Classical Literature for High School: Online Classes

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Literature: Virgil’s Aeneid: The Founding of Nations in the Will of God

Session dates:
Tuesdays, March 16, 2010 to April 27, 2010. There will be no class Easter week.
Total sessions: 7
Starting time: 10:00 am, Eastern Time (9:00 Central)
Duration: 1 hour 15 minutes
Professor: Henry Russell, Ph.D.

Fee: This course is regularly $140 for the entire 7 weeks.

Course description:
When we visit Washington D.C. the great buildings are not imitations of Greek but of Roman architecture. Our country was founded not as a democracy but as a Republic. George Washington was called “The Father of His Country.” Each of these three facts, and many more, are due to the enduring and world-wide influence of Virgil’s Aeneid.

In a Rome weakened by wealth and pleasure, then shattered by civil war, only to unite under an emperor, Virgil celebrated the subordination of individual ambition and pleasure to pietas—a triune duty to God, to the nation built under God’s will, and to the future of the family. Building on the brilliance of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, as well as Platonic philosophy, Virgil expanded the quest from the restoration of the family and one’s individual relation to God to the restoration of the whole nation and its relation to heavenly power. This was the original conception of our nation which our Founding Fathers honored in so many ways, and which we are in great peril as we now forget.

Dante, the greatest of all poets, chose Virgil as his heaven-sent fictional guide, not merely through Hell but Purgatory as well, signaling the seeds of vast Christian wisdom which he found.

Course outline:
Mar. 16 - Background of The Aeneid
Rewriting The Odyssey
Mar. 23 - Bks. I and II The Wrath and the Promise of Heaven; Pietas When All Seems Lost
Mar. 30 - Books III and IV False Starts and the Perils of Passion
April 6 - NO Class
Apr. 13 - Books V and VI Uniting the Living, the Dead and those yet Unborn
Rewriting The Iliad
Apr. 20 - Books VII and VIII Selfish War; Selfless Allies; and God’s View of Time
Apr. 27 - Books IX and X The Glory and the Slaughter (“It is well that war should be so terrible, else men might grow too fond of it” —Gen. Robert E. Lee)
May 4 - Books XI and XII Can the shedding of Civil Blood Ever Cease

Misc:
Dr. Russell will provide quizzes, essay topics, and a Midterm and Final Exam to be graded by the parent. He will use Robert Fitzgerald’s translation of the Aeneid. You are free to use any translation you like, but you should have one with line numbers or it will be almost impossible to follow along with frequent references to the author’s words.

Equipment requirements:
Students are required to have high-speed internet and a headset with microphone.

Course Access:
All Homeschool Connections courses are recorded and available to registered students for up to six months.

Professor's Biography:
Dr. Henry Russell is Headmaster of the St. Augustine's Homeschool Enrichment Program founded with his wife Crystal. The program began in Fall 2005 with 20 students in two living rooms and now tutors more than 70 students. He is also the President of the SS Peter and Paul Educational Foundation, dedicated to founding an orthodox Catholic Liberal Arts college in southeast Michigan.

A graduate of Princeton and South Caroline (M.S.), Dr. Russell completed his graduate work at Louisiana State University.

Formerly the Chairman of Ave Maria College's Department of Literature, he has also been a professor at Franciscan University of Steubenville and Wake Forest University. He is a founding faculty member of the St. Robert Southwell Creative Writing Workshop held in Mahwah, New Jersey.

Dr. Russell's works include The Catholic Shakespeare Audio Series. He was the Associate Editor of The Formalist from 1990-2004 and his writings have been published in various journals. He was honored to edit Dr. Alice von Hildebrand's groundbreaking volume, The Privilege of Being a Woman.

Literature: Virgil’s Aeneid: The Founding of Nations in the Will of God