Soirée 2017 - Gregory the Great Academy

A Soirée with Dr. Anthony Esolen, Professor of English at Providence College Rhode Island

on Saturday, February 25th, 2017, 5:30p.m. – 10p.m.
at 6521 Dryden Dr. McLean, VA 22101.

$175 for a single and $300 per couple. Semi-Formal attire.

esolen

Speaker Topic:
“The Liberal Arts as an Entryway to Faith”

Anthony Esolen is a native of the small coal-mining town of Archbald Pennsylvania, located just northeast of Scranton, PA. He attended Princeton University, graduating summa cum laude in 1981 and in 1987 received a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina in Renaissance English Literature, writing his dissertation on “A Rhetoric of Spenserian Irony.” He began his teaching career in the Carolinas, teaching at the University of North Carolina from 1987 to 1988 and then at Furman University from 1988 to 1990. In 1990 he joined the faculty at Providence College, Rhode Island, becoming full professor in 1996. At Providence Dr. Esolen teaches courses in Medieval and Renaissance Literature in the Western Civilization Program.

Dr. Esolen’s literary work spans a range of registers from scholarship to popular exposition, from poetry to Christian life and liturgy. In each of these areas he achieves a forthright and realistic voice that invites his readers to join him in the excitement and joy of knowing the truth and accomplishing the good. He has published a translation of the Roman poet Lucretius’ De Natura Rerum (On the Nature of Things), a major translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy for Modern Library, as well as a translation of Gerusalemme Liberata (Jerusalem Delivered) by the sixteenth century Italian poet Torquato Tasso, in which Tasso tells of the battle for the deliverance of the Holy City from the Moslems during the First Crusade. Dr. Esolen’s work has appeared in scholarly journals such as English Literary Renaissance, Spencer Studies, and Studies in Philology.In addition to this more academic output, Dr. Esolen has written many articles and books of a popular nature. He is a senior editor at Touchstone Magazine: A Journal of Mere Christianity, and regularly contributes to a number of print and Internet publications, such as Crisis, Catholic World Report, First Things, The Catholic Thing, and Front Porch Republic.

A number of Dr. Esolen’s popular works deal with the urgent need to protect and restore the family, education, and society. These include: Defending Marriage: Twelve Arguments for Sanity, Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child, Life Under Compulsion: Ten Ways to Destroy the Humanity of Your Child, and Reclaiming Catholic Social Teaching. His latest book, just published in late January by Regnery, is Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture. It continues the theme of social restoration, identifying those areas of culture where our efforts can have the most impact and offering advice for rebuilding American culture beginning from the level of our local community.

Dr. Esolen’s writings on the Christian life and liturgy appear regularly in Magnificat, which has also published his commentary on the new translation of the Roman Missal entitled, The Beauty of the Word. In this same area Dr. Esolen has written Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church, and Reflections on the Christian Life, a meditation on how the life story of each one of us is illuminated by the story of Christ’s life.

Dr. Esolen has published over 100 poems in various journals in the United States, Canada, Australia and England. Some of his poems have been collected and published in a volume entitled Peppers.

Dr. Esolen resides in Rhode Island with his wife, Debra and their two children, Jessica and David.