A Masterpiece of Cultural History: Jacques Barzun’s “From Dawn to Decadence”

By |2024-01-09T18:18:32-06:00January 9th, 2024|Categories: Books, Classics, Culture, Economics, Political Economy, Robert M. Woods, Timeless Essays, Virgil|Tags: |

In the annals of writing history, there are a handful of volumes that have become established as models due to tone, insightful content, and excellence of style. The most recent historical work by Jacques Barzun is such a work. It is a cultural history of the highest standard. As a historical volume of such scope, [...]

Homer versus Virgil

By |2023-10-14T16:49:32-05:00October 14th, 2023|Categories: Greek Epic Poetry, Homer, Joseph Pearce, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays, Virgil, Western Tradition|

What do the great literary epics tell us about the epochs in which they were written? And, more important, what do these epics and epochs tell us about our own epoch? To what extent are literary epics the children of their own times, expressions of their own particular zeitgeist, and to what extent are they [...]

Dante on Virtuous Pagans

By |2023-10-04T17:33:44-05:00October 4th, 2023|Categories: Christianity, Dante, Great Books, Letters From Dante Series, Louis Markos, Reason, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays, Virgil, Virtue|

It was there, in the first circle of Hell, that I first understood what it meant to be a virtuous pagan. It meant to be led by the dim but true light of reason, to seek continually after the higher things, to pursue with courage and devotion a life of virtue. Author’s Introduction: Imagine if [...]

Virgil on Courage

By |2023-08-07T21:41:56-05:00August 7th, 2023|Categories: Aeneas, Character, Heroism, Imagination, Letters From Dante Series, Louis Markos, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays, Virgil|

Courage is found in unexpected places. It is not the sole province of soldiers, nor does it find its only fulfillment in the vanquishing of enemies. Indeed, courage manifests itself most powerfully, not in a single deed of valor, but in a lifetime of endurance. Author’s Introduction: Imagine if Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, and the [...]

Virgil’s “Aeneid” & the Value of Suffering

By |2021-04-12T17:48:33-05:00April 13th, 2021|Categories: Aeneid, Great Books, John Horvat, Virgil|

While painful, suffering can have good consequences and enrich our personal lives. Overcoming adversity can produce in us sentiments of satisfaction and fulfillment. When we confront tragedy with courage and honor, we experience a growth in character that stays with us for life. In Virgil’s Roman epic poem, The Aeneid, there is a famous scene [...]

Pietas and Fallen Cities: America and Vergil’s “Aeneid”

By |2020-09-28T00:48:46-05:00September 27th, 2020|Categories: Aeneid, American Republic, Civilization, Culture, Great Books, Religion, Virgil, Virtue|

Authentic righteousness for a nation of natives, settlers, immigrants, and refugees requires the same whether for America or Vergil’s Rome: pietas. This is devotion to family, community, country, and deity. One so devoted does not fear the sublimation of the self in the fulfillment of these duties, for it is in the pursuit of these [...]

Life After Death With the Poets

By |2020-08-14T12:21:34-05:00August 16th, 2020|Categories: Christianity, Dante, Death, Great Books, Homer, Joseph Pearce, Poetry, Senior Contributors, Virgil|

The greatest poets, including Homer, Virgil, and Dante, ask what happens to the human soul after death. Do the dead become mere shadows of their former selves or do they become more real? The greatest poets have always asked the most important questions. One of the most important questions concerns the destiny of the human [...]

The War of the Gods and Demons

By |2020-02-22T21:48:55-06:00February 22nd, 2020|Categories: Aeneas, Aeneid, Culture, Fiction, Literature, Louis Markos, Religion, Senior Contributors|

Playwright David Lane has graced the Christian community with a formal, blank-verse play that takes up the war of gods and demons. “Dido: The Tragedy of a Woman” retells the tragic tale of the “Aeneid,” but with some dramatic plot twists that allow it to function both as a timeless meditation on the universal issues of [...]

The Pagan Roots of the Christian Logos

By |2020-01-10T09:38:29-06:00January 7th, 2020|Categories: Bradley J. Birzer, Christian Humanism, Christianity, Cicero, Classics, Great Books, Liberal Learning, Virgil|

Any understanding of human dignity in the twenty-first century demands an understanding of the Judeo-Christian Logos (Memra in Hebrew). Without it, there is only chaos and darkness, dispiritedness and confusion, blackness and the abyss. One only has to witness the evil sown by the attempted coup against the Judeo-Christian Logos in the last century by [...]

The Shield of Aeneas: Memory and History in Virgil’s “Aeneid”

By |2020-10-14T12:28:30-05:00October 1st, 2019|Categories: Aeneas, Aeneid, Civilization, Conservatism, Great Books, History, Paul Krause, Senior Contributors, Virgil, Western Civilization|

The “Aeneid” was only possible because the Roman people had the memory and consciousness to make it possible. It is up to us to ensure that its living well of memory doesn’t dry up. Without it, the “Aeneid” will pass into the dustbin of history like the corpses of Priam and Pompey. The grandest image [...]

Armed With Steel

By |2019-05-24T10:58:11-05:00May 22nd, 2019|Categories: Aeneas, Education, Glenn Arbery, Liberal Learning, Virgil, Wisdom, Wyoming Catholic College|

As this year’s seniors take their last exams and prepare to walk across the stage on Saturday morning, I’m led to think about the effect of this whole unique education at Wyoming Catholic College on them. How will it all come together—all the theology and philosophy, the literature and history, the Latin, music, and fine [...]

Virgil on Science

By |2019-05-30T09:43:45-05:00May 21st, 2019|Categories: Letters From Dante Series, Louis Markos, Science, Senior Contributors, Virgil|

For the scientist who knows how to read the face of nature, every object in our world can be explained by way of a cosmic dance. Given enough time and enough swerves, every mountain, every stream, every tree, every animal—even every human soul—will find its way from lifeless atom into living entity. And yet, that [...]

Virgil on Tradition

By |2019-10-10T12:29:32-05:00May 7th, 2019|Categories: Aeneas, Civilization, Imagination, Letters From Dante Series, Louis Markos, Senior Contributors, Tradition, Virgil, Wisdom|

Citizens of the twenty-first century, learn from us to respect and honor your traditions. You seem so fascinated with novel, untried ideas that you often overlook the wisdom of the past. If we forget that legacy, we cease to be who we are. Author’s Introduction: Imagine if Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, and the other great [...]

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