Life Lessons from the Great Books [repost]

For every important moment and stage in your life, there is a Great Book that can offer you invaluable lessons and place your unique experiences in a larger perspective. Some of history's greatest authors have written about timeless themes and trying points in our lives. If you're unlucky in love, you can seek sympathy in Goethe's epistolary novel, The Sufferings of Young Werther, and its title character's frustrations with unrequited love. If you're looking to explore new environments, you can follow along with Lewis and Clark in their detailed journals as they journey through the Louisiana Territory. And if you're trying to lead a noble and hard-working life, you can learn from Albert Schweitzer, whose autobiography Out of My Life and Thought details his work providing medical care in a remote African village.

n Life Lessons from the Great Books, Professor J. Rufus Fears of the University of Oklahoma—a marvelous storyteller with deep historical knowledge—shows you how some of Western civilization's greatest literary masterpieces can speak to you and provide guidance in your life across the gulf of time and culture. Rich in historical perspective and infused with layers of meaning, these 36 lectures reveal the wealth of insight these enduring works can provide in your life. You'll come to see that each of these works—whether written 2,000, 200, or 20 years ago—remain relevant to all of us.

According to Professor Fears, four characteristics define a Great Book:

* Its focus on great themes such as love, courage, and patriotism
* Its composition in a noble language
* Its ability to speak to readers across the ages
* Its ability to speak to readers not as groups, but as individuals

In Life Lessons from the Great Books, you focus on more than three dozen works that span the timeline of Western history, from ancient Greece and Rome to the modern age. Each of these 36 books provides insights not only into the human experience of their particular time and place but also into your own situation.

Great Books are touchstones to history and the story of humanity. Every Great Book you explore in this course—from the Odyssey and the Gospel of John to Hamlet and Animal Farm—is a unique expression of the human spirit and a fountain of advice, from how to conduct yourself in times of trouble to how to better appreciate the simple moments in your life.