LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL April 16, 1963 MY DEAR FELLOW CLERGYMEN: ….Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could […]
Author Archives: Jane Mason
Everyone desires the good – Meno 77c-78b (contributed by Jane Mason)
This short piece of argument is set within the larger question debated by the Meno – what is virtue and can it be taught? Meno presents a series of definitions […]
Endlessness – Homer, Ibycus, Cicero, Leopardi (Contributed by Cristina Lofaro)
These passages explain the feelings of the four poets dealing with what is endless, impossible to reach, and for man to understand in depth. In the Greek and Latin extracts, […]
Juvenal Satire 1. 1-35 (contributed by Sam Hayes)
Juvenal is one of my favourite Latin authors – he adopts a persona with such vivid anger that it’s hard not to realise that the whole piece is a carefully […]
The Return of Spring – Lucretius, Catullus and Horace (contributed by Viviana La Russa and Simona Borrello, with further contribution by Eugenia Russell)
Lucretius was the first author of Latin literature that dealt with the topòs of “The return of spring” in a passage of his poem “De Rerum Natura” (I vv.250-256). The […]
Flowing Time – Mimnermus, Seneca and Petrarch (contributed by Domenico Crea)
The three fragments here displayed deal with the theme of the flowing of time. Over the centuries, this theme has become really dear to several poets who, despite their belonging […]
Experiment
Personal introduction – I think that this is one of the most moving passages in The Aeneid. It focuses on Aeneas trying to save his family which is not […]