There’s Still Time to Read the Great Books - with Kale Zelden

Kale Zelden is a literature teacher and writer and in this video he joins me to discuss reading, the "Great books", and what it means to recover the reading tradition in a modern context. We talk about how to encounter old texts, what reading can contribute to our lives, and how to approach authors like Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare without reducing them to modern assumptions. We also explore the limits of the novel, modernism, postmodernism, irony, and the essential rediscovery of the epic.

Kale’s Substack, The Underneath

Join us at the Symbolic World Summit | May 14-16 | Ohio | Keynote speakers: Jonathan Pageau, Fr. Josiah Trenham, Mary Harrington, Dcn. Seraphim Rohlin, Kale Zelden, Annie Crawford, and Heather Pollington

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Listen to this episode on The Symbolic World podcast:

TIMESTAMPS

BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS DISCUSSION:

Augustine — Confessions — Spiritual autobiography, early Christian thought

Plato — Dialogues — Philosophy of truth, justice, knowledge

Aristotle — (various works) — Ethics, logic, metaphysics

Church Fathers — (various writings) — Foundations of Christian theology

Anne Rice — (novels) — Modern popular fiction

Shakespeare — (general works) — Foundational drama

Beowulf — Anonymous — Old English epic poem

Plato — Dialogues — Rediscovered philosophical texts

Shakespeare — Hamlet — Tragedy of revenge and doubt

Dante — Divine Comedy — Vision of Hell, Purgatory, Heaven

Chaucer — Canterbury Tales — Medieval storytelling

Mary Shelley — Frankenstein — Creation and responsibility

Milton — Paradise Lost — Epic of the Fall

Kerouac — On the Road — Modern freedom and experience

Camus — (e.g. The Stranger) — Existential philosophy

Homer — Iliad, Odyssey — Foundational epics

Plato — Apology, Republic — Justice and philosophy

Shakespeare —

Romeo and Juliet — Tragic love

Julius Caesar — Politics and betrayal

Macbeth — Ambition and guilt

A Midsummer Night’s Dream — Comedy and illusion

King Lear — Suffering and authority

Hamlet — Existential tragedy

The Tempest — Reconciliation

Dostoevsky — Crime and Punishment — Guilt and redemption

Dostoevsky — The Brothers Karamazov — Faith and morality

Voyage of St. Brendan — Medieval Christian voyage

Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius — Apocalyptic text

The Golden Legend — Jacobus de Voragine — Saints’ lives

Cervantes — Don Quixote — Satire of chivalry, early novel

Jane Austen — Pride and Prejudice — Social psychology

Milton — Paradise Lost — (revisited, epic psychology)

Faulkner — (novels) — Fragmented modern storytelling

C.S. Lewis — On Stories — Defense of story over psychology

C.S. Lewis — Abolition of Man — Critique of modern values

C.S. Lewis — Miracles — Defense of the supernatural

Sondheim — Into the Woods — Modern fairy tale deconstruction

Rabelais — Gargantua and Pantagruel — Satirical, playful text

Melville — Moby-Dick — Epic-scale novel

Hemingway — The Sun Also Rises — Modern disillusionment

Ovid — Metamorphoses — Mythic transformations

Lyotard — Postmodern philosophy

Derrida — Deconstruction

Heidegger — Phenomenology

Virgil — Aeneid — Roman epic

Bible — (Moses narrative) — Epic of calling and suffering

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My intro was arranged and recorded by Matthew Wilkinson