LITERATURE Essay 1: Homer, Hesiod, Homeric Hymns Part 4: Homeric Hymns * * * IN JOY, in praise we lift our voices to God, all of them; we lift our voices in communion with the life-giving force of the universe; in song we participate, we join in meaning, one with the Divine. Listening back from…
LITERATURE Essay 1: Homer, Hesiod, Homeric Hymns Part 3: Introduction, Homer, Iliad * * * THE SOURCE of our religious imagination is HESIOD, more than any other author he codified the liminal character of our nature, the traditions of our cults, our ritual practices, et cetera; yes, even into Christianity, that Roman assumption of Yahweh,…
Bunyan’s Chores, A First Fancy: Ax in Hand. Perhaps you learned of Paul Bunyan from stories in books mother-read or father-read at bed-time, in rainy-day books you read to yourself, or by pass-the-time tales when in-the-car with family. Perhaps you stood in the shadow of a gargantuan Bunyan statue, or rode on the wide back…
LITERATURE Essay 1: Homer, Hesiod, Homeric Hymns Part 2: Homer, Odyssey * * * Sing through me, O Muse, of the man of many turnings, many devices who off-course wandered time-and-again after plundering the citadel of high walled Ilium. Many cities he saw, many men, and learned their minds; many pains he suffered in woe,…
LITERATURE Essay 1: Homer, Hesiod, Homeric Hymns Part 1: Introduction, Homer, Iliad * * * μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆοςοὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί᾽ Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε᾽ ἔθηκε Here begins our literature, and all that came thereafter: Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses Fagles, Robert. The Iliad. New…
