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The Intellectual Journey

according to

St. Bonaventure

PROLOGUE. THE LIFE OF LEARNING

Bonaventure, “The Prologue” from the Itinerarium mentis in Deum.

Cicero, Pro Archia poeta (In Defense of Archias).

Annie Dillard, “Library Card Incident.”

J. H. Newman, “Knowledge Viewed in Relation to Professional Skill.”

Richard Rodriguez, The Hunger of Memory.

Thomas Wolfe, “Young Faustus.”

Richard Wright, “The Library Card.”

STEP 1. INQUIRY AND THE UNIVERSE

Bonaventure, Itinerarium I.

Bonaventure, Life of Francis.

Genesis, “The Story of Creation.”

Paul Colinvaux, “The Succession Affair.”

Paul Davies, “Did God Create the Universe?”

June Goodfield, “A Diversion and a Failure.”

Aldo Leopold, “Reading the Forest Landscape.”

STEP 2. IMAGINATIVE PERSPECTIVES ON THE NATURAL WORLD

Bonaventure, Itinerarium II.

St. Francis of Assisi, Canticle of the Sun.

Matthew Arnold, “In Harmony with Nature.”

Gerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur.”

Barbara Novak, “The Nationalist Garden and the Holy Book.”

H. D. Thoreau, “Up the West Branch.”

William Wordsworth, “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey.”

STEP 3. THE NATURE OF THE PERSON

Bonaventure, Itinerarium, III.

St. Francis of Assisi, “The Fifth Admonition.”

Augustine, Confessions.

Marcus Aurelius. Meditations.

Maxine Hong Kingston, “A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe.”

Michel de Montaigne, “Why I Paint My Own Portrait.”

Jean-Paul Sartre, “Existentialism as a Humanism.”

STEP 4. THE PERSON IN SOCIETY: RECONCILIATION AND TRANSFORMATION

Bonaventure, Itinerarium, IV.

Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex.

Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.

Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents.

Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto.

Vatican Council II, “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World” (Gaudium et Spes).

STEP 5. IMAGES OF ULTIMATE REALITY

Bonaventure, Itinerarium V.

John Donne, Sermon 23 and Holy Sonnets 4 & 10.

Elizabeth Johnson, She Who Is.

Ursula K. Le Guin, “Schrödinger’s Cat.”

John Milton, Paradise Lost (Book 3).

Plato, “The Allegory of the Cave.”

Huston Smith, “The Beyond Within” and selections from the Chandogya Upanishad.

STEP 6. THE SEARCH FOR VALUE AND MEANING

Bonaventure, Itinerarium, VI.

Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics I.

Clare of Assisi, Testament.

Don DeLillo, “Waves and Radiation.”

Emily Dickinson, Selected Poems

T.S. Eliot, “Journey of the Magi.”

Homer, Iliad, Book XXIV.

Matthew, “The Sermon on the Mount.”

STEP 7. “LET US BEGIN AGAIN”: THE JOY OF DISCOVERY

Bonaventure, Itinerarium. VII.

Dante Aleghieri, The Divine Comedy [Inferno canto 1 and Paradiso, canto 33].

Euripides, Bacchae.

John Keats, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.”

Luke, “Paul’s speech at the Areopagus.”

Thomas Merton, “The Sleeping Volcano.”

Francesco Petrarca, “The Ascent of Mont Ventoux.”

	Bonaventure, “The Prologue” from the Itinerarium mentis in Deum.
	Cicero, Pro Archia poeta (In Defense of Archias).
	Annie Dillard, “Library Card Incident.”
	J. H. Newman, “Knowledge Viewed in Relation to Professional Skill.”
	Richard Rodriguez, The Hunger of Memory.
	Thomas Wolfe, “Young Faustus.”
	Richard Wright, “The Library Card.”

	Bonaventure, Itinerarium I.
	Bonaventure, Life of Francis.
	Genesis, “The Story of Creation.”
	Paul Colinvaux, “The Succession Affair.”
	Paul Davies, “Did God Create the Universe?”
	June Goodfield, “A Diversion and a Failure.”
	Aldo Leopold, “Reading the Forest Landscape.”

	Bonaventure, Itinerarium II.
	St. Francis of Assisi, Canticle of the Sun.
	Matthew Arnold, “In Harmony with Nature.”
	Gerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur.”
	Barbara Novak, “The Nationalist Garden and the Holy Book.”
	H. D. Thoreau, “Up the West Branch.”
	William Wordsworth, “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey.”

	Bonaventure, Itinerarium, III.
	St. Francis of Assisi, “The Fifth Admonition.”
	Augustine, Confessions.
	Marcus Aurelius. Meditations.
	Maxine Hong Kingston, “A Song for a Barbarian Reed Pipe.”
	Michel de Montaigne, “Why I Paint My Own Portrait.”
	Jean-Paul Sartre, “Existentialism as a Humanism.”

	Bonaventure, Itinerarium, IV.
	Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex.
	Lord Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.
	Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents.
	Martin Luther King, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”
	Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The Communist Manifesto.
	Vatican Council II, “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World” (Gaudium et Spes).

	Bonaventure, Itinerarium V.
	John Donne, Sermon 23 and Holy Sonnets 4 & 10.
	Elizabeth Johnson, She Who Is.
	Ursula K. Le Guin, “Schrödinger’s Cat.”
	John Milton, Paradise Lost (Book 3).
	Plato, “The Allegory of the Cave.”
	Huston Smith, “The Beyond Within” and selections from the Chandogya Upanishad.

	Bonaventure, Itinerarium, VI.
	Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics I.
	Clare of Assisi, Testament.
	Don DeLillo, “Waves and Radiation.”
	Emily Dickinson, Selected Poems
	T.S. Eliot, “Journey of the Magi.”
	Homer, Iliad, Book XXIV.
	Matthew, “The Sermon on the Mount.”

	Bonaventure, Itinerarium. VII.
	Dante Aleghieri, The Divine Comedy [Inferno canto 1 and Paradiso, canto 33].
	Euripides, Bacchae.
	John Keats, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.”
	Luke, “Paul’s speech at the Areopagus.”
	Thomas Merton, “The Sleeping Volcano.”
	Francesco Petrarca, “The Ascent of Mont Ventoux.”