The human characters of Homer’s grand epic, the “Iliad,” embody what Homer is driving home at with his poem: the tension between strife and love. Achilles transforms from a rage-filled and strife-filled killer to a forgiving lover touched by the very power of love. Homer’s Iliad is the defining epic of Western literature. Its [...]
Hector, in many ways, is the closest to Christ in the ancient pagan world of heroes, literature, and lore. Yet, he falls short of Christ as all men do—and as all pagans did. But there is something remarkably sacramental about Hector to the Christian reader; there is something about Hector that shows glimpses of [...]
Plato was a moralist. An ethicist. He was concerned with the primacy of action, of engagement, in a world that was deeply iconoclastic, barbarous, and savage. Love of wisdom allows for the creation of that space where ethical and loving life is possible. Plato’s Symposium is one of the most iconic works of literature [...]
Any talk of saving culture, or restoring culture, begins with a defense of the humanities. Any hope of cultural revival equally begins with a re-emergence of the humanities. Any hope to truly celebrate—though not uncritically—the human person rests with being drenched in the dewfall of the humanities. Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series [...]
Plutarch’s “Parallel Lives” is a profoundly spiritual and moral work, and one which calls each and every one of us to become great men and not to remain in the shadow of the great men of history who may, in fact, have been petty instead of great. Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus, better known as Plutarch, [...]
“Great Expectations” is a novel of self-introspection—especially as the story relates to our narrator and protagonist, Pip. The question of who Pip is and what he shall become is the fundamental theme that drives the story forward. “My father’s family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of [...]
Thomas Aquinas’ cosmology and doctrine of the soul are vitalistic. Everything has a particular soul to it, and these souls have particular life-forces destined for particular ends. As a whole, the cosmos is meant to reflect and embody the graces of God: his beauty, love, and goodness. Such is to what all things are [...]
The poetry of John Keats is a window into the mad genius of the Romantics: their lusts and hopes; their ambitions and ignorance; their radicalism and fantasies. In reading Keats, one is simultaneously scandalized and sympathetic to the longing of the Romantic heart. “The best things we have come from madness.” John Keats died [...]
The impetuous call to sack Roger Scruton shows those who clamored for the blade of the guillotine to fall on his head for what they are. His sacking also shows the concerted effort to demonize and silence anyone outside the public orthodoxy of thought... Sir Roger Scruton is one of the preeminent conservative intellectuals in [...]
Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities is a picturesque story that deliberately mirrors the most famous picturesque story of all time: the Biblical story, which culminates in Christ’s death and resurrection, and which in turn brings life back to a lifeless world. “With a roar that sounded as if all the breath in [...]
Baseball has an essence that mirrors the heavenly city and the precision of creation better than other sports. Its calmer nature also embodies that sense of tranquility which the restless heart seeks. The baseball season has arrived. America’s pastime sport returns, like Persephone from her bondage in Hades, to signal the return to life [...]
Lust, sex, and war reign supreme in the pagan mythologies; rebellion and war run riot through the rise and fall of the gods. The pagan must ask himself in light of these stories: If imitation of the gods is what leads to virtuous character, is virtue attainable at all? The decline of Christianity has [...]
Augustine’s Confessions is the odyssey of the soul. It is the odyssey of the human heart, as Augustine shifts from the emphasis of intellect to the primacy of love. He shows that it is not by having a strong mind that one is capable of ascent and touching; rather, it is by having a strong [...]
Those who weaponize history and language to fit their ideological vision know no boundaries in any matters. Enthralled by the phantoms of their psyche, they become the blind tyrants who destroy this real world for the fantasy of their world to come… It has become customary for moderns to hear the phrase “the right [...]