A Summer With Virgil
If anyone is looking for summer reading, classicist Bruce Thornton has a wonderful essay over at the Hoover journal Defining Ideas about five indispensable works of ancient Greek and Roman literature: Homer's Iliad, Plato's Apology, Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, Virgil's Aeneid, and Petronius' Satyricon.
Thornton beautifully shows how these classics, which "make for sublime and delightful beach reading," help us "make sense of ourselves and the world around us."
Here are his thoughts on the Iliad:
At its heart, it [the Iliad] is a profound examination of what is best and worst in human nature, of what binds people together into a community and what tears them apart with bloody violence. As Homer tells the story of the “baneful wrath” of Achilles, the “best of the Achaeans,” over his dishonor at the hands of the ruler Agamemnon, he brilliantly shows us the destructive effects of the hero’s code of honor and vengeance against those, even friends, who fail to acknowledge his excellence and great deeds. Achilles’ quest for revenge, driven by a passionate anger he cannot control, in the end sacrifices his own community, his most beloved friend, and ultimately his own humanity. Homer teaches us that no society can survive when its ideals are based on personal honor and glory achieved through violence. Human community and human identity both depend on the “ties that bind,” the mutual obligations and affections we all, even the most brilliant of us, owe one another by virtue of being born into a tragic world of change, loss, and death.
You can read the rest of his essay here.
I'd be curious to know: What's on your summer reading list?
- Comment (26)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (7)
- Pages:
- 1
- 2
Comments:
Sep '10
Re: A Summer With Virgil
I'm in the middle of Virginia Postrels "substance of style" which, while not an epic, is a fascinating look at our changing tastes and also James West's Short Autobiography of Scott Fitzgerald- reviewed by you in the New Criterion. Delightful escape from my normal immersion in the quotidian toads of the dismal science.
Feb '11
Re: A Summer With Virgil
So far, I've read 2 Hans Fallada novels set in Weimar Germany: my reviews here. Also "Freedom's Forge," by Arthur Herman, about the industrial side of America's WWII armament program.
Next up: "Going South: Why Britain will have a third-world economy by 2014," by Elliott & Atkinson, and "Cultures & Organizations," Hofstede/Minkov, an analysis of major dimensions of difference across world cultures.
Mar '11
Re: A Summer With Virgil
My plan is to finish book 12 of the Aeneid tonight. I had planned to read this month's ago but I got distracted with the Apology and its companion Crito. I have Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics queued up but I'm afraid if I don't take a break with something lighter my head will explode.
Thanks for the essay link. May I also recommend, for anyone looking for assistance in connecting the great works of literature to the world around them, Grand Strategies by Charles Hill.
Feb '11
Re: A Summer With Virgil
A buddy from church and I are starting Don Quixote. After that, not sure, although I'd like to finish N. T. Wrights series on New Testament and the People of God...
Feb '11
Re: A Summer With Virgil
I just finished Andrew Roberts' masterful Masters and Commanders yesterday and jumped into Fulton Sheen's Life of Christ. I plan to supplement such reading with a couple of Agatha Christie books I've already read, and borrow John O'Sullivan's President, Pope, and Prime Minister when my mom finishes it.
Dec '10
Re: A Summer With Virgil
Having seen an Uncommon Knowledge interview with Andrew Robert's Storm of War, I finished listening to it on Audible. N arrator, Christian Rodska, performed beautifully. He was able to change voice and tone as needed to fit different characters, and he captured the "feel" of the men who he was quoting.
Having spent the better part of 30 hours in these past weeks listening to him, I actually feel somewhat sad now that his voice, along with the wonderful yet sad story, are no longer part of my day.
Before that, I listened to Jonah Goldberg's Tyranny of Cliches on Audible. This was narrated by Jonah himself and was quite the treat. Equal parts entertainment and equal parts ammunition to counter standard liberal cliches and arguments.
Earlier still, I finished Charles Murray's Coming Apart, also on Audible.
Currently I'm working on C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity (naturally on Audible), while Churchill and War. The author's name escapes me.
I eventually want to finish Gibbon's Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, and Churchill's, The History of English Speaking People's, before reading Andrew Robert's companion/follow-up of Churchill's work.
Dec '10
Re: A Summer With Virgil
Essentially, I've spent all my reading time (aside from A Song of Ice and Fire!) working on the books that the fine folks and members of Ricochet have recommended. The summer will be spent accordingly.
I have a feeling that I'll never be caught up.
Mar '11
Re: A Summer With Virgil
A used book store near my home has an abridged version for $8.
Can anyone offer a yea or nay on an abridgment? Is it worth my time? Is it cheating?
Jan '11
Re: A Summer With Virgil
A great Jesuit teacher insisted that you should always have two books going at the same time: one fiction, one non-fiction. He also said that you should vary your reading between required classics and then whatever interests you ... as he put it, "even if it has sex in it - especially if it has sex in it." You should also vary it by prose, poetry, or play.
My immediate fiction goals are two plays from Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller. I have a friend who specializes in Gerard Manley Hopkins, and so I want to go through his poetry with my friend's handbook nearby.
Nonfiction: the Eisenhower biography by Stephen Ambrose, and a collection of homilies by Walter Burghardt, SJ, who died a couple years ago. (Some books are perfect for the commuter train.)
