Edgar Allan Poe, while one of America’s most popular authors, is also America’s most deeply misunderstood author. The French have long admired Poe for his mythopoeic powers, but Americans largely think of him as the Stephen King of his day, revelling in fright, horror, and nihilistic violence. Or, as one critic put it, “his tales are nothing more than complicated…
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In the years 800-1066, the Vikings reshaped the history and politics of Europe, raiding, conquering, settling and trading in an area of influence that reached from Byzantium in the east to North America in the west and from Iceland in the north to as far south as Spain and Italy. 1000 years later, the rediscovery of their literature spread throughout…
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Great Britain, in the middle of the 17th century, became the site of a turbulent and destructive civil war, in which the rival armies were those of King and Parliament. Of the many historic personalities brought forth by those violent times, none has been so extravagantly praised or severely condemned as Oliver Cromwell, who rose from being a little-noticed Member…
Our culture is obsessed with “literacy.” We track literacy statistics and data; schools hire literacy coaches and specialists; literature class has been replaced by literacy class. But has this obsession resulted in greater understanding of the written word? Quite the opposite. All around us is the evidence that we are existing in an almost Post-Literate Age. The popularity of AI…
From 800 to 1066, the people we know as “The Vikings” reshaped the history, politics, and culture of Europe, raiding, conquering, settling, and trading from Byzantium in the east to North America in the west, and Iceland to the coasts of Spain and Italy. 800 years later the rediscovery of their literature and mythology took European culture by storm, inspiring…
Once upon a time, the world seemed to move within the patterns of a cosmic game. The heavens danced to a music which resonated throughout the firmament. All the created world opened like a book written by a divine hand, and nature was a language. This is a vision that is now very unfamiliar to us. Are we separated from…
Enlightenment broke the Chain of Being, “untenanting creation of its God.” The Medieval Reason snapped through the clouds into the heavens, and eighteenth-century England wallowed in materialistic and utilitarian philosophy, “scoffing ascent / Proud in their meanness: and themselves they cheat.” The veil between earthly and heavenly things became an iron curtain, and material things were stripped of symbolical understanding…
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With hundreds of thousands of copies on the shelf, the Alice books seem to occupy a central place among the undisputed classics of the 19th century- and indeed of all English literature. It quickly becomes clear that this is no accident, but rather that these works of Nonsense have been carrying on a rich conversation with all other stories and…
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This mini-course is a novel way of introducing literary readers to the most formidable type of literature, lyric poetry, by focusing on those poems that C.S. Lewis admired the most. In addition to providing the literary tools to overcome the obstacles to reading lyric poetry, we will ask why Lewis admired Wordsworth, Herbert, and the metaphysical poets so much. Lewis's thought will also guide us on questions like: why is the sonnet the…
The period of British history from 1837 to 1901 was one in which both Britain and the world were altered remarkably. Changes abounded, in social customs, technology, political and military affairs, and the relations between person and person, citizen and government. Join Thomas Banks on June 30th-July 8th in this six-lecture exploration of the lives of five Victorian men and women who, in diverse ways,…
$120.00–$295.00Price range: $120.00 through $295.00
Individual Price: $120 (Non-Refundable) ***Family Rate for 3 or more students*** Price: $295 (Non-Refundable) The Harry Potter series rivals both The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings as the most popular fantasy series of all time. Behind all the hype, film franchises, amusement parks, cos-play, and controversy are stories deeply steeped in the same Literary Tradition as…
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For centuries, writers have drawn inspiration from the literary tradition as well as the living page of nature to shape their literary lives. But what about the composer? How does attention to nature as well as a deep understanding of folktales and myth affect a person whose first language is music? Join Querida Thompson as she guides us through Bedrich…
Every era has to grapple with the eternal showdown of Plato vs. Aristotle. Plato is best-known for his transcendent Forms while Aristotle is forever aligned to the particulars of this world. But what are the universals? And what are the particulars? Is there any harmony of thought for the tutor and his pupil? This dialogue surrounding Platonic and Aristotelian philosophies…
Why has nature been called the first book? And what does it mean to say that we must know nature to know stories? These are the questions we will be exploring in this webinar. It may be that this “book of nature” is the common tongue between us and an older age, and we must recover our eyes to see…
CLASS DESCRIPTION In this class, we will read the whole of Dante's Comedy, with a particularly focus on how Dante used the "great books" of his own day to construct a deeply spiritual and psychological journey, from despair and loss and divisiveness to a happiness so bright and full the human mind cannot take it all in. We will see…
In the face of our current crisis of meaning, many have looked for answers in theology, philosophy, education, even politics. But what if the current crisis we are suffering under is really a crisis of language—one that reaches far beyond concern about the USES of language and instead revolves around the very nature and purpose of language itself? The modern…
“The Inklings”—it is a name we love, and, for many of us, it conjures up a whole cosmos of worlds and imaginings. But when C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Owen Barfield called themselves “the Inklings,” they had something specific in mind. Despite their great differences in temperament and vocation, this circle of friends—which grew to include Charles…
By the time of Lewis Carroll’s death in 1898, Macmillan had printed over 150,000 copies of Alice in Wonderland and over 100,000 of its companion Through the Looking Glass. The Alice books remain the most translated into foreign languages after the Bible and Shakespeare. It has become one of the most widely quoted books in the Western world. There were…
“You refer to the prophecy of the one who will bring balance to the Force. You believe it’s this boy?” During the production of the original Star Wars series, writer/director George Lucas conceived of a score of other films about the mythological beginnings of his 20th century medieval romance, chronicling the origins of the villainous Darth Vader and his fall…
In 1897, in a small town in the north of France, there ended the life of a young woman known to almost nobody. Her existence had not been marked by any visible greatness or any exceptional act. Within a few decades of her death, a pope would describe her as "the greatest of modern saints" and her exceptional holiness would…
Plato's Republic stands as one of the most influential texts in the literary and philosophical tradition, and many of its key ideas still capture our imaginations. In this webinar, Dr. Anne Phillips will explore the background of the Republic and the flow of its argument, with a particular focus on the metaphorical and allegorical imagery that Plato uses to paint…
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…
Individual Price: $99 (Non-Refundable) ***NEW Family Rate for 3 or more students*** Price: $250 (Non-Refundable) The Harry Potter series rivals both The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings as the most popular fantasy series of all time. Behind all the hype, film franchises, amusement parks, cos-play, and controversy are stories deeply steeped in the same Literary Tradition…
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