Simple Gifts

"This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks." This first line of Longfellow's poem has rung down across time, as his poem was meant to do. He wrote it in blank dactylic hexameter, reminiscent of Homer and Latin heroic verse. It was his most famous poem during his lifetime. The first three stanzas of the poem ("the Prelude") tell the story in precis. The French-speaking settl...

As an elementary school student, I remember reading for the first time Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. I was captivated by Crusoe's solitary ingenuity on the island, his trips back and forth to the foundered ship, his reconstruction of civilized life from the fundaments. It awakened in me a lifetime love of survival narratives, and a fascination with survival strategies and skills. If today I can forage...

Having not taught Plato's Gorgias since graduate school in the '90's, I had forgotten how rich and important this dialogue is to the Western tradition. Having now recorded the whole dialogue for Simple Gifts, I am delighted to share it with you. Gorgias was one of the most famous Sophists in the time of Classical Greece. He was one of a number of traveling teachers of the discipline of rhetoric, t...

Authored by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay to appear anonymously in New York papers under the pseudonym "Publius" in 1787 and 1788, the Federalist Papers aimed to rally public support for the proposed Constitution of the United States. As such, it is one of the most important sources for understanding the original intent of the US Constitution by those who participated in its const...

THE EVERLASTING MAN by Gilbert Kyle Chesterton Part One: On The Creature Called Man Chapter Eight: The End of the World Gilbert Kyle Chesterton remains one of the great voices of Christian faith in the last century, and it is a tragedy that more Christians are not familiar with his work. C. S. Lewis credits Chesterton, and in particular The Everlasting Man, with displaying the rationality of the C...

"This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks." This first line of Longfellow's poem has rung down across time, as his poem was meant to do. He wrote it in blank dactylic hexameter, reminiscent of Homer and Latin heroic verse. It was his most famous poem during his lifetime. The first three stanzas of the poem ("the Prelude") tell the story in precis. The French-speaking settl...

As an elementary school student, I remember reading for the first time Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. I was captivated by Crusoe's solitary ingenuity on the island, his trips back and forth to the foundered ship, his reconstruction of civilized life from the fundaments. It awakened in me a lifetime love of survival narratives, and a fascination with survival strategies and skills. If today I can forage...

Having not taught Plato's Gorgias since graduate school in the '90's, I had forgotten how rich and important this dialogue is to the Western tradition. Having now recorded the whole dialogue for Simple Gifts, I am delighted to share it with you. Gorgias was one of the most famous Sophists in the time of Classical Greece. He was one of a number of traveling teachers of the discipline of rhetoric, t...

Authored by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay to appear anonymously in New York papers under the pseudonym "Publius" in 1787 and 1788, the Federalist Papers aimed to rally public support for the proposed Constitution of the United States. As such, it is one of the most important sources for understanding the original intent of the US Constitution by those who participated in its const...

THE EVERLASTING MAN by Gilbert Kyle Chesterton Part One: On The Creature Called Man Chapter Eight: The End of the World Gilbert Kyle Chesterton remains one of the great voices of Christian faith in the last century, and it is a tragedy that more Christians are not familiar with his work. C. S. Lewis credits Chesterton, and in particular The Everlasting Man, with displaying the rationality of the C...

"This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks." This first line of Longfellow's poem has rung down across time, as his poem was meant to do. He wrote it in blank dactylic hexameter, reminiscent of Homer and Latin heroic verse. It was his most famous poem during his lifetime. The first three stanzas of the poem ("the Prelude") tell the story in precis. The French-speaking settl...

"This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks." This first line of Longfellow's poem has rung down across time, as his poem was meant to do. He wrote it in blank dactylic hexameter, reminiscent of Homer and Latin heroic verse. It was his most famous poem during his lifetime. The first three stanzas of the poem ("the Prelude") tell the story in precis. The French-speaking settl...

As an elementary school student, I remember reading for the first time Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. I was captivated by Crusoe's solitary ingenuity on the island, his trips back and forth to the foundered ship, his reconstruction of civilized life from the fundaments. It awakened in me a lifetime love of survival narratives, and a fascination with survival strategies and skills. If today I can forage...

