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Celebrating Homer: A Divine Shining
The question of Homer’s existence is a little like the question of God’s. There, unquestionably, like the universe, are the Iliad and the Odyssey: But how did they come to be there? Were they composed...
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The Poetic Renewal of the World
Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join Glenn Arbery as he contemplates the importance of poetry to a well-formed soul. —W. Winston Elliott III, Publisher...
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Reading the “Illiad” in the Light of Eternity
It is impossible to love both the victors and the vanquished, as the Iliad does, except from the place, outside the world, where God’s Wisdom dwells… Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series...
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The Man Who Discovered Troy?
In 1870, Heinrich Schliemann went to the Troad, the northwest corner of Asia Minor, and made up his mind, against all current scholarly opinion, that Priam’s Troy lay buried under the hill called...
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A Liberal Education
Liberal arts, taught correctly, are essential in a liberal democratic republic. A liberal arts education can prepare citizens for life in a republic that cherishes its liberty… Today’s offering in our...
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Poetic Knowledge of the City
What we need today to re-create the beautiful city, an icon through which to see the glorious City of God, is a new Iliad, a new story that will manifest “what the many do together,” for what the many...
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Deep Knowledge in a Flat World
A hero is someone you admire to the point of losing sleep over. A hero is one the ancients were tempted to worship, with the ardent hope that some of the strength from his dead body would seep into...
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The First Question and The Illiad
To the extent that I am a human person, Homer’s Iliad speaks to me, but my particular circumstances are my own. As a result, a great question will help all people, including me, and so might be...
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Preface to the “Iliad” of Homer
Homer is universally allowed to have had the greatest invention of any writer whatever. The praise of judgment Virgil has justly contested with him, and others may have their pretensions as to...
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Homeric Moments: Clues to Delight in Reading the “Odyssey”&“Iliad”
Homeric Moments: Clues to Delight in Reading the Odyssey and the Iliad (326 pages, Paul Dry Books, 2002) “Reading Homer’s poems is one of the purest, most inexhaustible pleasures life has to offer—a...
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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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