Tuesday One of my most satisfying reads in recent years is Caroline Alexander’s The War That Killed Achilles: The True Story of Homer’s Iliad and The Trojan War. Alexander is the kind of writer that I aspire to be: an academic who taps into the meticulous research of other scholars to write for a popular […]
Tag Archives: Iliad
Amazon Fires and the Fury of Achilles
Monday Few news items have alarmed and depressed me as much as the burning of the Amazon rain forests, often called the “lungs of the world.” As National Geographic reports The Amazon rainforest—home to one in 10 species on Earth—is on fire. As of last week, 9,000 wildfires were raging simultaneously across the vast rainforest […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Amazon fires, climate change denial, global warming, Homer, Jair Bolsonaro Comments closed
Through Lit, We Learn Compassion
Tuesday My brother Sam, an enthusiastic Unitarian Universalist, gave me Karen Armstrong’s Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life for Christmas, and I was pleased that the author sees literature playing a major role. In today’s post I share how she draws on the ancient Greeks. Armstrong writes, “All faiths insist that compassion is the test […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Prelude", Aeschylus, compassion, Eumenides, Euripides, Heracles, Homer, Oedipus at Colonus, Oresteia, Sophocles, Tintern Abbey, William Wordsworth Comments closed
Anger in Ancient Greek Works
A new book looks at how the ancient Greeks approached the issue of anger in works such as “Iliad,” “Ajax,” and “Hecuba.
Great Pro-War Literature Doesn’t Exist
In which I argue that great pro-war literature doesn’t exist, including “The iliad” and “War and Peace.” (Both works are magnificent; I just don’t see them as pro-war.)
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged "Charge of the Light Brigade", Alfred Lord Tennyson, anti-war literature, Catch 22, Donald Trump, Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls, Homer, Joseph Heller, Leo Tolstoy, Naked and the Dead, Norman Mailer, Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien, war, War and Peace Comments closed
The Liberal Arts Will Not Die
Thursday My colleague Jeff Hammond, a national authority on Puritan poetry and a much lauded writer of reflective essays, recently gave a stirring defense of the liberal arts for our parents-alumni weekend. Jeff’s observations dovetail very nicely with Percy Shelley’s Defence of Poetry, which I happen to be teaching at the moment. Watching poetry getting […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Defence of Poetry, Henry V, Jeffrey Hammond, Liberal Arts, Odyssey, William Shakespeare Comments closed
On Broken Ceasefires, in Homer & in Syria
The horrific bombing of a 31-truck aid convoy brought an end to the painstakingly negotiated ceasefire between Russian and the United States in Syria. The incident resembled how Hera and Athena break up the truce that the Greeks and Trojans are trying to negotiate in “The Iliad.”
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged broken truces, ceasefires, Homer, Russia, Syria, Syrian aid convoy bombing, Syrian civil war Comments closed
Lily, Achilles, Bertha & Ishmael on Vacation
Lily Bart, Bertha Mason, Achilles, Ishmael and Queequeg all go on vacation. Where do they go?
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Charlotte Bronte, Herman Melville, Homer, House of Mirth, Jane Eyre, Moby Dick, vacations, Wharton (Edith) Comments closed
Trump’s Use of the Homeric Epithet
Donald Trump is making regular use of “the Homeric epithet.” He doesn’t use it as well as Homer, however.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump, Homer, Odyssey, politics Comments closed
