Great Books Program

Middle Ages Year

  • Third year of our four-year Great Books Program
  • High school or college credit options
  • Read & discuss the finest works of Western civilization
  • Our faculty are highly experienced online moderators
  • Weekly, online classes with students from around the world
Each of our Great Books Program online classes begin with a poem and a short discussion of poetry related to the week’s reading. Complete list of poetry can be found in our Great Books Study Guides.

Poetry for Week 8 of the Middle Ages Year
The Good Great Man, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“How seldom, friend! a good great man inherits
Honour or wealth with all his worth and pains!
It sounds like stories from the land of spirits
If any man obtain that which he merits
Or any merit that which he obtains.”

Reply to the above:
For shame, dear friend, renounce this canting strain!
What would`st thou have a good great man obtain?
Place? titles? salary? a gilded chain?
Or throne of corses which his sword had slain?
Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends!
Hath he not always treasures, always friends,
The good great man? three treasures, LOVE, and LIGHT,
And CALM THOUGHTS, regular as infant`s breath:
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night,
HIMSELF, his MAKER, and the ANGEL DEATH!

Middle Ages Year Sample Weekly Questions

These students have read Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” in preparation for class.

In this clip, the students are discussing the killing of Caesar. Prior to what you will hear the conversation has included discussion on whether or not the killing was murder; murder being understood as the taking of innocent life. Now the issue of “preemptive strike” has arisen and the students are discussing this issue in regard to the death of Caesar. Is it permissible to kill someone for something he hasn’t done but that you are are afraid he might do? Sometimes yes and sometimes no? If that is the case how does one know when it is permissible and when it isn’t? Are there principles that can be identified by which such judgements can be made? The moderators for the class are Dr. Peter Redpath and Mr. Stephen Bertucci.

Great Books of the Middle Ages Weekly Readings
Great Books of the High Middle Ages
to the Renaissance
First Semester
Great Books of the Renaissance
to the Enlightenment
Second Semester
Weekly ReadingsWeekly Readings
Week 1
Canterbury Tales -Chaucer
Week 17
A Midsummer Night's Dream - Shakespeare
Week 2
Canterbury Tales -Chaucer
Week 18
The Taming of the Shrew - Shakespeare
Week 3
Aquinas*
Week 19
Coriolanus - Shakespeare
Week 4
Aquinas*
Week 20
Autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila
Week 5
Aquinas*
Week 21
Julius Caesar - Shakespeare
Week 6
Aquinas*
Week 22
Othello - Shakespeare
Week 7
Aquinas*		Week 23
Merchant of Venice - Shakespeare
Week 8
The Prince -Machiavelli
Week 24
Henry V - Shakespeare
Week 9
Utopia - Sir Thomas More
Week 25
Rules for the Direction of the Mind*, Discourse on Method*, Meditations - Descartes
Week 10
Praise of Folly- Erasmus
Week 26
The New Atlantis and Novum Organum* - Bacon
Week 11
On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres*- Copernicus
Week 27
Leviathan* - Hobbes
Week 12
Institutes of the Christian Religion* - Calvin
Week 28
Spring Break - (April 15 - 19)
Week 13
Essays* - Montaigne		Week 29
Paradise Lost - Milton
Week 14
Don Quixote* - Ceravantes
Week 30
Paradise Lost - Milton
Week 15
Oral Exams - (Dec. 12 - 23)		Week 31
Pensees* - Pascal
Week 16
Don Quixote* - Cervantes
Week 32
Romeo & Juliet - Shakespeare
*Selections

Join the Great Conversation Your Way

Choose your track

Choose your mode: live or asynchronous

Choose your tuition plan

Enrollment Process Powered by FACTS®