Classics

Talking, Reading, Writing, Listening

I imagine that on Parents’ Weekend there might be some parents attending this once weekly occasion when the college assembles to hear a lecture. By its very name, a lecture is read—but read out loud, delivered in the writer’s voice. Thus, the...

An Annunciation on the Battlefield

It is the encounter with beauty, all-consuming beauty, the infinite, which directs the human soul back to God. The sky calls us up; the earth drags us down... On December 2, 1805, the French Emperor...

Jane Austen Forever!

Pick up a Jane Austen novel, and you will discover that behind the long gowns and country dances, people in her era struggled with the same weaknesses we struggle with today. Well-written stories like Austen's bring to life the human drama that is played out in every...

Can We Be Friends? Spirit, Duty, & Our Canine Companions

If people and dogs have common ground of a higher order than animal needs, it must be in the territory of the spirit. Spirit is, just as Aristotle says, where friendship is at home. Now among us humans, this capability of the spirit is both an accomplishment and a...

Do You Know What an Odyssey Is?

My title is a question: "Do you know what an odyssey is?" I am asking each of you to ask yourself: "Do I know what an odyssey is?" In learning as in traveling and, of course,...

Welcome to Colonus: The Theban Plays of Sophocles

I'm uncertain of the joy of reading the Theban plays of Sophocles—the story is just too monstrous—but in accord with the awe. This translation conveys it... Sophocles: The Theban Plays, translated by David R. Slavitt (256 pages, Yale University Press, 2009)

Music of the Republic

Music pervades our lives and always has. It has taken you outside of yourselves and taken you deep within. It has been associated with things divine... Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords our readers the opportunity to join Christopher Nelson as he explores the...

Finding Your “Why”

What enabled men like Athanasius, Augustine, and Aquinas to discover their “why” in ages past can still transform young men and women today... Over the years, I have discovered that nearly every time I come across...

Do You Know What an Odyssey Is?

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... Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series...

The First Question and The Illiad

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...

An Oration on the Scholar’s Mission

The end of the scholar is not to be a scholar; but a man, doing that which cannot be done without scholarship. The end is never the production of a work of art, however grand in conception, successful in execution, or exquisite in finish; but the realization...

The Classical Tradition in Antebellum America

The classical curriculum remained the educational gold standard in nineteenth-century America. In fact, its influence grew, as women’s academies with a classical curriculum were founded all over the expanding nation... The Golden Age of the Classics in America: Greece, Rome, and...

Homer’s “Odyssey” Is a Gift

“Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending, the wanderer, harried for years on end, after he plundered the stronghold on the proud height of Troy.” So begins Homer’s...

How Latin Helps Us Learn

By nixing Latin instruction from our schools, have we knocked the feet out from under generations of students, leaving them to struggle through the fog of schooling and literacy on their own...? A little over...