Just about a year ago this time, I was intensely working on my dissertation, re-reading (and re-re-re-reading) several key passages in the Iliad and the Odyssey, even delighting in some of the scholarly work on these epics. As I read about Achilles, Telemachus and Odysseus, I often thought I was reading about people I know, in some cases, I felt I was reading about myself.
I saw in the way Athene manipulated her father in the first book of the Odyssey techniques my sisters used to manipulate our father — and my teenage nieces to manipulate theirs. These stories may have been set in the Bronze Age where supernatural beings intervened on a regular basis in the lives of mortal men and women, but they addressed themes and related experiences similar to those we face today in a world where we’ve banished deities and developed technology that the ancients couldn’t even conceive.
And just as the Olympians have been banished from our stories, all too often those who wield power in academia seek to banish the works once called the “Great Books.” They replace stories put to paper by dead white males with current accounts by more contemporary authors who address themes these scholars believe more “relevant” in a world of rapid technological progress and instant communication.
In reality, however, students assigned such “relevant” stories find themselves bored and sometimes even cheated, as David Clemens relates:
My former student Joshua, now ambivalently quartered at UC Santa Cruz . . . has an article in Literary Matters about cheating. Not students cheating; students who feel cheated. He’s found a couple of excellent literature classes (Cervantes) but most just use books as a vector for stone-cold political ideology.
When he was at Monterey Peninsula College, Josh was the midwife who helped deliver a great books program to a college that had been out to axe all its literature courses. In my Intro. to Lit., class he heard me refer to Robert Hutchins’s metaphor for Western literature as a “Great Conversation,” and in Literary Matters he writes
“Within weeks other members of the class and I were meeting on our own time to discuss the Great Books. We read Aristophanes’ Lysistrata. We read Sappho. We felt and spoke as if we had rediscovered some long-forgotten treasure abandoned by the generation before [my emphasis].”
Josh devoured a copy of Hutchins’s The Great Conversation that he found (where else?) in the college library discard pile. He says, “. . . the students I came into contact with seemed to react as I had. We felt we’d missed out on something essential by not being exposed to these works earlier.”
Read the whole thing, especially to learn how Iraq War veteran Joshua responded to the Iliad.
It’s too bad that all too many in academia have politicized the humanities for it is it the very essence of its various disciplines to help us discover the themes which unite us all as human beings, stories which enrich our lives, helping us understand what it means to be a human being.
And reminding us not just of the power of stories, but over their ever-recurring themes the enduring nature of certain human experiences.
Nice post, and thanks for linking!
Since you like Homer, let me highly recommend Zachary Mason’s Lost Books of the Odyssey. Marvelous book.
All hope isn’t lost. There is been a resurgence of late and even a li’l ol’ classicist like me got a publishing deal with Rowman & Littlefield to relate the classics to modern life.
I bet even the liberal bloggers who come onto this site can find common cause with the academic Right to save the classics from an overly zealous Left.
I’m a semi-literature nerd. “Semi” because my tastes are narrow: I would rather re-read things I already love, than read new things. But “nerd”, because reading (or seeing) the classics like _Agamemnon_ or _Hamlet_ or _Tess of the D’Urbervilles_, geniunely gives me pleasure.
One of the cool parts of owning a Kindle (seriously, I love it) is that I’m able to download classical literature for free or virtually free. Instead of graduate school, I decided to read all 50 volumes of the Harvard Classics (on volume 12 in 9 months.) Right now I’m reading Plutarch’s Lives and I’m amazed at how awesome it is.
The Kindle has allowed me to read works of literature I would have never thought of reading. As a guy, who picks up Jane Austen? I mean, seriously? But it’s damn awesome. Same with Charlotte Bronte. Or Adam Smith. Or Virgil? Euripides?
You should never let a university get in the way of your education. The greatest works of literature are hiding in plain sight behind crap like Snooki’s autibiography.
Tra la la la la. I’m the choir that you’re preaching to.
Well maybe not as cultured as the ‘classics’ but I’ve been catching up on pulp stories from the 30’s and 40’s.
Greek tragedies can also have modern counterparts in the strangest of places. For instance, The Dark Phoenix Saga TPB by Chris Claremont, John Byrne & Terry Austin from Uncanny X-Men #129-137 about the corruption of Jean Grey, originally Marvel Girl now called Phoenix since her powers made a quantum leap after she died & resurrected herself saving the X-Men; thinking the X-Men are dead, this leaves Jean vulnerable to psychic manipulations of Mastermind, who has the mutant power to create sophisticated illusions, with the Hellfire Club’s White Queen, Emma Frost, he is given artificial telepathy to project illusions directly into Grey’s mind to bring the dark side of personality to the surface. Mastermind’s purpose is to prove his worth of joining the Hellfire Club which is by invitation only. Mastermind is successful corrupting Jean Grey to make her the Hellfire Club’s Black Queen, but she breaks Mastermind’s control; however, since Jean’s powers as Phoenix is linked to passion, she could not fully repress her exposed dark side. As a result, Jean Grey transforms from Phoenix into Dark Phoenix! She trashes the X-Men twice, consumes a star in the Shi’ar star system (she was really looking for the M’Krann Crystal) which obliterates 5 billion lives in an instant since the star goes nova. Majestrix Shi’ar Lilandra teleports the X-Men & Jean Grey to hold Grey accountable for her actions as Dark Phoenix. However, the X-Men side with Jean Grey. Will the X-Men & Jean survive? If so, at what cost? Will Jean become Phoenix again?
