The Trivium Companion: A Guide to Sister Miriam Joseph’s Trivium

224-page paperback / 6.125" x 9.25" / ISBN 9781589882201
Publication Date: 1/19/27 (available for preorder)

With The Trivium Companion you will develop mastery in reading, writing, speaking, and reasoning. It is the indispensable guide to Sister Miriam Joseph’s The Trivium.

“Trivium” here means the crossroads where the three branches of language—logic, grammar, and rhetoric—meet. Sister Miriam Joseph wrote The Trivium in the 1940s to help students study and master an integrated view of language. Her book has since become a staple of classical education.

The Trivium Companion by Peter Kalkavage takes readers through the eleven chapters of Sister Miriam Joseph’s book, clarifying and developing her ideas and providing exercises, problems, and questions for further practice. It is intended for use by teachers and students as well as the general reader looking to gain a deeper understanding of language and improve writing skills.

The Trivium Companion includes sections on:

* The nature and function of language
* General grammar
* Logic and reasoning: propositions, syllogisms, and fallacies
* Induction and scientific method
* Rhetoric and communication: poetics, figurative language, metrical discourse
* The reading and analysis of lyric poetry
* Plus, it's enlivened by examples: from Shakespeare, Milton, Plato, the Bible, Homer, and more

An answer key for the exercises is available for purchase.

Looking for more on this topic?
See The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric by Sister Miriam Joseph

Peter Kalkavage is the author of The Logic of Desire: An Introduction to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit and Music and the Idea of a World, both for Paul Dry Books. For more than forty-five years, he was a tutor at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, where he also directed the St. John’s Chorus. Dr. Kalkavage has translated the Timaeus and co-translated the Sophist, Phaedo, Statesman, Symposium, and Meno—all for Hackett Publishing Co. He lives in Annapolis, Maryland.