Great Books — Paul Cantor Complete Work

History of European Literature Introduction

Paul Cantor’s History of European Literature Course Part 1. Lecture 1

Drama, History of European Lit, Great Books, Comparative LiteraturePeter HufnagelJuly 23, 2026

The Iliad Lecture 1

Paul Cantor’s lecture notes on Homer’s Iliad from his Comparative Literature course at the University of Virginia. Lecture 2

Comparative Literature, Great BooksPeter HufnagelJuly 23, 2026

The Iliad Lecture 2

Paul Cantor’s lecture notes on Homer’s Iliad from his Comparative Literature course at the University of Virginia. Lecture 3

Comparative Literature, Great BooksPeter HufnagelJuly 23, 2026

The Odyssey Lecture 1

Paul Cantor’s lecture notes on Homer’s Odyssey from the History of Literature. Lecture 4

Great Books, Comparative LiteraturePeter HufnagelJuly 23, 2026

The Odyssey Lecture 2

Paul Cantor’s lecture notes on Homer’s Odyssey from the History of Literature. Lecture 5

Comparative Literature, Great BooksPeter HufnagelJuly 22, 2026

Greek Drama Introduction

An introduction to Greek Drama. Part of Paul Cantor’s History of European Literature course. Lecture 6

Drama, Great Books, History of European Lit, Comparative LiteraturePeter HufnagelJuly 22, 2026

Aeschylus' The Oresteia

Paul Cantor’s lecture notes on The Oresteia from the History of European Literature course. Lecture 7

Sophocles' On Oedipus Tyrannos

Sophocles turns the tyrant, the self-made hero who conquers the city itself, into a study of how the very qualities that let Oedipus solve the Sphinx's riddle and save Thebes are the same qualities that drive him to uncover, and be destroyed by, the truth about himself. Lecture 8

History of European Lit, Great Books, Drama, Comparative LiteraturePeter HufnagelJuly 21, 2026

Sophocles' On Oedipus Tyrannos Part 2

Second lecture on Oedipus Tyrannos. Lecture 9

Comparative Literature, Great Books, History of European Lit, DramaPeter HufnagelJuly 20, 2026

Sophocles' Antigone

History of European Literature lecture on Sophocles’ Antigone. Lecture 10

History of European Lit, Comparative Literature, Drama, Great BooksPeter HufnagelJuly 19, 2026

Aristophanes & Greek Comedy

History of European Literature lecture on Aristophanes’ The Birds and general introduction to the birth of Greek comedy. Lecture 11

Comparative Literature, Great Books, History of European Lit, DramaPeter HufnagelJuly 18, 2026

Aristophanes' The Clouds

History of European Literature lecture on Aristophanes’ The Clouds. The lecture examines philosopher as the last Greek hero. Lecture 12

Comparative Literature, Drama, History of European Lit, Great BooksPeter HufnagelJuly 16, 2026

Greeks to Romans: Virgil's Aeneid

History of European Literature. From the Greeks to the Romans, this is an introduction to Rome and Virgil’s Aeneid. Lecture 13

Comparative Literature, Great Books, History of European Lit, PoetryPeter HufnagelJuly 15, 2026

On Virgil's Aeneid

History of European Literature lecture on Virgil’s Aeneid. Lecture 14

Comparative Literature, Great Books, History of European LitPeter HufnagelJuly 15, 2026

Ovid's Metamorphoses

As Rome hardens from Republic into Empire, Ovid answers Virgil's myth of order with a world where the gods are as fickle as emperors, the ground beneath every certainty keeps shifting, and the only truths left to tell have to be smuggled in as myth. Lecture 15

Comparative Literature, Great Books, History of European LitPeter HufnagelJuly 14, 2026

Middle Ages: Everyman Morality Play

Cantor opens the Middle Ages out of order, using the late medieval morality play Everyman to show how Christianity dethrones the Homeric hero — swapping strength for soul, glory for grace, and the aristocratic "good vs. bad" of pagan antiquity for the democratic "good vs. evil" that Nietzsche called a slave revolt in morality. Lecture 16

Comparative Literature, Drama, Great Books, History of European LitPeter HufnagelJuly 14, 2026

Hesiod & The Bible

The ancient Greek accounts of the creation differ greatly from the one in the Bible. In his Theogony, Hesiod produces a polytheistic account of the origin of the world. Lecture

Great Books, Myths of CreationVirginiaJune 10, 2024Myths and Creation

Paradise Lost

Milton’s Paradise Lost as an attempt to synthesize the Biblical and classical accounts of the Creation. Lecture

Fiction, Myths of Creation, Poetry, Great BooksVirginiaJune 10, 2024Myths and Creation, Paradise Lost

Against Chivalry

They had more in common than just the sheer greatness of their literary achievements. Cervantes did not know Shakespeare's work, but Shakespeare almost certainly knew Cervantes's most famous work, Don Quixote. Essay

Great Books, ShakespeareVirginiaJune 7, 2024Shakespeare, Cervantes, Chivalry

The Uncanonical Dante: The Divine Comedy and Islamic Philosophy

It is only by reading Dante noncanonically that we become aware of the full richness and complexity of his thought, especially the way he is open to countercurrents of ideas within the supposedly rigid orthodoxy of the Middle Ages. Essay

Great BooksVirginiaMay 16, 2020Great Books, Dante, Essay