Uploaded January 2026 | Updated September 2026, 4 days ago
What does love know—and how do great books teach us to see it?
In this wide-ranging reflection, a Ralston College tutor shares five works that have shaped his understanding of love, beauty, and meaning across a lifetime: from the organic logic of Gothic architecture, to Plato’s discovery of eros at the heart of philosophy; from Dante’s radiant Paradiso, to Wagner’s artistic ambition as interpreted by Sir Roger Scruton; and finally to the re-enchanting power of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia.
These are not merely favorite books, but formative companions—guides that teach us how to look at the world, how to read the tradition, and how love underlies even our darkest judgments and highest aspirations. A meditation on art, philosophy, theology, and storytelling, this conversation invites us to return to the great works not for answers alone, but for the transformation they make possible.
Love, eros, beauty, re-enchantment, and the enduring power of the Western tradition.
What does love know—and how do great books teach us to see it?
In this wide-ranging reflection, a Ralston College tutor shares five works that have shaped his understanding of love, beauty, and meaning across a lifetime: from the organic logic of Gothic architecture, to Plato’s discovery of eros at the heart of philosophy; from Dante’s radiant Paradiso, to Wagner’s artistic ambition as interpreted by Sir Roger Scruton; and finally to the re-enchanting power of C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia.
These are not merely favorite books, but formative companions—guides that teach us how to look at the world, how to read the tradition, and how love underlies even our darkest judgments and highest aspirations. A meditation on art, philosophy, theology, and storytelling, this conversation invites us to return to the great works not for answers alone, but for the transformation they make possible.
Love, eros, beauty, re-enchantment, and the enduring power of the Western tradition.
