Set Your Stout Hearts to Confront Adversity!
Anyone who knows of Rome will be familiar with Lucilius, Horace, Persius and Juvenal. These great poets wrote satires that have influenced writers for 2,000 years. In this book, John…
The Choice of Odysseus or Penelope?
Image: Monteverdi This important contribution to Homeric studies is entitled The Choice of Odysseus. Due to reasons I will explain below, I added Penelope to the title in my headline.…
Poetry is the Handmaiden of Philosophy
One of the world’s great books is The Decameron, written by Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375). He is one of the iconic ‘Three Crowns’ of Italian literature. His life largely overlapped with…
The English Were Mathematically Obsessed
Image: John Collins (1625-1683) While some Continental advances in mathematics are covered, this book is largely about the practice of mathematics in Great Britain. By the late 18th and early…
THE CHOICEST GIFT OF HEAVEN and The 250th Birthday of Jane Austen
December 16 marked the 250th birthday of Jane Austen. This is the third article published in Sun News Austen to commemorate the event (see below) Professor Janet Todd (Univ. of…
SICILY: Emblem of Empire
“Sicily, it its peculiar relationship to the mainland, in its literary portrayal, in its history as a site of civil war and as reputed first province, stands as an emblem…
Reading Homer’s Odyssey
Picking up Homer’s Odyssey and reading it ‘cold’ is not a good idea. Reading it is essential, as it (together with The Iliad) is the foundational text of Western civilization,…
The Intoxication of the Ruins of Rome
You may think you know the ruins of ancient Rome, but this book will make you think about them in new ways. Roland Mayer is Emeritus Professor of Classics at…
Even Hell has a Library
“I am unable to satisfy my thirst for books.” That pithy line was written in 1337 by Petrarch, and that was even before the printing press was invented! Imagine what…
The Book of Kells: Unlocking the Enigma
The greatest treasure of Ireland, The Book of Kells, is considered the most magnificent medieval manuscript that survives and one of the oldest. The Latin manuscript contains the four gospels…