True pilgrimage is a communal undertaking: a temporary society on the move. Rather than turn inward in search of enlightenment, turn outward toward your companions and learn to see the world through their eyes. Learn to get along with people whose passions, beliefs, and strategies for survival are radically different from your own. Author’s Introduction: [...]
The quest to write the Great American Novel has long been the American literary equivalent of the quest for the Holy Grail. Among the perennial roster of contenders for this legendary status, there is a strong case to be made for “Moby-Dick.” With the generosity of a patient teacher, Geoffrey Stanborn makes that case in “The Value [...]
Louis Awerbuck believed that societies fell to folly when they drew distinct lines between their warriors and scholars. What this ultimately led to was a society’s thinking being done by cowards and its fighting done by fools. Awerbuck saw himself as the keeper of a tradition, a heritage of warriors in ages past, and civilization’s [...]
The inspiration for the writing of essays can come from the most surprising and unusual of places. Recently, I received an email from a woman whose homeschooled daughter had asked her whether Hamlet and Ophelia had slept together. This prompted her to ask me for my thoughts on the matter. My initial thought was that [...]
Honor is a catch-all term that is closely allied with the cardinal virtues: justice as fair play, fortitude, prudence, and temperance. Recent events and public responses demonstrate that the concept of honor still has some life left in it and a role to play for the commonweal, on behalf of the worthy traditions and institutions [...]
Great poetry can come from deep engagement with the problems of politics, but it is especially moving to see how exile—often the consequence of that engagement—subtly becomes the symbol of the condition of fallen man. Students at Wyoming Catholic College memorize many poems in the four years of the humanities curriculum, but few of the [...]
Who's the hero of The Iliad? Is it Achilles or Hector? Or should they both be considered heroes? If we are to answer these questions, we need to know what is meant by heroism. We also need to know what Homer meant by heroism. Was the pagan Greek understanding of heroism different from ours? If [...]
As a robust Christian Platonist, Boethius saw a profound resonance between the truths of Platonic philosophy and Christian faith. The articulation of Platonic thought furnished an occasion for Boethius to tacitly meditate upon and be nourished by his own Christian faith, without having to draw explicit parallels in “The Consolation of Philosophy.” The Consolation of [...]
Rooted in Nietzsche’s idea of the ”Superman” is the idea is that a new breed of humanity will emerge who will be superior to the old, joyless Judeo-Christian ethic. Striding confidently into a brave new world, this new super-humanity will rise above the old humanity groveling before their gods. “I am better than everybody else” [...]
What do the great literary epics tell us about the epochs in which they were written? And, more important, what do these epics and epochs tell us about our own epoch? To what extent are literary epics the children of their own times, expressions of their own particular zeitgeist, and to what extent are they [...]
It was there, in the first circle of Hell, that I first understood what it meant to be a virtuous pagan. It meant to be led by the dim but true light of reason, to seek continually after the higher things, to pursue with courage and devotion a life of virtue. Author’s Introduction: Imagine if [...]
The title of Shakespeare’s tragedy is misleading, in that "Julius Caesar" shows us much more about Antony and the friend who betrays Caesar, Brutus, than it does about the legendary leader of Rome. Brutus: “There is a tide in the affairs of men Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea [...]
Robert Nisbet feared that modern totalitarians had succeeded in undermining the very foundations of goodness, truth, and morality. They had not only redefined liberty as power, but they had transformed the modern political state into a secular church, exchanging real religion for civic religion, creating a “New Leviathan.” Like most Americans during the Great Depression, [...]
If books could make us better on their own, then we could read our way to perfect virtue. Do Great Books make us better? This question goes to the heart of what we do at Wyoming Catholic College. In an essay for The New Yorker early in December, the professor and writer Louis Menand reviews [...]