Today, the greatest literary works of Western Civilization are often cancelled or suppressed. However, these books need to be read and understood in order to communicate important truths about ourselves and the world around us. In this class, you will journey through great works of literature as you explore virtue and vice in the development of the concept of the “hero”.
MEET YOUR PROFESSOR
Dr. Ben Reinhard
Dr. Ben Reinhard received his Ph.D. from the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame, writing his dissertation on Old English religious literature. Dr. Reinhard is the author of a new verse translation of Beowulf. His current research interests include Anglo-Saxon manuscripts, medieval saints’ lives, and modern translations of Old English poetry. He lives with his wife and children in Steubenville, OH.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
The glory and limitations of the Achilles and how Virgil critiques and refines the Homeric hero.
How the character of the knight developed and endured into the modern world.
The Enlightenment’s rejection of Christianity and the advent of the “anti-hero.”
Tolkien’s creation of a new kind of hero allowed himto advance traditional ideas about the hero in a secularized and skeptical modern age.
LESSONS IN THIS COURSE
