A monstrous passion
This article is part of a series on the impact of humanities studies in and out of the classroom. Read the first installment here. Through dead languages, Charles Hyman ’18 has found intellectual life. In his deep study of Latin, ancient Greek, and now Old English, the 20-year-old history and English concentrator has discovered words that, far from being obsolete, are gateways to gripping narratives and powerful learning. “They capture the imagination,” said Hyman, who recalled his earliest romance with ancient history, discovered while visiting reliefs of Assyrian hunters in the British Museum in London when he was 6. “It might seem unreachable. Yet if you learn these languages, you feel so connected with the past in an immersive way.” At the heart of his affection for these extinct languages is an undying love of “Beowulf,” the eighth-century Old English epic he began listening to at age 10, as a book on tape,...