The Classical Mind

By Junius Johnson & Wesley WalkerSociety & Culture Arts Books Philosophy

The Classical Mind episodes

September 21 Bonus Episode: The Fall of Arthur with Malcolm Guite
Dr. Junius Johnson and Fr. Wesley Walker are joined by poet-priest-scholar Malcolm Guite for a deep dive into J.R.R. Tolkien’s unfinished alliterative poem, The Fall of Arthur — and make the case that it deserves to be read as seriously as anything else in Tolkien’s body of work.
Recommended Reading
* Malcolm: The Inklings and King Arthur, ed. Sørina Higgins
* Junius: Marie Borroff’s translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
* Wesley: Malcolm Guite’s Galahad and the Grail (with The Coming of Arthur forthcoming in November)

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theclassicalmind.com/subscribe
1 hr 24 min
September 01 The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien
The middle book of a trilogy is always the dark one, and The Two Towers is no exception. Fr. Wesley Walker and Dr. Junius Johnson return to Middle-earth for the second leg of The Lord of the Rings, and this time things really are on the edge of the knife.
Gollum, Hugh of Saint Victor, Ents and the Entmoot, Gimli, Sarumon and Gandalf, and Boromir and Faramir. It’s all there!
Endnotes
* Junius: Tolkien’s The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún
* Wesley’s endnote: Realms of Tolkien: Images of Middle-earth

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theclassicalmind.com/subscribe
1 hr 11 min
August 14 The Classical Mind Goes to the Movies: Christopher Nolan's Odyssey
Warning: this episode discusses the film in full, spoilers included. If you haven’t seen it yet, go watch it first and come back.
Fr. Wesley Walker and Dr. Junius Johnson head to the theater for another Classical Mind Goes to the Movies episode, this time tackling Christopher Nolan’s big-screen adaptation of The Odyssey.
Have you seen Nolan's The Odyssey? Let us know what you thought in the comments or in our community chat on Substack.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theclassicalmind.com/subscribe
1 hr 3 min
August 10 Bonus Episode: The Forge of Friendship
Everyone knows The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia. Fewer people know the full story of the friendship that helped make both of them possible. In this special bonus episode, Dr. Junius Johnson sits down with Kirk Manton of Eastgate Creative to talk about The Forge of Friendship, a five-part documentary series, ten years in the making, telling the story of the relationship between J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.
Dr. Manton walks through how the project began small and grew into a multi-part documentary spanning the two writers’ entire life together, and how, along the way, the project itself became something of a case study in its own subject: it has connected Tolkien fans and Lewis fans, two overlapping but distinct communities, into new friendships of their own. Junius and Kirk also discuss what makes the Lewis-Tolkien friendship worth telling in this much depth, why Eastgate Creative chose to build this project as a donor-funded nonprofit rather than a traditional investor-backed production, and what’s still ahead as the documentary moves through post-production toward release.
This is a great listen for anyone who loves Tolkien, Lewis, or the Inklings — and a chance to support a project built entirely on donations from people who believe this story is worth telling well.
Support the Project
Eastgate Creative has funded this documentary entirely through donations — no investors, no profit distributions. Every dollar goes straight into finishing the production and funding the next generation of Christian filmmakers.
* Watch the trailer & learn more: eastgatecreative.org
* Sign up for updates: Join the Eastgate Creative newsletter
* Donate directly: Support The Forge of Friendship