Having not taught Plato's Gorgias since graduate school in the '90's, I had forgotten how rich and important this dialogue is to the Western tradition. Having now recorded the whole dialogue for Simple Gifts, I am delighted to share it with you. Gorgias was one of the most famous Sophists in the time of Classical Greece. He was one of a number of traveling teachers of the discipline of rhetoric, t...

Authored by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay to appear anonymously in New York papers under the pseudonym "Publius" in 1787 and 1788, the Federalist Papers aimed to rally public support for the proposed Constitution of the United States. As such, it is one of the most important sources for understanding the original intent of the US Constitution by those who participated in its const...

THE EVERLASTING MAN by Gilbert Kyle Chesterton Part One: On The Creature Called Man Chapter Seven: The War of the Gods and the Demons Gilbert Kyle Chesterton remains one of the great voices of Christian faith in the last century, and it is a tragedy that more Christians are not familiar with his work. C. S. Lewis credits Chesterton, and in particular The Everlasting Man, with displaying the ration...

As an elementary school student, I remember reading for the first time Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. I was captivated by Crusoe's solitary ingenuity on the island, his trips back and forth to the foundered ship, his reconstruction of civilized life from the fundaments. It awakened in me a lifetime love of survival narratives, and a fascination with survival strategies and skills. If today I can forage...

Having not taught Plato's Gorgias since graduate school in the '90's, I had forgotten how rich and important this dialogue is to the Western tradition. Having now recorded the whole dialogue for Simple Gifts, I am delighted to share it with you. Gorgias was one of the most famous Sophists in the time of Classical Greece. He was one of a number of traveling teachers of the discipline of rhetoric, t...

Authored by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay to appear anonymously in New York papers under the pseudonym "Publius" in 1787 and 1788, the Federalist Papers aimed to rally public support for the proposed Constitution of the United States. As such, it is one of the most important sources for understanding the original intent of the US Constitution by those who participated in its const...

THE EVERLASTING MAN by Gilbert Kyle Chesterton Part One: On The Creature Called Man Chapter Seven: The War of the Gods and the Demons Gilbert Kyle Chesterton remains one of the great voices of Christian faith in the last century, and it is a tragedy that more Christians are not familiar with his work. C. S. Lewis credits Chesterton, and in particular The Everlasting Man, with displaying the ration...

"This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks." This first line of Longfellow's poem has rung down across time, as his poem was meant to do. He wrote it in blank dactylic hexameter, reminiscent of Homer and Latin heroic verse. It was his most famous poem during his lifetime. The first three stanzas of the poem ("the Prelude") tell the story in precis. The French-speaking settl...

As an elementary school student, I remember reading for the first time Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. I was captivated by Crusoe's solitary ingenuity on the island, his trips back and forth to the foundered ship, his reconstruction of civilized life from the fundaments. It awakened in me a lifetime love of survival narratives, and a fascination with survival strategies and skills. If today I can forage...

Having not taught Plato's Gorgias since graduate school in the '90's, I had forgotten how rich and important this dialogue is to the Western tradition. Having now recorded the whole dialogue for Simple Gifts, I am delighted to share it with you. Gorgias was one of the most famous Sophists in the time of Classical Greece. He was one of a number of traveling teachers of the discipline of rhetoric, t...

Authored by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay to appear anonymously in New York papers under the pseudonym "Publius" in 1787 and 1788, the Federalist Papers aimed to rally public support for the proposed Constitution of the United States. As such, it is one of the most important sources for understanding the original intent of the US Constitution by those who participated in its const...

THE EVERLASTING MAN by Gilbert Kyle Chesterton Part One: On The Creature Called Man Chapter Seven: The War of the Gods and the Demons Gilbert Kyle Chesterton remains one of the great voices of Christian faith in the last century, and it is a tragedy that more Christians are not familiar with his work. C. S. Lewis credits Chesterton, and in particular The Everlasting Man, with displaying the ration...