Towards the beginning of his book, Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, Michael Pollan notes that Henry Fielding once referred to The Odyssey as “Homer’s wonderful book about eating”. As a wannabe chef I love this; as a literature enthusiast and student I’m intrigued by it. And I think we get our first glimpse of […]
The coming of age tale is, I suspect, as old as coming of age itself. Many of our most beloved books and stories reveal what Dr. Eva Brann aptly calls “a trip towards . . . identity.” Consider: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, David Copperfield, Treasure Island, Candide, Jane Eyre, Great Expectations, To Kill a
In the forward to her book, Homeric Moments: Clues to Delight in Reading the Odyssey, Eva Brann wrote that “reading Homer’s poems is one of the purest, most inexhaustible pleasures life has to offer – a secret somewhat too well kept in our time.” If this is true, and I suspect that it is, then
Classics Christian Classical education is “logo-centric” (among other things) – driven by language, in love with words, books, literature, truth; both logos and the Logos. Living in a time of confused and devalued language, then, proves difficult for many of us. To use one example, the title of “classic” can now apply to any book
POTW: The Odyssey – On Dangerous Women & Their Looms Read More »
Rod Dreher is a senior editor and blogger at The American Conservative. He has written and edited for the New York Post, The Dallas Morning News, National Review, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, the Washington Times, and the Baton Rouge Advocate. Rod’s commentary has been published in The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, the Weekly Standard, Beliefnet,
Words of Wisdom: Rod Dreher on Reading The Odyssey for the First Time Read More »
As you perhaps know we are currently at the beautiful Chetola Resort in Blowing Rock, NC for the CiRCE Summer Institute, this year a conversation about Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey. Mr. Jonathan Councell, our friend from Veritas Classical School in Asheville, NC volunteered to journal his experience here at the retreat. The following is
As you perhaps know we are currently at the beautiful Chetola Resort in Blowing Rock, NC for the CiRCE Summer Institute, this year a conversation about Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey. Mr. Jonathan Councell, our friend from Veritas Classical School in Asheville, NC volunteered to journal his experience here at the retreat. The following is
Originally this essay was delivered as the opening lecture for the Honors Program at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington in September, 1993. It is re-printed here with permission from The Imaginative Conservative. My title is a question: “Do you know what an odyssey is?” I am asking each of you to ask yourself: “Do
I may as well admit that I didn’t like the Iliad very much the first time I read it. It was Samuel Butler’s translation and while it moves fairly quickly and is interesting, he didn’t seem to have the music of Homer in his voice. Others like this translation very much, so I won’t say
