Beauty: a concept of the mind that is intangible, culturally influenced, and fluid. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, say many. The realm of beauty is as old as humanity. The topic canvasses from philosophy to religion from natural to man-made. This is a huge topic, from which I will focus on the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, and explore how people in antiquity thought about beauty. I have… Read more
In the United States we are approaching Thanksgiving, so it seems apt to choose for this month’s Core Vocab exploration—taken from The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours[1] and the associated Sourcebook[2]—a word that includes this concept among others: kharis [χάρις], plural kharites [χάριτες] which Gregory Nagy glosses as ‘reciprocity, give-and-take, reciprocal relationship; initiation of reciprocal relationship; the pleasure or beauty derived from reciprocity, from a reciprocal relationship; gratification; grace,… Read more