Talisker Great Books Tutorials


GREAT BOOKS TUTORIALS

If you could take only ten books to a deserted island on which you were to be marooned for the rest of your life, what would they be? As Mortimer Adler says, this is no game - we are all in precisely that position. We are simply unable to read all the books there are; therefore, we had better choose well. Some books exercise our minds by their rigor and move our spirits by their beauty with every reading, some books help us communicate with our culture because they have been a common element in education for centuries, some books aid our understanding of the physical world by a clear exposition of careful observations by powerful minds, but only a very few books do any of these things well. And C.S. Lewis says, old books give us a radically different perspective on life and our assumptions, and no modern books can do this at all, no matter how good they are.

As Christians, we understand that ours is an historical faith, one that originated, developed, and grew in certain times at certain places. To study and understand the long stream of history and thought, and to comprehend our place in that stream, is to increase our appreciation of our cultural inheritance, our ability to use wisely and build faithfully upon that inheritance, and our ability to understand and respond to God's work in history.

Wes Callihan of Schola Classical Tutorials

The following Great Books Tutorials follow the format developed by Wes Callihan Schola Classical Tutorials. Without his help, my endeavors at establishing this tutorial service would be greatly lacking. Most of the books will be read in their entirety, except for a few of which only certain portions will be assigned. The headings below are linked to the Bookstore where you can order the specific translations and editions used in the tutorial. Students are expected to read all the assignments, answer the study questions, to fully participate in the discussions, to write the assigned papers and summaries based on the readings, and to have the required editions of the books.

Great Books I

This tutorial covers the literature and historic classics of the ancient Greeks. Great Books I is probably best suited for those students 14 and above. Students must begin with Great Books I unless they have special permission from the tutor.

1) HOMER - Iliad, Odyssey
2) AESCHYLUS - Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Eumenides
3) SOPHOCLES - Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone
4) C.S. LEWIS - Till We Have Faces
5) HERODOTUS - History
6) THUCYDIDES - Peloponnesian War
7) PLUTARCH - Greek Lives
8) PLATO - Euthyphro, Apology, Republic
9) ARISTOTLE - Nicomachean Ethics

Great Books II

This tutorial covers the literature and historic classes of the ancient Romans.

1) VIRGIL - Aeneid
2) LIVY - History of Rome
3) CICERO - Orations and Essays
4) PLUTARCH - Roman Lives
5) TACITUS - Annals
6) LUCRETIUS - On the Nature of Things
7) JOSEPHUS - Wars of the Jews
8) EARLY APOSTOLIC FATHERS - (Clement, Ignatius, The Didache, Polycarp, Barnabas)
9) ATHANASIUS - On the Incarnation
10) EUSEBIUS - Ecclesiastical History
11) AUGUSTINE - Confessions
12) BOETHIUS - The Consolation of Philosophy

Great Books III

This tutorial covers literature and historic classics of the medieval and renaissance periods.

1) BENEDICT - The Rule of St. Benedict
2) BEDE - Ecclesiastical History of the English People
3) "Beowulf"
4) "The Song of Roland"
5) C.S. LEWIS - Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Literature
6) ANSELM - Proslogium, Monologium, Cur Deus Homo
7) THOMAS AQUINAS - Summa Theologica
8) DANTE - Divine Comedy
9) "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"
10) CHAUCER - Canterbury Tales
11) CALVIN - Institutes
12) SPENCER - The Faerie Queene, Epathalomion
13) SIDNEY - Defense of Poetry, Astrophel and Stella
14) SHAKESPEARE - Plays
15) MILTON - Paradise Lost

Great Books IV

This tutorial covers literature and historic classics of the modern era.

1) LOCKE - Treatise on Government
2) ROUSSEAU - Social Contact
3) SMITH - Wealth of Nations
4) THE FEDERALIST / American Foundational Documents
5) ENGLISH ROMANTIC POETRY
6) AUSTEN - Pride and Prejudice
7) DICKENS - David Copperfield
8) ENGLISH VICTORIAN POETRY
9) TWAIN - Huckleberry Finn
10) MARX - The Communist Manifesto
11) DARWIN - Origin of Species
12) NIETZSCHE - Beyond Good and Evil
13) FREUD - The Ego and the Id
14) DOSTOEVSKI - Brothers Karamozov
15) CHESTERTON - The Everlasting Man
16) MACHEN - Christianity and Liberalism
17) LEWIS - God in the Dock