Book Review: Beowulf
“Choose, dear Beowulf, the better part,
eternal rewards. Do not give way to pride.”
– Beowulf. 1759-1760.
“Choose, dear Beowulf, the better part,
eternal rewards. Do not give way to pride.”
– Beowulf. 1759-1760.
Why Langland’s allegorical poem about the spiritual life ought to inspire us today.
“Not all those who wander are lost.”
– J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
“And every spirit that dissolveth Jesus, is not of God: and this is Antichrist, of whom you have heard that he cometh, and he is now already in the world.”
– 1 John 4:3
The soul, the mind, needs food and exercise just as the body does; but the food of the mind is not bread, and its exercise is not games. It feeds on visions of truth and beauty as supplied by the master word artists in literature; its exercise is to wrestle with ideas enshrined in noble books, even as Jacob wrestled all the night with the angel; and its reward is, like Jacob’s, to receive a joyful blessing at the dawn.
“Even if Epictetus did see the way clearly, he only told men: ‘You are on the wrong track.’ He shows us that there is another, but he does not lead us there. The right way is to want what God wants. Christ alone leads to it. Via veritas…”
– Blaise Pascal (Pensées, fragment 466)