The Great Books of the Western Canon, organized by Mortimer J. Adler in the Syntopicon, span 102 enduring ideas—ranging from Truth, Beauty, and Justice to Democracy, Love, and God. These categories trace the intellectual tradition of the West, connecting philosophy, literature, history, science, and theology. Together, they map the recurring questions and principles shaping human thought across centuries.
For millennia, thinkers have grappled with the essence of Art, and perhaps no concept is as foundational to understanding Poetry as that of imitation, or mimesis. Drawing deeply from the wellsprings of the Great Books of the Western World, we find that poetry, in its myriad Forms, functions not merely...
Memory: The Indispensable Foundation of Our Experience Summary: Our experience of the world, our very sense of self, and the knowledge we accumulate are not merely products of the present moment, but are fundamentally constructed upon the bedrock of memory. Far from being a simple storage vault for past events,...
Poetry as a Profound Mirror: Understanding Imitation in Verse Poetry, at its profoundest, is an art of imitation – not merely a superficial mimicry of the world, but a deep engagement with reality, human experience, and the very structure of existence. Drawing from the venerable insights of the Great Books of...
Poetry as a Form of Imitation: Echoes of Reality and the Human Soul Poetry, at its profoundest core, functions as a sophisticated form of imitation, or mimesis, a concept deeply rooted in Western philosophical thought, particularly through the lenses of Plato and Aristotle within the Great Books of the Western...
