“Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intention, sincere effort, and intelligent execution; it represents the wise choice of many alternatives – choice, not chance, determines your destiny.”~Aristotle
| Great Books of the Ancient Greeks Weekly Readings | |
|---|---|
| Great Books of the Ancient Greeks I | Great Books of the Ancient Greeks II |
| First Semester | Second Semester |
| Weekly Readings | Weekly Readings |
| Week 1 The Great Conversation – Robert Hutchins Theogony - Hesiod Prometheus Bound -Aeschylus | Week 15 Peloponnesian War* -Thucydides |
| Week 2 The Iliad - Homer | Week 16 Peloponnesian War* -Thucydides |
| Week 3 The Iliad - Homer | Week 17 Fragments* - Presocratic Philosophers |
| Week 4 The Odyssey - Homer | Week 18 Ion, Meno - Plato |
| Week 5 The Odyssey - Homer | Week 19 Gorgias - Plato |
| Week 6 Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Eumenides - Aeschylus | Week 20 Republic* - Plato |
| Week 7 Trojan Women, Alcestis - Euripedes | Week 21 Republic* - Plato |
| Week 8 Aesop’s Fables* -Aesop | Week 22 Symposium - Plato |
| Week 9 Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus -Sophocles | Week 23 Apology, Euthyphro - Plato |
| Week 10 Antigone - Sophocles, Hippolytus - Euripides | Week 24 Crito, Phaedo - Plato |
| Week 11 Histories* - Herodotus | Week 25 Poetics, On the Heavens*, On the Soul* - Aristotle |
| Week 12 Histories* - Herodotus | Week 26 Ethics*, Metaphysics* -Aristotle |
| Week 13 Lycurgus, Solon - Plutarch | Week 27 Selections on First Principles of Philosophy |
| Week 14 Pericles, Alcibiades -Plutarch | Week 28 Aristides, Alexander -Plutarch |
| First Semester Oral Exams | Week 29 The Oath, On Ancient Medicine, On Airs, Waters, Places - Hippocrates |
| Week 30 Elements*, Euclid |
|
| Second Semester Oral Exams | |
| *Selections |
| Great Books of the Ancient Romans Weekly Readings | |
|---|---|
| Great Books of the Ancient Romans | Great Books of the Ancient Romans to the Early Middle Ages |
| First Semester | Second Semester |
| Weekly Readings | Weekly Readings |
| Week 1 Aeneid - Virgil | Week 15 Gospel of Matthew* - New Testament |
| Week 2 Aeneid - Virgil | Week 16 Gospel of John*, First Epistle of John – New Testament |
| Week 3 History of Rome* - Livy | Week 17 Acts of the Apostles – New Testament |
| Week 4 Romulus, Numa Pompilus, Caesar - Plutarch | Week 18 Confessions - Augustine |
| Week 5 Conquest of Gaul - Caesar | Week 19 Confessions - Augustine |
| Week 6 Brutus, Cicero - Plutarch | Week 20 Consolation of Philosophy - Boethius |
| Week 7 On Friendship, On Duties – Cicero | Week 21 City of God* - St. Augustine |
| Week 8 Annals* - Tacitus | Week 22 City of God* - St. Augustine |
| Week 9 On the Nature of Things* - Lucretius | Week 23 Qur’an* - Mohammed |
| Week 10 Discourses*- Epictetus Meditations* - Marcus Aurelius | Week 24 History of the English People* - Bede |
| Week 11 Cato the Younger, Antony - Plutarch | Week 25 Sir Galahad - Tennyson Sir Gawain and the Green Knight |
| Week 12 On the Natural Faculties - Galen | Week 26 Imitation of Christ* - Kempis |
| Week 13 Enneads* - Plotinus | Week 27 Guide for the Perplexed* - Maimonides |
| Week 14 Genesis, Job – Old Testament | Week 28 The Divine Comedy: Inferno - Dante |
| First Semester Oral Exams | Week 29 The Divine Comedy: Purgatorio - Dante |
| Week 30 The Divine Comedy: Paradiso - Dante |
|
| Second Semester Oral Exams | |
| *Selections |
| 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 Readings | Weekly 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 | |
| Great Books of the Moderns Weekly Readings | |
|---|---|
| Great Books of the Enlightenment to the Modern Era First Semester | Great Books of the Modern Era Second Semester |
| Weekly Readings | Weekly Readings |
| Week 1 Hamlet - Shakespeare | Week 17 Emma - Jane Austen |
| Week 2 MacBeth - Shakespeare | Week 18 Critique of Pure Reason*; Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals* Immanuel Kant |
| Week 3 King Lear - Shakespeare | Week 19 Faust - Goethe |
| Week 4 Tartuffe - Moliere Phaedra, Racine | Week 20 Philosophy of Right* The Philosophy of History* -Georg Hegel |
| Week 5 The Tempest - Shakespeare | Week 21 War and Peace* - Tolstoy |
| Week 6 Gulliver’s Travels - Jonathan Swift | Week 22 War and Peace* - Tolstoy |
| Week 7 Essay Concerning Human Knowledge* Second Essay on Civil Government* Letter on Toleration* -John Locke | Week 23 The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Mikailovich Dostoevsky |
| Week 8 Essay Concerning Human Knowledge* Second Essay on Civil Government* Letter on Toleration* -John Locke | Week 24 The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Mikailovich Dostoevsky |
| Week 9 Life of Samuel Johnson - Boswell | Week 25 Wealth of Nations* - Adam Smith Communist Manifesto - Marx, Engels |
| Week 10 An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding* Treatise of Human Nature* Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion* - David Hume | Week 26 1st & 2nd Inaugural Addresses Gettysburg Address Emancipation Proclamation - Abraham Lincoln |
| Week 11 The Social Contract* On the Origin of Inequality* - Jean-Jacques Rousseau | Week 27 Representative Government - Mills; Civil Disobedience- Henry David Thoreau |
| Week 12 U.S. Declaration of Independence Articles of Confederation | Week 28 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain |
| Week 13 Thanksgiving week, no classes | Week 29 Spring Break – April 15-19 |
| Week 14 The Federalist Papers*; – The Constitution; Q 105, Art. 1 - Aquinas | Week 30 The Origin of Species* -Charles Darwin |
| Week 15 Democracy in America*, - De Tocqueville | Week 31 1984, George Orwell |
| Week 16 Oral Exams (December 12 - 13) | Week 32 Relativity: The Special and General Theory - Einstein |
| Week 33 My Antonia - Willa Cather |
|
| *Selections | |
Mortimer Adler having a Socratic discussion group with the Great Books in the 1970’s.
Angelicum Academy having a Socratic discussion group with the Great Books in 2021.