Finally, anything on sale on Amazon kindle. I'm an addict.
Dec '10
Re: A Summer With Virgil
Casey
A used book store near my home has an abridged version for $8.
Can anyone offer a yea or nay on an abridgment? Is it worth my time? Is it cheating? · 16 minutes ago
The abridged version that I'm reading is over 2,000 pages long (small text/paperback). I didn't discover that it was abridged until about halfway through. The sheer size made not question if it was abridged, I simply assumed that a book that large couldn't be abridged!
The quality and depth of detail provided in the abridged version was more than sufficient for me. Frankly, the thought of the non-abridged version makes me afraid.
Edited on June 22, 2012 at 4:06pmMay '10
Re: A Summer With Virgil
All available for free via Kindle (or Kindle for PC). I already have the first four, but forgot about Satyricon. Thanks.
I need to lighten up. After finishing the Church history I'm currently reading, I'm going to stick to fiction for a while. And maybe some poetry.
Aug '10
Re: A Summer With Virgil
I recently acquired a 1736 copy of Alexander Pope's translation of The Iliad, Volume II. Pope's is brilliant, of course, but his footnotes alone are worth reading by themselves. His insights are priceless. The sheer horror of war is made clear by Homer, who may have been a physician; so specific are his anatomical descriptions of wounds. He doesn't glorify war by any stretch.
I'm rereading an epic masterpiece about WWII, Herman Wouk's The Winds of War. It was made into an excellent series for television in 1983, which led me to the book recently.
I think war is in the air, more than ever.
Edited on June 22, 2012 at 4:21pmAug '10
Re: A Summer With Virgil
Definitely worth your time. Gibbon is a real delight. Go for the abridgement. People wrote in an overly floral style back then because all they had were books, mostly, for entertainment. They wanted them to go on and on.
Casey
A used book store near my home has an abridged version for $8.
Can anyone offer a yea or nay on an abridgment? Is it worth my time? Is it cheating? · 37 minutes ago
Jun '10
Re: A Summer With Virgil
Bruce Thornton, even though he's been on Uncommon Knowledge, is a not-well-known gem. His recent book The Wages of Appeasement should be required reading in the era of the apology tour. A book he wrote a few years ago, The Plagues of the Mind, is a brilliant dissection of the foundational myths of the modern liberal mind (e.g., the Noble Savage, The False Goddess, the Age of Environmental Paradise).
And, as Emily points out, he is a great classicist.
As to the Iliad, I'm partial to the Fagles translation.
My summer reading:
Edited on June 22, 2012 at 5:47pmFeb '11
Re: A Summer With Virgil
Frontsoldaten, The German Soldier in World War II by Stephen G. Fritz . http://faculty.etsu.edu/fritzs/
Feb '12
Re: A Summer With Virgil
Wow. who would have thought that in 2008?
I will be reading Jonah Goldberg (Tyranny..) and Fred Vargas (L'armée furieuse).
Mar '11
Re: A Summer With Virgil
Thanks to my messy habit of reading several books at once, I'm way behind you on that. But I'll have it done in a couple of weeks.
Nov '11
Re: A Summer With Virgil
I was going to act like a big snob and say War and Peace, except I've read it eight or ten times already, three or four times straight through, and five or six times in scattered pieces.
Kidding aside . . . my theory is, if you are a truly serious reader, as you get older and older you read fewer and fewer books, and fewer and fewer new ones, until--if you live long enough--your reading list boils down to one good old book, and you read it over and over, more and more slowly, ever more slowly, until you die.
(I'm guessing Grene stopped with Paradise Lost.)
My wisest teacher used to say the books he gave us were not for poolside frivolity. Ever since then I've thought it mean and sacrilegious to expose the insides of a good book to sunlight and would never bring a good book to beach or pool. (I do take them indiscriminately both to toilet and to table--because one should resist allowing the low to dictate to the high.)
Of course, I'm teasing about most of this, but one thing's for sure:
Summer reading lists are for kids.
Feb '11
Re: A Summer With Virgil
Emily Esfahani Smith: .....
Here are his thoughts on theIliad:
Destructive effects of the hero's code of honor? The lesson I learned was of the destructive effects of not following the hero's code of honor in order to pursue personal, unvirtuous ends instead (that means you, Agamemnon). The rest of the Argives could have joined Achilles and the Myrmidons in abiding by their huts and ships in protest of Agamemnon's breach, then they would have avoided the grief that befell them until their own community was set right, but they didn't do so because they were eager for the plunder of Troy.
Edited on June 22, 2012 at 10:33pmFeb '11
Re: A Summer With Virgil
Emily Esfahani Smith: .....
Here are his thoughts on theIliad:
.....
At the end of the Iliad, doesn't Achilles regains his humanity as he weeps with Priam and releases the body of Hector to be mourned properly? Also, I didn't get the message that "no society can survive when its ideals are based on personal honor and glory achieved through violence". On the contrary, it seems no society can survive when its leaders and members subordinate personal honor and glory, prizes bestowed by society, to personal vice (e.g. Paris, Agamemnon, Helen).
Did I misread the whole thing?