Ithaka: Legal education as an odyssey

Thalia-Flora Karavia, Portrait of C.P. Cavafy (1926)

Like all other journeys, legal education has a fairly well defined end. Like the best of journeys, legal education at its best does not set its destination in advance, but rather refocuses along the way. Moreover, this is no overnight trip. Although students spend as few as a thousand days at the Law School, the University of Louisville's bond with its graduates lasts a lifetime.

With those thoughts in mind, I am pleased to offer readers of Jurisdynamics, MoneyLaw, and The Cardinal Lawyer a bit of literary inspiration on the first day of classes during the 2008-09 academic year. Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis (Κωνσταντίνος Π. Καβάφης), better known in the English-speaking world as Constantine P. Cavafy, was a major Greek poet who lived from 1863 to 1933. Among his 154 poems, perhaps the best known and most beloved is Ithaka. This poem makes apt reading for all new beginnings, including the first day of a life in the law.

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