Greek mythology and Norse mythology can teach us much about what it means to be human; what they cannot do, however, is provide ultimate hope. For that, we need a truer story… This semester I heard the voice of the “Helikonian Muses” as they sang “the song again in our time” through Hesiod’s Theogony.[1] I [...]
Phantasia is the realm of the imagination, the realm into which nothingness first erupts, and the beginning of philosophy. I The Unending Story by Michael Ende is both literally and in several other ways the most wonderful book I’ve read in ages. I think it will be easily received into the canon—hitherto almost exclusively English—of great [...]
The roaring success of the English television drama Downton Abbey had little to do with the grand house, the sumptuous costumes, the superb cast and intricately intriguing storyline. Having just finished watching the final season, it occurred to me that the series’s success has everything to do with fairytales. […]
I have recently had the mixed blessing of Regnery offering to publish my book, The Mystery of the Magi: The True Identity of the Three Wise Men. I say mixed blessing because it means I have had to face that serious hard work called research. Usually content to tap out inspirational, short essays for online [...]
A Reflection on Three Questions Concerning the Re-telling of Sacred Stories and of Myths (An Academically Disreputable Inquiry) Questions: Are there canonical sources—gold-standards—for myths, and how would we recognize them? Should our re-visioning of sacred persons and mythical people stay true to the standard version? Should there be myth-dilations? […]
Arguably the most important literary influence on The Lord of the Rings, the Anglo-Saxon epic, Beowulf, helps us understand the way in which Tolkien both conceals and reveals the deepest meaning in his own work. Probably dating from the early eighth century, making it contemporaneous with the lives of Saints Boniface and Bede, Beowulf is [...]
In Plato’s Republic, we hear of the tale of Gyges’ ring. This famous tale has been adapted in equally famous ways: one need only think of The Lord of the Rings, or Wagner’s Ring Cycle, to realize its perennial influence. But what is the meaning of this tale in the original form in which the Republic [...]
1a. We shall now show that, like Heracles, Socrates uses music to “civilize” his young guardian. He uses not the traditional music of the poets but his own restoration of true music; he shows how to apply seriously Damon’s thesis that a change in the character of a city’s music produces a change in the [...]
A. 1. Socrates is about to go on with the investigation of the unjust cities when he is again restrained, as once before on his way up to Athens (327), by a conspiracy of Polemarchus and Adeimantus (499). After some whispering, a vote is taken and the decree that has been passed is announced by Thrasymachus [...]
The disordered souls of the tyrannical mob, in projecting their power through the individual tyrant that they select as their leader, will all suffer by being betrayed and disowned by the tyrant. And what more could be expected? Plato gives an account in the ninth book of the Republic of how a tyrannical soul is [...]
J.R.R. Tolkien’s love of the Anglo-Saxon language and culture is legendary among both Tolkien scholars and aficionados, as is his hatred of all things French. His biographer, Humphrey Carpenter, wrote that he suffered from “Gallophobia.”[1] His student and friend, George Sayer, commented that when Tolkien stayed with him and his wife, he very politely ate [...]
A. 1-2. We come now to the arguments, the logoi, that form the broad middle ring encircling the center. Just as the question concerning the connection of justice to happiness is answered by bringing to light the human soul in its mythical shape, so the soul itself, that is, its formal “constitution,” is discovered by [...]
The day of the printed journal of imagination—dealing with ideas, literature, and poetry—seems to be fading. To be sure, it has been fading rather dramatically ever since the Second World War. Political and ideologically-oriented magazines, specialized academic journals packed full of discipline-specific jargon, and even the so-called best sellers have replaced the journals of imagination. [...]
We know that Socrates was accused of introducing new gods and of corrupting the youth. But what was Socrates’ true position concerning the gods? “One Being, the only truly wise, does not and does agree to be called Zeus.” – Heraclitus This reading of the Euthyphro will grapple with the accusations of impiety leveled against [...]