- Home
- literary collections
- literary criticism
- The Odyssey of Love
The Odyssey of Love
A Christian Guide to the Great Books
by Paul Krause
Imprint: Wipf and Stock
Tolle Lege, take up and read! These words from St. Augustine perfectly describe the human condition. Reading is the universal pilgrimage of the soul. In reading we journey to find ourselves and to save ourselves. The ultimate journey is reading the Great Books. In the Great Books we find the struggle of the human soul, its aspirations, desires, and failures. Through reading, we find faces and souls familiar to us even if they lived a thousand years ago. The unread life is not worth living, and in reading we may well discover what life is truly about and prepare ourselves for the pilgrimage of life.
Paul Krause is a writer, teacher, and campus minister. He studied theology at Yale and philosophy at the University of Buckingham. His writings have appeared in various journals, magazines, and newspapers, including New Oxford Review, Merion West, The American Conservative, Front Porch Republic, The University Bookman, and The Wanderer. He is a senior contributor at The Imaginative Conservative, associate editor at VoegelinView, and contributed to the book The College Lecture Today (2019).
“Paul Krause’s essays on some of the enduring works of literature model how we might read in and for love. These careful, provocative readings will inspire readers to pick up these classic stories once more and be reminded that although the libido dominandi may hold sway for a season, it will not have the last word. Love will.”
—Jeffrey Bilbro, Spring Arbor University
“The Odyssey of Love is a tour de force exploration of the nature of and need for love in our lives by examining the works of Western literature from Homer to Tolstoy. Krause revives our interest in the humanities by illuminating what we can learn about love when we read classical works of literature. Accessible and cultured, his essays guide us through these works with ease and insight and make us want to read these works again. For students, teachers, and those who simply value literature, The Odyssey of Love is a required book to fall in love again with the great works of the West.”
—Lee Trepanier, Samford University
“Paul Krause is a skilled communicator and great young writer showing readers how to fall in love with great books and be moved to glorify God because of it. As Augustine admonished us to take up and read, Paul Krause does the same by making this process enjoyable and enriching in his latest work. Highly recommended to anyone seeking a firmer foundation and broader horizons in their understanding and appreciate of the written word in the Christian tradition.”
—Scott James Meyer, Houston Baptist University