443 - Kale Zelden - There’s Still Time to Read the Great Books

The Symbolic World

Jonathan Pageau

Education, Society & Culture, Religion & Spirituality

4.8 • 933 Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2026

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Kale Zelden is a literature teacher and writer and in this video he joins me to discuss reading, the "Great books", and what it means to recover the reading tradition in a modern context. We talk about how to encounter old texts, what reading can contribute to our lives, and how to approach authors like Homer, Dante, and Shakespeare without reducing them to modern assumptions. We also explore the limits of the novel, modernism, postmodernism, irony, and the essential rediscovery of the epic.

YouTube version: https://youtu.be/9zps7RIov44

Kale’s Substack, The Underneath: https://kalezelden.substack.com/

Join us at the Symbolic World Summit | May 14-16 | Ohio | Keynote speakers: Jonathan Pageau, Fr. Josiah Trenham, Mary Harrington, Dcn. Seraphim Rohlin, Kale Zelden, Annie Crawford, and Heather Pollington
Buy your tickets: https://symbolicworldsummit.com/

Learn more about Pavel Shchelin's phenomenal course on Plutarch, Live now: https://www.thesymbolicworld.com/courses/plutarch-symbolism-in-history

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Coming up
01:07 - Intro music
01:32 - Introduction
02:09 - The state of education
07:30 - First of all
10:47 - The power of analogy
13:11 - Select your curriculum
21:05 - What is canon?
33:24 - What are we moving towards
39:20 - Allegory
43:47 - What is modernism?
47:50 - Great books program
53:24 - What is the epic?

BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS DISCUSSION:
00:04:45
Augustine — Confessions — Spiritual autobiography, early Christian thought
Plato — Dialogues — Philosophy of truth, justice, knowledge
Aristotle — (various works) — Ethics, logic, metaphysics
Church Fathers — (various writings) — Foundations of Christian theology
00:06:20
Anne Rice — (novels) — Modern popular fiction
Shakespeare — (general works) — Foundational drama
Beowulf — Anonymous — Old English epic poem
00:06:49
Plato — Dialogues — Rediscovered philosophical texts
00:07:32
Shakespeare — Hamlet — Tragedy of revenge and doubt
Dante — Divine Comedy — Vision of Hell, Purgatory, Heaven
Chaucer — Canterbury Tales — Medieval storytelling
Mary Shelley — Frankenstein — Creation and responsibility
Milton — Paradise Lost — Epic of the Fall
00:13:55
Kerouac — On the Road — Modern freedom and experience
Camus — (e.g. The Stranger) — Existential philosophy
00:14:31
Homer — Iliad, Odyssey — Foundational epics
Plato — Apology, Republic — Justice and philosophy
Shakespeare —
Romeo and Juliet — Tragic love
Julius Caesar — Politics and betrayal
Macbeth — Ambition and guilt
A Midsummer Night’s Dream — Comedy and illusion
King Lear — Suffering and authority
Hamlet — Existential tragedy
The Tempest — Reconciliation
00:16:21
Dostoevsky — Crime and Punishment — Guilt and redemption
Dostoevsky — The Brothers Karamazov — Faith and morality
00:21:31
Voyage of St. Brendan — Medieval Christian voyage
Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius — Apocalyptic text
The Golden Legend — Jacobus de Voragine — Saints’ lives
00:21:58
Cervantes — Don Quixote — Satire of chivalry, early novel
00:22:51
Jane Austen — Pride and Prejudice — Social psychology
00:23:59
Milton — Paradise Lost — (revisited, epic psychology)
00:26:11
Faulkner — (novels) — Fragmented modern storytelling
00:33:41
C.S. Lewis — On Stories — Defense of story over psychology
C.S. Lewis — Abolition of Man — Critique of modern values
C.S. Lewis — Miracles — Defense of the supernatural
00:37:05
Sondheim — Into the Woods — Modern fairy tale deconstruction
00:38:55
Rabelais — Gargantua and Pantagruel — Satirical, playful text
00:44:06
Melville — Moby-Dick — Epic-scale novel
Hemingway — The Sun Also Rises — Modern disillusionment
00:49:42
Ovid — Metamorphoses — Mythic transformations
00:46:13 (thinkers mentioned)
Lyotard — Postmodern philosophy
Derrida — Deconstruction
Heidegger — Phenomenology
00:53:14
Virgil — Aeneid — Roman epic
Bible — (Moses narrative) — Epic of calling and suffering

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Transcript

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0:00.0	you asked me at the beginning in this conversation, like, what do I do with my students? Well, my first thing,
0:04.8	clear away as much of this kind of modern baggage as possible, you know, I don't care about your
0:12.4	feelings. What does Dante really think first? And then, and then admit that in this process,
0:20.1	Dante might be a little smarter than you, like, it's possible, right?
0:23.9	Because he sure is a heck of a lot smarter than me, right?
0:27.1	Okay, so then why would he say that about the suicides?
0:30.5	Why would he say that about the homosexuals?
0:32.8	You know, you know, and you really get them to enter into that question.
0:36.0	Again, what I'm trying to do is collapse those distances that are so easy.
0:41.7	And I tell you, I, the number one thing I see teachers do that drives me up the wall,
0:50.2	which is to give the students the one thing they don't need from you,
0:54.5	and that is your own cynicism.
0:57.1	You know, it's like they don't need it.
1:00.0	They have it in spades,
1:01.6	and theirs is probably more grounded and founded than yours, you know, Mr. Teacher.
1:06.3	You know, Mr. Teacher. This is Jonathan Peugeot. Kail is a teacher. He's a writer. You know, he writes on Substack, but he's mostly someone who's kind of been swirling around the things that I talk about
1:46.1	and that people around talk about.
1:47.6	He's involved in this little corner, and he's also, you know, been, he did for a while
1:53.0	like a podcast with Rod Dreher, and he's just kind of been swirling around.
1:56.8	And so we thought it would be a great opportunity to bring him to the Symbolic Girl Summit,
2:18.1	you know, to kind of hear his voice and to hear him talk about things that he thinks are important. So, Kail, thanks for talking to me. Absolutely pleasure to be here. Thank you, Jonathan. And so, you know, I think that, you know, we invited you because we know that you have this deep understanding of story and you're, you know, you're looking into how can we connect,
2:23.1	you know, our modern world, you know, with these ancient stories. And so maybe you can tell us a little bit about what led you down that path on your own. Sure, sure. I mean, you know, I've been a
	...

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