I rather like Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. I should also admit that I’m not a hard-core devotee of mysteries in general. If I were, I probably would find the frequent plot holes in the Holmes corpus more annoying than I do. I enjoy them mostly for the period atmosphere, the prickly character of… Continue reading The Sherlock Holmes Law
Category: Literature
Crafting a Literature Program
The liberal arts are, to great measure, founded on written remains, from the earliest times to our own. Literature (broadly construed to take in both fiction and non-fiction) encompasses a bewildering variety of texts, genres, attitudes, belief systems, and just about everything else. Like history (which can reasonably be construed to cover everything we know,… Continue reading Crafting a Literature Program
STEMs and Roots
Everywhere we see extravagant public handwringing about education. Something is not working. The economy seems to be the symptom that garners the most attention, and there are people across the political spectrum who want to fix it directly; but most seem to agree that education is at least an important piece of the solution. We… Continue reading STEMs and Roots
Why Study Greek?
I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honour, and Greek as a treat. — Winston Churchill (somewhat out of context). A few years ago I wrote an entry on this blog entitled “Why Study Latin?” It was a distillation of my own thoughts… Continue reading Why Study Greek?
Homer: It’s All Greek to Me (And It’s Better That Way)
In any translated work of literature, much of the artistry is lost. There is simply no way to capture all the nuances of the original language in a translation. Works of poetry especially suffer in translation, because it is very difficult, and in many cases impossible, to preserve the original work’s meter, rhyme scheme, and… Continue reading Homer: It’s All Greek to Me (And It’s Better That Way)
Do you still have that old double-dactyl thing…?
Okay…now for something a mite silly. Of the various things I’ve published in one medium or another over the years, the one that people still e-mail me asking about is not actually anything serious — but this. It’s not widely available any more, so I thought I’d put it where those who want it can… Continue reading Do you still have that old double-dactyl thing…?
Autonomy of Means revisited: the Internet
Last May I wrote a piece for this blog entitled “Autonomy of Means and Education”. The choice of phrasing was drawn from Charles WIlliams, “Bors to Elayne, on the King’s Coins”. I’ve recently had reason to revisit the question again, from a different direction. I’ve just finished reading Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows: What the Internet… Continue reading Autonomy of Means revisited: the Internet
Autonomy of means and education
Though not as well known as his friends J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams (1886–1945) was nevertheless an active member of the Inklings throughout most of its lifetime, and displayed a powerful, if somewhat eccentric, spiritual insight. He wrote seven odd metaphysical novels that haven’t ever quite caught the imagination of mainstream readers, but… Continue reading Autonomy of means and education
Latin pronunciation for the continuing student
On bulletin boards and in magazines dealing with classical homeschooling, one question that arises over and over again is, “What sort of pronunciation should we use in teaching Latin?” The options usually boil down to two: the reconstructed classical pronunciation, and the Italianate ecclesiastical pronunciation. Both have their champions, and the discussions that follow in… Continue reading Latin pronunciation for the continuing student
The King of Quotations
This summer I’m planning on teaching the second of my three Summer Shakespeare courses. Accordingly, I’ve been putting together a web site for it, and have been thinking about Shakespeare a good deal in general; in addition, our son recently played Hamlet in Minneapolis, and we were fortunate enough to get to see him in… Continue reading The King of Quotations