Paideia Today

This episode looks at a little-read but fascinating Anglo-Saxon poem  called Andreas, named after St. Andrew.  Andreas is plainly patterned  after Beowulf, but is more explicitly Christian in its literary  features, particularly its symbolism.    In the tale, Andreas is a missionary to a cannibalistic tribe called the  Myrmidonians, who are so savage that they violate the xenia taboo and  even eat their guests.  Andreas is sent by God to rescue Matthew, who  has been thrown into prison and is soon to be eaten.  The text is in  many ways typological and engaging richly with various Biblical texts,  as well as Beowulf.    The most important feature of this poem is the way in which Andreas is  marked by liturgical elements that demonstrate that its poet is clearly  seeking to make his culture Christian, not just his civilization.

This week we discuss monsters and dragons!   We begin by examining the qualities of Beowulf as an epic poem before  going on to focus upon the three monsters that Beowulf faces.  Each  represents an aspect of evil more perilous than the last.

The great Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf is the subject of today's  episode.  We look at the strange history of the document, and its status  as an epic.  While it is very different than the Greco-Roman epics, we  argue that it nonetheless deserves its status as an epic not only  because of the magnificent heroism of the character Beowulf, but its  sad, elegiac, majestic sweep that engages with notions of monstrosity.   It largely owes its rise to fame thanks to the scholarship of the great  Medievalist J.R.R. Tolkien.  We look at the characteristic features of  Anglo-Saxon culture that infuse the epic, and in particular the value of  loyalty and a heartfelt patriotic affection for their leader.

A common presentation of the period extending from the fall of Rome  until the Renaissance is that of the 'dark ages'.  But were the entire  Middle Ages actually characterized by oppression, ignorance, and  backwardness in areas like human rights, science, health, and the arts?  We take issue with the popular misrepresentation of the era.  While we  do see a dark age following the destruction of the Western Roman Empire,  what light remained in it was salvaged by Christians in the monastic  movement, which eventually led to the establishment of the university, a  medieval Christian institution.

In our first episode of Season 2 of Paideia Today, we look at the  now-neglected genre of hagiography, and debunk the popular misconception  that medieval hagiography was the product of weak artistry or even a  form of propaganda, a type of embellished historical document recording  superhuman individuals. We tend to read it as if hagiography were a  Christian variation on the nineteenth-century accounts of the lives of  great men, as Thomas Carlyle made famous.

On the contrary, we explain that authors of hagiographic accounts had no interest in the  Romantic obsession with originality as an indicator of artistic merit,  or with making their subjects superhuman.  On the contrary, they are  thoroughly generic in their portrait of virtue and seek to hew very  closely to the pattern of imitatio Christi.  We mention the lives of St.  Paul the Hermit, St. Martin, and St. Anthony as variations of lives  patterned upon the well-known deeds of Jesus Christ as recorded in  Scripture.

The greater the saint, the less exemplary he will be, and the more Christ will be seen in the pattern of his life.

Drs. Masson and Friesen discuss one of the most influential thinkers in western history: Augustine, whose thought undergirds great ranges of the western worldview.

Dr. Masson and Dr. Friesen discuss one of the most famous underworld scenes in western literature: Aeneas' journey to Dis.

In this episode, Dr. Masson and Dr. Friesen discuss what is, beside the Bible, the most influential text in western history: The Aeneid. 

In this episode, Dr. Masson and Dr. Friesen discuss one of the most influential plays in western drama.

In this episode, Dr. Masson and Dr. Friesen discuss the origins, structure and aims of ancient Greek drama, and its overwhelming influence on the course of western culture.