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theclassicalmind.com/subscribe
42 min
July 28 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings didn’t just launch a genre — it set the standard every fantasy writer since has been measured against. This month, Fr. Wesley Walker and Dr. Junius Johnson begin their journey through J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterpiece with The Fellowship of the Ring, the first volume of the trilogy that turned Middle-earth into the mythology of the modern imagination.
In this episode, Wesley and Junius explore what actually sets Tolkien apart from the fantasy writers who came before, and the flood of imitators who came after. They dig into Tolkien’s remarkable balancing act: a world built with more depth and history than perhaps any fictional world ever created, yet worn so lightly that you never have to read a page of the appendices to feel its weight. They trace the providence that runs quietly beneath the entire tale — the “hand that is not Gandalf’s” guiding events from the moment Bilbo is chosen for the quest in The Hobbit — and ask what it means that Middle-earth’s races are written almost as facets of human nature itself, essential yet never simple.
The conversation also turns to Frodo: is he really the hero of the story, or is that title quietly earned by someone else? Wesley and Junius make the case that Frodo’s heroism isn’t the sword-and-glory kind; it’s the daily, unglamorous courage of simply doing the next right thing, again and again, all the way to Mount Doom.
Along the way: the structure of the six “books” hidden inside the trilogy, the guerrilla-war tension of hobbits slipping across a Shire already crawling with Nazgûl, and why the Council of Elrond marks the one time the Fellowship, as a whole, actually exists.
Endnotes
* Junius: The Children of Húrin by J.R.R. Tolkien
* Wesley’s endnote: The Fellowship of the Ring trick-taking card game
Next month: The journey continues with The Two Towers!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theclassicalmind.com/subscribe
1 hr 30 min
July 13 Bonus Episode: Season 5
Discover the official Season 5 reading schedule for The Classical Mind podcast! Join Junius and Wesley as they lay out the next 12-month literary journey through the Western canon.
Here is the list:
* October 2026: Theogony by Hesiod
* December 2026: The Life of Moses by Gregory of Nyssa
* January: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
* February 2027: Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne
* March: Hamlet by William Shakespeare
* April: Timaeus by Plato
* May: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
* June: Silence by Shusaku Endo
* July: The Odyssey by Homer
* August: Principles of Human Knowledge by George Berkeley
* Season Conclusion: The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theclassicalmind.com/subscribe
14 min
July 01 A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare with Heidi White
In this summer episode of The Classical Mind, hosts Dr. Junius Johnson and Father Wesley Walker welcome back three-time guest Heidi White, co-host of the Close Reads podcast and author of The Divided Soul. Together, the trio dives deep into William Shakespeare’s beloved masterpiece, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, analyzing its intricate narrative layers through the compelling lens of duty versus desire.
While often celebrated for its lighthearted magical antics and brilliant comedic performance, the hosts unpack the surprisingly dark premise that sets the play in motion: forced marriages, legal coercion, and the stripping away of individual autonomy. From the rigid laws of Athens to the chaotic, transformative "green world" of the forest, this conversation explores how Shakespeare juxtaposes cold logic with wild imagination.
Endnotes
* Heidi: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
* Junius: Dear Brutus by J.M. Barrie
* Wesley: The Hazards of Love by the Decemberists

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theclassicalmind.com/subscribe
1 hr 8 min
June 09 The Importance of Being Earnest with Dr. Grace Hamman
Welcome to another episode of The Classical Mind, the podcast where we explore the great books of the Western tradition! In this episode, hosts Father Wesley Walker and Dr. Junius Johnson are thrilled to welcome a special guest, Dr. Grace Hamman. Dr. Hamman holds a PhD from Duke University, focuses on late medieval poetry and contemplative writing, and hosts the Old Books with Grace podcast. Together, they dive into a delightful and deep discussion about Oscar Wilde’s brilliant drawing-room comedy, The Importance of Being Earnest.
Endnotes
* Junius: Oscar Wilde’s fairy tales—The Happy Prince, The Nightingale and the Rose, and The Selfish Giant
* Wesley: Ricky Stanicky
* Grace: Arrested Development

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theclassicalmind.com/subscribe
1 hr 9 min
May 12 Paradiso with Dr. Jonathan Juilfs
In this concluding chapter of our journey through Dante’s Commedia, Dr. Junius Johnson and Fr. Wesley Walker are joined by Dr. Jonathan Juilfs to explore the radiant heights of Paradiso. The conversation centers on the idea that the third canticle is not a boring landscape of static perfection, but rather the very “point” of the entire project grounded in the medieval understanding of capacity and divine alignment.

Endnotes:
* Dr. Juilfs:
* The Pearl
* The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius
* What Dreams May Come
* Wesley: Little Gidding from Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot
* Junius:
* The Discarded Image by C.S. Lewis
* The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis
* Perelandra by C.S. Lewis

