Lecture on Dante

The translation of The Inferno used by fellows and faculty of the Center is by Anthony Esolen.

This lecture by Esolen on the final image of Lucifer embedded in ice (along with some other material from Purgatory) is an outstanding introduction to the central meaning of the Inferno. Esolan's style is a bit ragged, but his commentary gets one directly into the heart of the Inferno, and his lecture also gives one some insight into how to read the rest of the imagery of the Comedy.

Note: the lecture isn't actually as long as it appears. Some of the recording is taken up with questions and answers.

Beauty in Music

http://www.covenantseminary.edu/resources/
(update, Aug 2013:  go to this link and do a search for John Hodges' name - there is a more recent set of lectures for Covenant Seminary as well on music and metaphor)

This is a link to a lecture John Hodges gave in 1996, on Beauty in music. Having recently endured a rock 'n roll worship service led by college students, I turn in gratitude to something that gives me relief from the amplified subjectivist piety I was subjected to. The service might have been meaningful in some way to the students, but it was not by any measure of reality a beautiful service of worship.

Do You Like Tolkien?

Have you ever listened to him?

I listen to this trying to imagine him reading to the Inklings. He sits or stands, while Clive smokes a nice cigar and smiles.

New Year

After too long a lapse in posting, this blog should become more active over the coming months as the Institute gears up with new students. Stay tuned for more discussion and for more links to helpful sources.

End of The Year

Well, our first year is finished. We held our closing dinner last Monday, June 15th, and students, their families, faculty, and board were in attendance. Director Hodges played MC, and speeches were given by students, faculty and board about the significance of the work we are doing, and the specific experiences each had this year.

The students graciously thanked the faculty and board for their work to make the year possible, and said in various ways that they will always remember the rich discussions, the fabric of life at L'abri, the time to get to know other cities (Paris, Chartres, Versailles, London, Cambridge), and the joy of a year together.

We hope that the year gave what was promised: a better understanding of how a Christian can see life through the eyes of faith, and some insight into the great writers, artists, and musicians who addressed the big questions of life -- the questions every generation must address. It is wise to reflect on the answers they have given: THEY are our rich cultural inheritance. The reason that we have museums, concert halls, and libraries is so that we can have access to these answers, these ideas, these profound human experiences, embodied in words, paint, stone, sound. If it were not for these media, these answers would be lost to us today. But make no mistake -- these embodied answers ARE our inheritance, and our vision is clearer when we include them in our thinking. We are unwise to dismiss the past when we consider the present. G. K. Chesterton has said that we rightly reject the idea of excluding the vote of someone just because he is not of our social class -- why should we exclude the votes of our ancestors just because they are no longer living?

C. S. Lewis has said that it is not so much that we need more people to write about Christianity, rather we need more Christians who will write about everything else (cooking, art, business practices, philosophy, et c.). We hope that we have encouraged our students to see and ponder all of life from the vantage point of the Faith, and that through our work, they will each be encouraged to take the truth into every area of their work.

If you or anyone you know would be interested in joining us for our year starting August 24th, 2009, please contact our Director John Hodges at 229.9409 or by email jmvhvi@bellsouth.net. We have openings for our student year, and for an adult course of study that we are calling our "Reader's Seminar." We would be pleased to discuss the details with you and even put you in touch with the students who have just completed this year so that you could hear first hand how things went.

Special thanks to our faculty: Bill Jenkins, Keith Callis, and John Hodges who helped make this year the great success it was. And thanks to our Board members who encourage and support this important work.

Into the Woods

Went to see the Playhouse on the Square production of Into the Woods on Saturday night in Memphis. Have you seen it? Very interesting storyline -- several fairy tales (Cinderella, Rapunzel, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Little Red Riding Hood) woven together with aspects of other tales thrown in. All the characters are thrown into the woods to achieve their (sometimes vague) goals. By the end of the first act, there are happy endings for all the "good" characters. But then comes act II...it seems they didn't live happily ever after after all --a giantess terrorizes all of them, and each of them goes through heartaches as well. In the end, many have died, and the remaining few decide to carry on together as best they can.

Games are played with the moral lessons of each of the tales, and new "morals" are given along the way, especially the moral that parents should be careful what they tell their children as they are setting them up to be hurt when they find out how the world really works. It runs until June 7 -- have a look and then let's discuss it here.

Barbarism and Civilization

Though most people automatically associate Herman Melville with his novel Moby Dick, Melville wrote many other important works of literature. Several of these concern the South Seas, an area that Melville had first hand experience with.

This article on a Melville novel, Typee, reflects on Melville's concern with understanding the differences between civilization and more primitive modes of existence, especially the way some civilized people develop a desire to return to a putatively better state of innocence by abandoning civilization for "nature." The article is an excellent exploration of an important work of American literature and how that work can serve us today in thinking about what is worth revivifying in the Western tradition.

Good literature speaks to us today, sometimes in surprisingly relevant ways.