Four guidelines for viewers who plan to see the film adaptation of this Tolkien classic. 1. Recognize variations & what they do. To properly evaluate anything, basic knowledge precedes critical thinking. Viewers who have read Tolkien’s stories have the basic knowledge necessary to evaluate the films. By knowing the original story, one can identify what […]
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 […]
“Good readers will become good writers!” A mantra frequently heard in the lecture halls of academia, echoing along the corridors of junior high schools, and boldly preached from the homeschool conference lectern (most often out of the mouths of the more wizened and experienced parents and educators), this statement strives to be a truism. But […]
By Andrew Kern The classical purpose for teaching literature is the same as the classical purpose for teaching anything: to cultivate wisdom and virtue so that the student is better able to know and enjoy God. Classical literature exposes the student to models of virtue. It also places demands on his intellect, thus developing his […]
One Saturday many years ago, when even my oldest children were young, we had a visit from two friends of ours. They were not quite my parents’ age, but they were old enough that they had just become grandparents. We invited them in, and, as happened when anyone entered our home at that time, they […]
There is a passage in J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings in which Aragorn asks for some leaves of athelas, a healing herb brought by the Men of the West into Middle Earth, and which is now called “kingsfoil.” Minas Tirith, the chief city of Gondor, is celebrating its successful defense against the […]
Why Telling Stories to Our Children is the Best Kind of Character Education … In After Virtue, Alasdair MacIntyre observes that in all classical and heroic societies, “the chief means of moral education is the telling of stories.” In a real sense the heroes of the Iliad and the Odyssey were the moral tutors of […]
Both “A” and “not A” cannot be true at the same time and in the same respect. Napoleon was the emperor of France or he was not; water is made of two hydrogen molecules and an oxygen molecule or it is not—in each case, both things cannot be true at the same time in the […]
The Liberal Arts The liberal arts denote the seven branches of knowledge that initiate the young into a life of learning. The concept is classical, but the term liberal arts and the division of the arts into the trivium and the quadrivium date from the Middle Ages. The Trivium and the Quadrivium The trivium (1) includes those […]
The great books speak to us of honor and love and sacrifice; but they do not always speak in familiar phrases. They do not tell us what we already know. Transcending current opinion and fad, through symbol and metaphor they reveal a clear and uncluttered access to the realities that determine our lives. Sometime back, […]