“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 | Great Books of the Renaissance to the Enlightenment |
| First Semester | Second Semester |
| Weekly Readings | Weekly Readings |
| Week 1 Canterbury Tales* - Chaucer | Week 15 Don Quixote* - Cervantes |
| Week 2 Canterbury Tales* - Chaucer | Week 16 A Midsummer Night's Dream - Shakespeare |
| Week 3 Summa Theologica* - Aquinas | Week 17 The Taming of the Shrew - Shakespeare |
| Week 4 Summa Theologica* - Aquinas | Week 18 Coriolanus - Shakespeare |
| Week 5 Summa Theologica* - Aquinas | Week 19 Autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila* |
| Week 6 Summa Theologica* - Aquinas | Week 20 Julius Caesar - Shakespeare |
| Week 7 Summa Theologica* - Aquinas | Week 21 Othello - Shakespeare |
| Week 8 The Prince - Machiavelli | Week 22 Merchant of Venice - Shakespeare |
| Week 9 Utopia - Sir Thomas More | Week 23 Henry V - Shakespeare |
| Week 10 In Praise of Folly - Erasmus | Week 24 Rules for the Direction of the Mind*, Discourse on Method*, Meditation* - Descartes |
| Week 11 On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres* - Copernicus | Week 25 New Atlantis, Novum Organum* - Bacon |
| Week 12 Institutes of the Christian Religion* - Calvin | Week 26 Leviathan* - Hobbes |
| Week 13 Essays* - Montaigne | Week 27 Paradise Lost - Milton |
| Week 14 Don Quixote* - Cervantes | Week 28 Paradise Lost - Milton |
| First Semester Oral Exams | Week 29 Pensees* - Pascal |
| Week 30 Romeo and Juliet - Shakespeare |
|
| *Selections | Second Semester Oral Exams |
| Great Books of the Moderns Weekly Readings | |
|---|---|
| Great Books of the Enlightenment to the Modern Era | Great Books of the Modern Era |
| First Semester | Second Semester |
| Weekly Readings | Weekly Readings |
| Week 1 Hamlet - Shakespeare | Week 15 Emma - Jane Austen |
| Week 2 MacBeth - Shakespeare | Week 16 Critique of Pure Reason*, Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of - Immanuel Kant |
| Week 3 King Lear - Shakespeare | Week 17 Faust - Goethe |
| Week 4 Tartuffe – Moliere Phaedra - Racine | Week 18 Philosophy of Right* The Philosophy of History* - Georg Hegel |
| Week 5 The Tempest - Shakespeare | Week 19 War and Peace* - Tolstoy |
| Week 6 Gulliver’s Travels - Jonathan Swift | Week 20 War and Peace* - Tolstoy |
| Week 7 Essay Concerning Human Knowledge*, Letter on Toleration - John Locke | Week 21 The Brothers Karamazov* – Fyodor Dostoevsky |
| Week 8 Second Essay on Civil Government* - John Locke | Week 22 The Brothers Karamazov* – Fyodor Dostoevsky |
| Week 9 Life of Samuel Johnson - Boswell | Week 23 Wealth of Nations* - Adam Smith Communist Manifesto - Marx, Engels |
| Week 10 An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - David Hume | Week 24 1st and 2nd Inaugural Addresses, Gettysburg Address, Emancipation Proclamation - Abraham Lincoln |
| Week 11 The Social Contract*, On the Origin of Inequality - Jean-Jacques Rousseau | Week 25 Representative Government* – J. S. Mill Civil Disobedience - Henry David Thoreau |
| Week 12 U.S. Declaration of Independence, Articles of Confederation, Constitution of the United States of America | Week 26 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain |
| Week 13 The Federalist Papers* - Madison and Hamilton, Summa Theologica, Q 105, Art. 1 - Aquinas | Week 27 The Origin of Species* - Charles Darwin |
| Week 14 Democracy in America* - De Tocqueville | Week 28 1984 - George Orwell, Brave New World – Aldous Huxley |
| First Semester Oral Exams | Week 29 Relativity: The Special and General Theory - Einstein |
| Week 30 My Antonia - Willa Cather |
|
| *Selections | Second Semester Oral Exams |
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.
