Saturday, June 13, 2009

Next Iliad Seminar on Facebook

Due to member requests, the Facebook discussion group "Do It Again - Rereading the St. John's Program" will remain a private group for members only, and no summary or paraphrased synopsis shall be made available.

I shall feel free to continue to blog my own personal thoughts and opinions at my blogspot as I re-read the "great books" program, but my remarks shall in no way paraphrase or represent what anyone discusses in the private Facebook group.

Here are my personal observations:

Homeric heroes exemplify virtues such as speed (Achilles) or massiveness (Ajax) or beauty (Helen? Juno? Hera? Aphrodite?) taken to the utmost extreme, and yet the wisdom of ancient philosophy is a "middle way" of nothing overmuch and moderation.


The other question which intrigues me regards how each of us might choose to characterize Achilles and Odysseus as to what their political or religious or philosophical affiliations might be were they to live in our times (based upon what we see as their character traits.) I realize that this sort of question is even MORE unorthodox in the eyes of St. John's seminar protocol than would be a discussion of Patroclus death in the guise of Achilles likened to the concept of Christ's substitutional atonement (which is what immediately came to my mind before

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