Information on Greece 2025
It appears that we now have 15-20 more or less confirmed participants in the November trip to Greece. We have therefore contacted our Athenian travel agents, who own a hotel in Athens and provide buses and guides.
Author: Thomas Fleming
Summer Poems
Four summer poems by A.E. Housman, the Welsh poet Edward Thomas, Robinson Jeffers, and Robert Louis Stevenson
Scott’s Ivanhoe Part II
The most striking feature of Ivanhoe is probably the depiction of the conflict between Saxons and Normans.
Poetry: Douglas Young
This is one of Douglas Young’s few poems in English (as opposed to what he called Lallans, Lowland Scots), though it is also in German, French, and Doric Greek. Note the date: 1939.
Walter Scott: Ivanhoe, Part I
Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, published in 1818, took Britain by storm. As he explains in the preface he wrote for a later edition, he had begun to realize that the reading public, after enjoying nine Scottish novels in four years, was beginning to typecast the unknown “author of Waverley” as a Scottish localist
Notice to Greek and Italian Students
I have paused the classes for part of the Summer in order to give some students, who have told me they are lagging behind, the chance to catch up.
The Trump Dilemma
The MAGA coalition, if we can believe the media, is about to explode into antagonistic fragments. While many Trump voters are still loyal, others, following the lead of his would-be successors, are in rebellion. The cause of the rebellion is indicative of what is wrong with the entire movement.
Scott’s Scottish Nationalism
One important service Scott rendered his own people was the recovery of the Highlands as part of Scotland. Before Sir Walter, many Lowland Scots had shared the English view of the highlanders as brigands who periodically swept down from the hills to steal everything not nailed down. This was not an entirely false conception, as Scott freely acknowledged,
Media Maniacs
I have often imagined award ceremonies to pay tribute to what is most typically American. My first thought was a PT Barnum Award for the American who most contributed to the degradation of the American character.
Summer School Texts and Information Updated #6 Key Terms added
July 7-12 2025
The Archaic Age of Greece
