Great Books

Prometheus Bound

A tale of forethought confined for rebellion against the ruler of the universe.
The scene opens; Prometheus, the fore thinking one, has defied Zeus in giving various knowledge to mankind, thus incurring his wrath. Hephaestus is nailing Prometheus to a craggy mountain face reluctantly, spurred on by Might and Violence. The immediate parallels with the fall of Man present themselves in the modern context. The imagery is inverted, with the rebel suffering at the hands of a tyrannical ruler of the universe for helping mankind.

The Odyssey

The Odyssey focuses us on common decency, family and justice suffered by the wicked.
The Odyssey is the story of family, love, justice, virtue, and vice. The tale of how they are woven into civilization. On a basic level, it is about a man’s journey home. More deeply, it is about the travails of an abandoned family; it’s about the unlawfulness of swaggering masculinity; it’s about the forbearance of a faithful wife. An epic of many tales about a man of many twists and turns.

The Iliad

The Iliad is a brutal war epic, perhaps the war epic. The work evokes images of Apocalypse now, or the landing at normandy.
The Iliad is a brutal war epic, perhaps the war epic. I started reading it back in August 2019. During the reading, I attended two seminars to discuss the book, and completed it in November. It was a hard read for me. That may have been because of the constant, grinding, unreal level of violence portrayed. Though this was my first reading of The Iliad, I will hazard a summary to crystalize my understanding.

A Study of the Great Books

A footnote in the chronicle of my quest for greater understanding through reading.
In August 2019 I became interested in reading the great books of Western Civilization. This interest started whilst considering, at length, the public school system in the United States. Both in consideration of my mixed experiences with it, and in planning for my children’s educations. I have always been an avid reader. However, I haven’t read many of, or studied in great depth, the foundational works of the West. In my research I stumbled upon Online Great Books via the Art of Manliness Podcast.

An Introduction to Mathematics

Analysis of An Introduction to Mathematics, a 1911 treatise on the discipline.
Alfred North Whitehead’s An Introduction to Mathematics takes us on a journey of broad strokes, one that traverses the history, notation, and application of mathematical fields. An Introduction to Mathematics is a practical book on theory, great for enticing the study of math at the university level. While covering introductory material, it introduces elegant mathematical insights that will intrigue the reader. It illustrates the principles of generality, form, variable, and abstraction as the elements of mathematics.