Day 8 (9/2 - Wednesday)

I am not only a college professor, but specifically a professional classical philologist. [high-five yourself if you've ever even seen that word before] That means it is my job to study the languages and literatures of the classical world of ancient Greece and Rome. In other words, I live in a world of books.
And I love it.

I was reminded of this earlier this evening when I got to explore some of the archives of the Wade Center, a research library for C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and five other British authors who were in some fashion or other connected to Lewis. This research archive (which includes a large section of Lewis' personal library, extensive holdings of correspondance, articles and books and other sundry items relating to the seven authors, and even a wardrobe that Lewis played in as a child as well as the very desk on which Tolkien wrote The Hobbit!!!) is a fabulous gem located right here on campus in little Wheaton, Illinois. And it is entirely indebted to the power of the book. Good literature is powerful stuff. Good literature matters.

My own personal treasure trove of classical literature on campus comes in the form of the Loeb Library collection in the reference room of our campus library. They are bilingual editions (original language and English) of almost all of the surviving Greek and Roman literature. All accessible, right at your fingers. I love finding reasons to walk across the way and go to the "Loeb section." There are always treasures to uncover, hidden gems to stumble across unawares, well-known passages to revisit. The Greeks and the Romans were/are fascinating. And they're all right here.



Red is for Roman, Green is for Greek.
Literature matters, because it can contain flashes of Truth that pierce to the soul, that tell us something about who we are. And sometimes, it's just plain fun.