Interview: Dr. Armetta on Literature and the Liberal Arts (Preview Content)

Interview with Dr. Flora Armetta 

• The 7 liberal arts (grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy) do not include literature, so why do we study it?
  • Literature is a “playground for the liberal arts.”
    • We can look for recurring classical ideals.
    • Narratives from history and theology enable us to see and understand all other kinds of narratives (Plato, Virgil, Augustine, Dante, and the Bible).
  • How does literature have the capacity to speak to the larger human need for the 7 liberal arts?
    • Idea of the seeker (how can the wrong in the world be changed?)
    • Relationship with the natural world
    • Communion between body and soul
    • “The good, the true, and the beautiful.”