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theclassicalmind.com/subscribe
1 hr 25 min
April 28 Purgatorio with Heidi White
In this episode of The Classical Mind, Fr. Wesley Walker and Dr. Junius Johnson welcome back Heidi White to explore the middle canticle of Dante’s Divine Comedy, the Purgatorio. Is Purgatory “cosmic extra innings” or a “cosmic decontamination chamber” for the saved? How do Inferno and Purgatorio differ? Give a listen as Heidi, Junius, and Wesley discuss the moral and structural architecture of Mount Purgatory, specifically the “Order of Love” (ordo amoris) that governs the seven terraces and how Dante organizes the capital vices.
Endnotes:
Heidi: The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
Junius: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
Wesley: “Ash Wednesday” by T.S. Eliot
I
Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?
Because I do not hope to know
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again
Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessèd face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice
And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us
Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.
Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
II
Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree
In the cool of the day, having fed to sateity
On my legs my heart my liver and that which had been contained
In the hollow round of my skull. And God said
Shall these bones live? shall these
Bones live? And that which had been contained
In the bones (which were already dry) said chirping:
Because of the goodness of this Lady
And because of her loveliness, and because
She honours the Virgin in meditation,
We shine with brightness. And I who am here dissembled
Proffer my deeds to oblivion, and my love
To the posterity of the desert and the fruit of the gourd.
It is this which recovers
My guts the strings of my eyes and the indigestible portions
Which the leopards reject. The Lady is withdrawn
In a white gown, to contemplation, in a white gown.
Let the whiteness of bones atone to forgetfulness.
There is no life in them. As I am forgotten
And would be forgotten, so I would forget
Thus devoted, concentrated in purpose. And God said
Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only
The wind will listen. And the bones sang chirping
With the burden of the grasshopper, saying
Lady of silences
Calm and distressed
Torn and most whole
Rose of memory
Rose of forgetfulness
Exhausted and life-giving
Worried reposeful
The single Rose
Is now the Garden
Where all loves end
Terminate torment
Of love unsatisfied
The greater torment
Of love satisfied
End of the endless
Journey to no end
Conclusion of all that
Is inconclusible
Speech without word and
Word of no speech
Grace to the Mother
For the Garden
Where all love ends.
Under a juniper-tree the bones sang, scattered and shining
We are glad to be scattered, we did little good to each other,
Under a tree in the cool of day, with the blessing of sand,
Forgetting themselves and each other, united
In the quiet of the desert. This is the land which ye
Shall divide by lot. And neither division nor unity
Matters. This is the land. We have our inheritance.
III
At the first turning of the second stair
I turned and saw below
The same shape twisted on the banister
Under the vapour in the fetid air
Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears
The deceitul face of hope and of despair.
At the second turning of the second stair
I left them twisting, turning below;
There were no more faces and the stair was dark,
Damp, jaggèd, like an old man's mouth drivelling, beyond repair,
Or the toothed gullet of an agèd shark.
At the first turning of the third stair
Was a slotted window bellied like the figs's fruit
And beyond the hawthorn blossom and a pasture scene
The broadbacked figure drest in blue and green
Enchanted the maytime with an antique flute.
Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth blown,
Lilac and brown hair;
Distraction, music of the flute, stops and steps of the mind
over the third stair,
Fading, fading; strength beyond hope and despair
Climbing the third stair.
Lord, I am not worthy
Lord, I am not worthy
but speak the word only.
IV
Who walked between the violet and the violet
Whe walked between
The various ranks of varied green
Going in white and blue, in Mary's colour,
Talking of trivial things
In ignorance and knowledge of eternal dolour
Who moved among the others as they walked,
Who then made strong the fountains and made fresh the springs
Made cool the dry rock and made firm the sand
In blue of larkspur, blue of Mary's colour,
Sovegna vos
Here are the years that walk between, bearing
Away the fiddles and the flutes, restoring
One who moves in the time between sleep and waking, wearing
White light folded, sheathing about her, folded.
The new years walk, restoring
Through a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoring
With a new verse the ancient rhyme. Redeem
The time. Redeem
The unread vision in the higher dream
While jewelled unicorns draw by the gilded hearse.
The silent sister veiled in white and blue
Between the yews, behind the garden god,
Whose flute is breathless, bent her head and signed but spoke no word
But the fountain sprang up and the bird sang down
Redeem the time, redeem the dream
The token of the word unheard, unspoken
Till the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew
And after this our exile
V
If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.
O my people, what have I done unto thee.
Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Not on the sea or on the islands, not
On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,
For those who walk in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here
No place of grace for those who avoid the face
No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice
Will the veiled sister pray for
Those who walk in darkness, who chose thee and oppose thee,
Those who are torn on the horn between season and season, time and time, between
Hour and hour, word and word, power and power, those who wait
In darkness? Will the veiled sister pray
For children at the gate
Who will not go away and cannot pray:
Pray for those who chose and oppose
O my people, what have I done unto thee.
Will the veiled sister between the slender
Yew trees pray for those who offend her
And are terrified and cannot surrender
And affirm before the world and deny between the rocks
In the last desert before the last blue rocks
The desert in the garden the garden in the desert
Of drouth, spitting from the mouth the withered apple-seed.
O my people.
VI
Although I do not hope to turn again
Although I do not hope
Although I do not hope to turn
Wavering between the profit and the loss
In this brief transit where the dreams cross
The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying
(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things
From the wide window towards the granite shore
The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying
Unbroken wings
And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices
In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices
And the weak spirit quickens to rebel
For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell
Quickens to recover
The cry of quail and the whirling plover
And the blind eye creates
The empty forms between the ivory gates
And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth
This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks
But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.
Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated
And let my cry come unto Thee.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theclassicalmind.com/subscribe
1 hr 24 min