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Homer’s Epic of the Family
This is the ultimate message of Homer’s two epics: Where family is found, life is found; where family is found, true beauty is found; where family is found, piety is found; where family is dissolved,...
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Warfare in Epic Poetry
A culture that fails to represent, or that misrepresents its wars in all their glory, gravity, and tragedy, is a weaker polity. Epic poetry, with its stark recording of the facts and feelings of war,...
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The Divine Tragedy of Achilles
The Iliad is Homer’s vehement attempt to reconcile god and man, clairvoyantly musing on how terrible and wonderful it would be if a man possessed a divine nature. As the heroes of The Iliad are slain...
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Telling Lies
We should learn to cultivate the unwillingness to tolerate the unwitting, untold lie in the soul, and the wit and wisdom to transmute the unavoidable lying of any utterance into the telling lies that...
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From Hector to Christ
Hector, in many ways, is the closest to Christ in the ancient pagan world of heroes, literature, and lore. Yet, he falls short of Christ as all men do—and as all pagans did. But there is something...
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Homer’s “Iliad” and the Shield of Love and Strife
The human characters of Homer’s grand epic, the “Iliad,” embody what Homer is driving home at with his poem: the tension between strife and love. Achilles transforms from a rage-filled and...
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Warfare in Epic Poetry
A culture that fails to represent, or that misrepresents its wars in all their glory, gravity, and tragedy, is a weaker polity. Epic poetry, with its stark recording of the facts and feelings of war,...
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Heroes of Love
One of the most defining aspects of our humanity is love. We are creatures of affectivity made in love for love. It is the recognition of this fact that makes Homer so eternal: his heroes are heroes...
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Habit and Grace
The “Iliad” shows us human nature under extreme duress. Understanding Agamemnon and the consequences of his actions gives us a complex gauge of character. We come to recognize how often in daily life...
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Jew and Greek
Against the backdrop of angels and gods, Jew and Greek, comes the humble birth in Bethlehem. This most momentous intervention is God’s incarnation. God is the newborn mortal child wholly dependent on...
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Homer’s Humor: Laughter in “The Iliad”
Why characters in Homer’s “Iliad” laugh, and why readers are invited and entitled to laugh, are complicated issues. Quite distinct kinds of humor emerge from and contribute to the epic’s predominantly...
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Husbands and Wives in Homer
How do I know that there were dead white males who loved and respected their wives? Because the twin literary fountainheads of Western literature each highlights a mature and faithful couple who share...
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Hector versus Achilles: Who’s the Hero?
Who’s the hero of The Iliad? Is it Achilles or Hector? Or should they both be considered heroes? If we are to answer these questions, we need to know what is meant by heroism. We also need to know...
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Classical Education and Great Literature
Here is my effort to construct a solid program of reading for a classical high school curriculum. Last month I wrote an essay for The Imaginative Conservative on “Classical Education and American...
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