Western civilization is often seen as the fusion of the cultures of Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome, baptized in the blood of Christ to form what is known as Christendom. The faith of Christendom, its theological foundation, springs from Jerusalem and the Jewish covenant with God fulfilled in Christ. The rational grounds for Christendom, its philosophical […]
As an English professor, lecturer for the Honors College, and public speaker, I am afforded many opportunities to guide students of all ages and backgrounds through Homer’s Odyssey. One thing I love to emphasize along the way is how committed Odysseus, Telemachus, and the other noble characters are to the laws of xenia. Based on […]
How do we recognize a classic? Tradition has held that classics are works of a very high order that touch on matters of immense importance. They are not mere skilled works of whatever category; they establish a category of their own. In fact, when we examine those works that readers have agreed upon as classics, […]
“If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” – C. S. Lewis Sweet Home. It’s more than just a lovely sentiment cross-stitched on a pillow. You might say it’s engraved, embedded, etched on our very souls. […]
Many people see The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas as an amazing yarn, but not much more. And indeed, it boasts one of the most intricate, fascinating plots ever devised. But the tug-of-war between free will and Providence, between justice and revenge, between despair and hope make The Count of Monte Cristo much […]
Why read literature? This question is often asked by indignant parents, who want to know why their children, destined for business, learn fancy subjects instead of things serviceable to them in life. Lord Morley says somewhere: “An educated man is one who knows when a thing is proved and when it is not. An uneducated […]
Every story, long or short, has five dimensions. They are usually called its 1) plot, 2) characters, 3) setting, 4) style, and 5) theme. We could call them respectively, the story’s 1) work, 2) workers, 3) world, 4) words, and 5) wisdom. “Philosophy” means “the love of wisdom.” So a story’s philosophy is one of […]
“The time is out of joint,” utters Prince Hamlet to his close friend Horatio after encountering the Ghost of his recently deceased father, King Hamlet, on the battlements of Elsinore. Hailing from a purgatorial realm, the Majesty of Buried Denmark has come to inform Hamlet of the true nature of his death—that he was murdered […]
By any stretch of the imagination, and by any criteria, the Chronicles of Narnia are among the most popular books ever written. Several major surveys of the bestselling books of all time place The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in the Top Ten, a few places below The Lord of the Rings by C. […]
I guess it’s because I’m starting to get old (some would say I’m already there), but with each succeeding Christmas I think more about what has become of the holiday. There is, of course, the problem of the secularization of Christmas. The “War on Christmas” that we have heard so much about in recent years […]