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l a s s i c s d e p a r t m e n t |
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The University of Texas at Austin
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"Desperately, at every moment conscious of costs and resources, I decided to go to the Holy Mountain, Mount Athos." This is the stuff of which all great adventures are made; and Professor Gareth Morgan was the man to seize this chance and to wring from it an experience of depth and power which has resonated since 1960, when he undertook the journey. His purpose, of course, was scholarly, in the most intense and exacting of senses - it was intended to shore up with first-hand impressions the work which he continued to do for several decades as a brilliant teacher of Ancient Greek, Latin, Modern Greek, folklore, pedagogy, and Middle Welsh. The journey was essentially undertaken in order to recapture what he felt that he had lost, after five years of teaching in his native Britain. Teaching offered its own rewards, he adds: "But all the time, I was conscious that I might be losing the skills and knowledge I had done so much to gain - an intimacy and saturation in the folk-life and folk-literature of Greece; especially a sense of what was going on in the Greece of the Middle Ages and Renaissance." This publication reproduces his journal, undertaken on the trip to Athos so many years ago, as he wanders (a confirmed skeptic, himself) to a succession of monasteries, scrambles over hilly terrain, converses with fellow travelers, and ponders the historical past. it is a unique account, written from the perspective of an extraordinary man. |
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Athos 60 can be order from Pelagius Press, P. O. Box 162041, Austin, TX 78716-2041. List Price: $10.95 Discount offered for direct mail orders; please send check for $8.95 (includes postage and handling). ISBN number 1-57087-069-1. Copyright 1994. |
 Above: detail of the monk engaging the cat in a theological discussion (whether or not cats really have nine lives) at the Lavra Monastery. |
Copies
are still available and might be of interest to those who
knew Gareth and those who share his interests in Greek life
and folklore through the ages.