A quick analysis of the final speech in Shakespeare’s the Tempest.

The conclusion of the novel and of this series. Why a stage? Is it actors we are? Or is this stages as in "egg stage; larval stage; chrysalis stage; imago stage"? Journeys home - the nature of "home" - where is that place, anyway?

Wordsworth writes.

Perhaps he is correct.

So what exactly was the debate between the Nominalists and the Realists?

Who were the Nominalists and the Realists?

What exactly happened in 1277?

Why should you care?

"Scholasticism" by Rickaby - https://www.amazon.com/Scholasticism-Joseph-Rickaby/dp/1477478930/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3NMXKW8058BV2&keywords=scholasticism+rickaby&qid=1674010821&qu=eyJxc2MiOiIwLjAwIiwicXNhIjoiMC4wMCIsInFzcCI6IjAuMDAifQ%3D%3D&sprefix=scholasticism+rickaby%2Caps%2C108&sr=8-1

"Scholasticism" by Pieper - https://www.amazon.com/Scholasticism-Personalities-Problems-Medieval-Philosophy/dp/1587317508/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1TK6OON4F3CQO&keywords=scholasticism+pieper&qid=1674010886&sprefix=scholasticism+pieper%2Caps%2C92&sr=8-1

"Sacred Geometry" by Lawlor - https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Geometry-Philosophy-Practice-Imagination/dp/0500810303/ref=sr_1_1?crid=JF7QFXEIVY0H&keywords=sacred+geometry+lawlor&qid=1674010920&sprefix=sacred+geometry+lawlor%2Caps%2C101&sr=8-1

What happened in the 13th century philosophical world that radically changed the nature of Western European culture (hint we are still dealing with it today)?

What did these people believe about the nature of mathematics (and why should you care)?

Who was Joseph Pieper (and for that matter Romano Guardini) (and why should you read both of them)?

"Scholasticism" by Pieper: https://www.amazon.com/Scholasticism-Personalities-Problems-Medieval-Philosophy/dp/1587317508/ref=sr_1_11?crid=3SRLJVZDEV80P&keywords=scholasticism&qid=1674002053&sprefix=scholastici%2Caps%2C517&sr=8-11

"The End of the Modern World" by Guardini: https://www.amazon.com/End-Modern-World-Romano-Guardini/dp/1882926587/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1CB78O0A5D8UL&keywords=the+end+of+the+modern+world&qid=1674002090&sprefix=the+end+of+the+modern+worl%2Caps%2C133&sr=8-1

Mary Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925 – August 3, 1964) was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. She wrote two novels and 31 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries.

Writing to a friend in the mid-1950s, O'Connor noted that we live in an age in which "the moral sense has been bred out of certain sections of the population, like the wings have been bred off certain chickens to produce more white meat on them....This is a Generation of wingless chickens, which I suppose is what Nietzsche meant when he said God was dead." In such a situation, she felt, subtlety could not work: "you have to make your vision apparent by shock---to the hard of hearing you shout, and for the almost blind you draw large and startling figures."

Everything That Rises Must Converge is the main story in a collection of short stories written by Flannery O'Connor during the final decade of her life. The collection was published posthumously in 1965 and contains an introduction by Robert Fitzgerald.

The short story that lends its name to the 1965 short story collection was first published in the 1961 issue of New World Writing. The story won O'Connor her second O. Henry Award in 1963.

Read the play.  Is it about nominalism vs. realism?  Is it about fathers & sons?  Is it Shakespeare's love letter to his own son, Hamnet?

"Hament died when he was eleven years old, in August 1596, due to unknown causes., It’s thought that he possibly died from the bubonic plague that killed around one-third of all children below the age of twelve in Elizabethan England."

https://nosweatshakespeare.com/resources/family/hamnet-shakespeare/

The name Hamlet occurs in the form Amleth in a 13th-century book of Danish History written by Saxo Grammaticus, popularised by François de Belleforest as L'histoire tragique d'Hamlet, and appearing in the English translation as "Hamblet". The story of Amleth is assumed to originate in Old Norse or Icelandic poetry from several centuries earlier. Saxo has it as Amlethus, the Latin form of the old Jutish Amlethæ. In terms of etymology the Old Icelandic name Amlóði comes from the Icelandic noun amlóði, meaning ‘fool,’ suggestive of the way that Hamlet acts in the play. Later these names were incorporated into Irish as Amlodhe. As phonetic laws took their course the name’s spelling changed eventually leaving it as Amlaidhe. This Irish name was given to a hero in a common folk story. The root of this name is ‘furious, raging, wild’.

Much thanks to Neil Oliver for his recent youtube video on witches and the hunt for witches.  This discussion is about the mania that swept through England in the 15th, 16th, and 17th century.  How does collective madness occur?  How does Shakespeare mollify that madness?  Could Shakespeare be suggesting that our own actions and choices, not witchcraft or fate, determine our lives?

As Banquo says to Macbeth;

oftentimes, to win us to our harm,

or as Cassius says to Brutus in "Julius Caesar"

Men at some time are masters of their fates:

One guy’s insights and opinions about the ongoing debate of whether or not Amazon has done justice to Tolkien’s works.

A quick reflection on the nature of art and its response to contemporary issues.

A talk I delivered to the young adults at Holy Family Parish.  We discussed Filia vs. Agape, the role of Koinonia, and why it is important for Christians to befriend the downtrodden and miserable (b/c most of us are downtrodden and miserable).

For more on friendship (and Christian Friendship) I highly recommend:

Aristotle: Nichomachean Ethics

Cicero: de Amicitia

C.S.Lewis: The Four Loves