of Love becoming incarnate. Beethoven keeps pointing us to that reality. Ludwig van Beethoven was born in [...]
The Hebrew Bible—in a sea of competitors—survived and bequeathed to the West many of our cherished principles and values. For this reason, the Bible is exceptional. To abandon the Hebrew Bible is not only to abandon the roots of our modern sensibilities and values, but ultimately to abandon the wellspring of the religion that nurtured [...]
If Alexis de Tocqueville were alive today and observing the situation of America, he would probably not be surprised that the democratic ethos of civil society, the township, and the autonomous local county have been crushed by the royal prerogatives of the executive and the administrative bureaucracy built around it. Most Americans are somewhat familiar [...]
"Gone with the Wind" will endure because it is a true work of art, an unforgettable tale that transcends the pettiness of contemporary politics. Author Margaret Mitchell deals with the universal reality of the human condition, in the same way that Homer, Dante, and Tolstoy did. No work of art has recently come under such [...]
In “The City of God,” Augustine systematically lays bare the empty ideology of the city of man and the Roman empire in a breathtaking counter-narrative that remains remarkably modern and relevant for today. In contrast to the city of man, the City of Love, Augustine argues, is the godly city to which Christians belong and [...]
Banishing memory and the party of memory is nothing short of the banishment of the love and joy which make our lives and memories worth cherishing and conserving. The conservative celebrates the present order precisely because it is imbued with the traces of Eden which vivify our memories—and, therefore, our true selves—and unite us in [...]
In “Wagner’s Parsifal: The Music of Redemption,” Sir Roger Scruton guides us—like Virgil—through the twisty cosmos of Richard Wagner and leaves us at the gates of paradise. Those who desire a treatment of Wagner’s final opera without the pollution of ideological criticism will find a wonderful breath of fresh air in Scruton’s treatment of the [...]
“The Song of Roland” communicates the values of fealty to lord and land that are combined with duty, heroism, and trustworthiness. The struggle that dominates the core of the poem, the battle between King Marsile and Roland, is not just a battle between Christianity and paganism—it is a battle for the soul of fealty and [...]
Is Star Wars more than an entertaining space opera meant to relax us after the daily grind of post-industrialized life? To answer that question, we must consider the possibility of depth in cinema—that cinema is itself the vehicle for our post-technological mythology, manifesting our deepest fears as well as our subconscious and unconscious struggles. While [...]
The victory of Christ on the Cross was not a victory of sunshine, happy thoughts, and rainbows. Nay, it was a victory of sublime splendor. It was horrifying. It was total. It was—and remains—through the eyes of faith, also beautiful. St. Paul says that he is determined to know, and preach, nothing but “Christ and [...]