One of the oldest and most exhausted questions in the history of philosophy is why Plato found it necessary and expedient to deport the poets from his perfect society in The Republic. It’s a question many have hypothesized about although, perhaps, unsatisfactorily. One of the 20th century’s great classicists, Eric A. Havelock, considered the expulsion of the poets in his … [Read more...] about Questioning Doubt and the Expulsion of the Poets
Duty
Hektor, The Father
I remember the moment I knew the kind of father I wanted to be. As I read through hundreds of lines of the Iliad in my first year at university, I read about the champion of Troy: Hektor. Homer describes him often with his bronze war helm, shimmering in the sunlight. The same helmet frightened his son as he came to greet his lovely wife and young son atop the tower at Ilion in … [Read more...] about Hektor, The Father