Shakespeare (1564-1616) must have sensed these cultural changes deeply enough to predict and highlight the perils of individualism in some of his plays, namely Romeo and Juliet. In his time, and especially in the seventeenth century, the notion of the individual changed significantly in its relation to the church, the monarchy, society, personal freedom, the literary life, public and private life, and even […]
The Invention of Meaning Through Comparison Modern education occupies a great deal of time—nine months per year, six hours per day, and countless hours keeping up with homework. Yet, how much do most American students actually know by the end of twelfth grade? Can they solve basic math problems in their mind without using a […]
What I Learned From My Mother Julia Kasdorf I learned from my mother how to love the living, to have plenty of vases on hand in case you have to rush to the hospital with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars […]
Though written in the late 1940s, Ideas Have Consequences, by Richard M. Weaver, remains more relevant and prescient than ever. The work, grounded in political philosophy, theology, virtue, and history, presents a piercing assessment of modern culture. Yet these fields are incorporated for the sole purpose of revealing the truth about our modern culture and […]
Because our most fundamental realities are immaterial—like love and death—few artistic forms remain as capable as fairy tales and poetry for housing such depths. Fairy tales carry us from the prosaic landscape of our workaday rhythm to mountain streams of simple wonder and truth. No filter necessary to drink of this pure water, just the […]
Imagine an arrow shot into the air, and high in flight, it bursts into flame. How cool would that be?! If you saw this spectacle, you would probably deem it a wonder, or perhaps a symbol or sign. This is how Aeneas and the Trojan remnant (traveling with him after the fall of Troy) responded […]
Marital Wisdom in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales Chaucer and his Canterbury Tales might well be the cardinal literary élan of the Middle Ages. Before considering Chaucer’s contribution to marriage, let us begin with a brief look at his legacy. By the late fourteenth century, it had become commonplace for the last couple hundred years to take […]
How Poetry Helps Us Fathom the Unfathomable You’ve probably noticed that it can be difficult to explain why some things are true or obvious—like common sense, your grandmother’s wisdom, the distinct feeling of Sunday mornings, that you have a soul, or why your child should play outside rather than stare at a screen. This is so because […]
Sometimes our study of literature resembles a kind of clinical laboratory lesson. We encircle the text in our white coats, ready to dissect the story like a dead animal. Or, if this sounds too invasive or scientific, then we analyze the text in order to extract the “Elements of Literature” (the title of a recent big-press […]
One might ask, “Why formal logic?” even if he or she is familiar with classical education. One might also find themselves asking the question, “Why online logic?” if they were to run across the online classical academy at Memoria Press. Having spent a great deal of time the last few years in graduate school studying […]
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