The Classics and Christianity

By |2020-11-28T06:22:09-06:00January 11th, 2019|Categories: C.S. Lewis, Christianity, Civilization, Classical Education, Classics, Culture, Great Books, Homer, Liberal Learning, Literature, Myth, Paul Krause, Senior Contributors, St. Augustine, Virgil, Western Civilization, Western Tradition, Worldview|

Christians invented the classical curriculum; it is as much part of the broader Western inheritance as it is specifically part of the Christian inheritance. Why study old books? How do dusty old books written by dead men and women thousands of years ago grow my faith? Such can be common thoughts when the Christian is [...]

Homer on Decision-Making

By |2019-05-30T10:18:40-05:00January 1st, 2019|Categories: Homer, Imagination, Letters From Dante Series|

Author’s Introduction: Imagine if Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, and the other great poets of ancient Greece, Rome, and the Middle Ages had been given the gift, not only to peer into the twenty-first century, but to correspond with us who live in that most confusing and rudderless of centuries. Had it been in their power [...]

What Might Homer Say to Us About Leadership?

By |2019-05-30T10:19:59-05:00December 27th, 2018|Categories: Homer, Imagination, Leadership, Letters From Dante Series, Louis Markos|

Author’s Introduction: Imagine if Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, and the other great poets of ancient Greece, Rome, and the Middle Ages had been given the gift, not only to peer into the twenty-first century, but to correspond with us who live in that most confusing and rudderless of centuries. Had it been in their power [...]

On War: Homer’s Advice to Us

By |2021-04-22T18:27:27-05:00December 17th, 2018|Categories: Civilization, Homer, Imagination, Letters From Dante Series, Louis Markos, War|

Author's Introduction: Imagine if Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, and the other great poets of ancient Greece, Rome, and the Middle Ages had been given the gift, not only to peer into the twenty-first century, but to correspond with us who live in that most confusing and rudderless of centuries. Had it been in their power [...]

Love, Ancient and Modern

By |2018-12-08T21:36:00-06:00December 8th, 2018|Categories: Aeneid, Dante, Family, Love, Marriage, Odyssey|

“Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy.” The opening words to Homer’s Odyssey are among the most famous and recognizable in Western literature. That beginning stanza captures so much of the human condition and [...]

Homer’s Epic of the Family

By |2018-10-17T10:47:08-05:00October 16th, 2018|Categories: Books, Great Books, Homer, Iliad, Odyssey, Paul Krause, Senior Contributors, Virtue, Wisdom|

This is the ultimate message of Homer’s two epics: Where family is found, life is found; where family is found, true beauty is found; where family is found, piety is found; where family is dissolved, only death and destruction follows... The Trojan War, for our Homeric heroes, begins with marital infidelity and succumbing to temptation, [...]

Modeling Manhood: From Homer to Paul

By |2021-04-29T15:03:52-05:00October 6th, 2018|Categories: Christian Living, Christianity, Faith, Family, Homer, Odyssey|

In Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey, a Greek war hero faces imposing challenges in his long journey home. After decimating the armies of Troy, King Odysseus sets out for Ithaca only to find himself wrestling against more formidable foes. For ten years the whims of gods and the winds of fate hinder his journey, while a [...]

Homeric Moments: Clues to Delight in Reading the Odyssey & the Iliad

By |2023-05-21T11:30:14-05:00September 24th, 2018|Categories: Books, E.B., Eva Brann, Great Books, Homer, Iliad, Odyssey, Senior Contributors, St. John's College|

Homeric Moments: Clues to Delight in Reading the Odyssey and the Iliad (326 pages, Paul Dry Books, 2002) "Reading Homer's poems is one of the purest, most inexhaustible pleasures life has to offer—a secret somewhat too well kept in our time. The aim of this book is to tell anyone who might care–first-time, second-time, or third-time [...]

Preface to the “Iliad” of Homer

By |2021-04-22T18:41:04-05:00September 14th, 2018|Categories: Books, Homer, Iliad|

Homer is universally allowed to have had the greatest invention of any writer whatever. The praise of judgment Virgil has justly contested with him, and others may have their pretensions as to particular excellences; but his invention remains yet unrivalled... Editorial Note: This essay was originally published as Alexander Pope's Preface to the Iliad of Homer. The [...]

Do You Know What an Odyssey Is?

By |2023-05-21T11:30:26-05:00June 4th, 2018|Categories: Classics, E.B., Essential, Eva Brann, Featured, Great Books, Homer, Liberal Arts, Liberal Learning, Odyssey, Senior Contributors, St. John's College, Timeless Essays|

An odyssey is an adventurous and searching journey, or an intellectual or spiritual quest. It is the proper name for the life of learning. One can shape one’s own odyssey into a journey that lacks neither enchantment nor definition. My title is a question: “Do you know what an odyssey is?” I am asking each [...]

The First Question and The Iliad

By |2021-04-27T11:10:33-05:00April 20th, 2018|Categories: Classics, Education, Great Books, Homer, Humanities, Iliad, Liberal Learning|

To the extent that I am a human person, Homer’s Iliad speaks to me, but my particular circumstances are my own. As a result, a great question will help all people, including me, and so might be applicable to my peculiar place in space and time without being exhausted by it. In one week I’m teaching [...]

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