Just as the modern reader struggles with the loss of the shared literary, cultural, and imaginative landscape of the literary tradition, so has the modern listener lost touch with the imaginative language of music. C.S. Lewis says that it is the first duty of a reader to read the work like the original audience and this is no less true…
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There are certain historical characters whose lives seem woven out of the stuff of romantic fiction more than attested fact. One such character is the last Catholic queen of Scotland. The life of Mary Stuart spanned a period of religious revolution, war, intrigue, plot, and political drama unparalleled in the history of her country. Join us on Thursday, September 5th to…
King Alfred of Wessex, the only sovereign in British history on whom the epithet "Great" has been traditionally bestowed, never ruled over the whole of Great Britain, nor even over the whole of England. Yet after his death he stood in the memory of his nation not only as a great bulwark against their enemies and as a liberal patron…
Few things divide us moderns from our ancient forebears as our different ways of understanding the past. We are apt to think of history as a science, the duty of whose practitioners is to describe, with clinical detachment, long ago events "as they actually happened, as plain matters of fact". But in the world of ancient Greece it was not…
(Note: This is a recording of a previously live webinar. To access the recorded video afterwards, log in to your House of Humane Letters account, click "Dashboard," then "Orders," then click the corresponding order. There will be a link that says "View Recording.") “A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…” From these words began one of…
(Note: This is a recording of a previously live webinar. To access the recorded video afterwards, log in to your House of Humane Letters account, click "Dashboard," then "Orders," then click the corresponding order. There will be a link that says "View Recording." The Slides and the Chat Box are also in Your Account right under View Recording.) Tolkien &…
This webinar taught by Dr. Jason Baxter will introduce (or reintroduce) readers to Dante's Inferno by focusing on how the moral urgency of Dante's collapsing world led him to attempt a daring form of poetry which he thought could save the world. In particular, we'll focus on how Dante's Franciscan understanding of history led him to recycle a Boethian sense…
(Note: This is a recording of a previously live webinar. To access the recorded video afterwards, log in to your House of Humane Letters account, click "Dashboard," then "Orders," then click the corresponding order. There will be a link that says "View Recording.") The modern mind and imagination have been altered and influenced by few characters so profoundly as by…
A Webinar by Thomas Banks and Michael Williams The 20th century was an era in which poetry gradually became less and less culturally visible. Among the last exemplars of the craft who were truly public figures of international reputation were an American who became an Englishman, and an Englishman who became an American. T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden were each the master…
King Henry the Eighth, the second monarch of the Tudor dynasty, has been credited both by admirers and enemies with having brought to an end the old England of the late middle ages and ushering in the new England of early modern times. On November 17th, Thomas Banks will talk about King Henry's life, wars, marriages, innovations in church and state, and the…
(Note: This is a recording of a previously live webinar. To access the recorded video afterwards, log in to your House of Humane Letters account, click "Dashboard," then "Orders," then click the corresponding order. There will be a link that says "View Recording.") Evelyn Waugh was one of the comic masters of 20th century English literature. He was also…
Napoleon Bonaparte, whose ambitions, victories, and final defeat at Waterloo changed Europe permanently in the wake of the French Revolution, has inspired historians and students of history for many generations with admiration and hatred alike. On May 25th, Thomas Banks will describe his obscure origins, his rise to power in the aftermath of the Revolution, his triumphs in the field…