Another good storyline is from the UK Captain Britain series by Alan Moore & Alan Davis about the mad Jim Jaspers & the indestructible Fury. The Jamie Delano & Alan Davis stories are also good, classic stuff.
My niece-in-law, who is an English teacher, posted this on Teh Facebooks last night:Does anyone have a book that they read every year? If so, what is it and why?
I answered “Light In August,” because Faulkner’s prose rocks me hardcore.
This puts me in mind of a committee I was on in the 70’s which was quibbling over “the great themes in literature” and what to include and what to scrub.
Great literature deals with the the virtues and vices and handles them in a way that make them personal.
Of course, when I mention that the Bible is great literature which has personalized the virtues and vices through the ages ….. I simply invite the usual suspects to come hither and foam at the mouth.
Countdown …….
I’d also recommend “Who Killed Homer” by Victor Davis Hanson and John Heath on the death of classical education in America. I only took a semester of Greek in college, but I’ve been surprised how far that’s gotten me in a lot of my studies.
Helio, as an undergrad in the early eighties, I actually took a course called The Bible as literature. Having been raised Episcopalian, el-hi schooled in a Jewish school, and then undergrad in a Jesuit University, this was for me a very interesting and provocative course of study.
I can’t think of a book I read every year, there is an author I read every year. While Evelyn Waugh does tend toward darkness now and then, rarely does anything he wrote fail to entertain.
Not surprisingly, Granny Dogshit has nothing to offer here, which explains the lack of a “drive-by” from her demented mind.
Why am I not surprised you would recommend the Dark Phoenix Saga, Sebastian 🙂
I might mention the story arc where Steve surrenders the mantle of Captain America, and John Walker takes it up. In the end it shows that Steve Rogers doesn’t need to be Captain America, but America needs Captain America to be Steve Rogers.
More recently, Mark Waid’s Captain America Man out of Time is a good story about a man out of his time, who finds that once he sees what will be, he can’t go back to what he was.
Also the Hank Pym/Ultron/Janet Van Dyne/Jocosta saga is Oedipus and Electra all in one.
The Demon Bear Saga from The New Mutants #18-21 & the following The New Mutants #22-25 when Wolfsbane & Sunspot manifest the powers of Dagger & Cloak respectively from The New Mutants Classic Volume 3 TPB.
The Life & Death of Captain Marvel TPB by Jim Starlin from Captain Marvel #25-34 & Marvel Graphic Novel #1: The Death of Captain Marvel. What makes the death of Captain Marvel remarkable is he is fighting not a super-villain, but the blackened, the Kree name for cancer. Despite the super-technology of the Kree, the Eternals of Titan, & even the Avengers, there is no cure. Mar-Vell dies peacefully surrounded by his friends. Death meets him, but not before Mar-Vell faces Thanos in a most unexpected manner. The Avengers make Captain Marvel an honorary Avenger, the Kree even honors him, although he betrayed his own race for Earth years earlier. It’s a very touching, deep story with many layers. Mar-Vell was exposed to a dangerous bomb in Captain Marvel #34 which is the catalyst for his cancer.
Guerilla-learning -smacks of pure AWESOMENESS!
May I recommend B. H. Liddell Hart’s “On Strategy” as a companion piece to Jomini’s “Précis de l’Art de la Guerre: Des Principales Combinaisons de la Stratégie, de la Grande Tactique et de la Politique Militaire” and Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War.”
Somebody needs a date.
Heliotrope, David, I was an undergrad in the early to mid 80s. I took a course titled Literary Masterpieces. One of the readings was the Bible. And this was a state school in NJ. Granted we only studied the literature aspects of the Bible, but it was interesting nonetheless.
The Kree-Skrull War TPB from The Avengers #89-97 by Roy Thomas; guest stars Captain Marvel, Carol Danvers (future Ms. Marvel, Binary, & future Avenger), & Rick Jones.
In the mid-90’s, I read a homeschooling book that recommended introducing the classics to one’s children by showing videos and then going to the reading. Although my children weren’t homeschooled, we did watch a lot of videos/DVD’s about history and that led to lots of further reading. It was one of the best child raising tips I ever received.
My point is comic books can lead to a love of reading; it helped me. Furthermore, kids can expand their vocabulary & reading comprehension by reading comics as well. There’s a goldmine of classic narratives in comics too.
Sebastian,
While I think the comics of the past 10-15 years are lacking, I learned of Shakespeare and the 300 Spartans from the X-men, and Dune, Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, Charge of the Light Brigade, the Battle of Britain and countless others from Iron Maiden.
It is possible to be exposed to the classics in the most surprising places.
Livewire, I agree! The only current comic book I would recommend is Geoff Johns Green Lantern & perhaps Grant Morrison’s Batman stuff. But the classic Marvel Comics from the 1960’s-the early 1990’s is really great reading if you know where to look for classic narratives.
Sebastian,
not to mention Steeleye Span references 😉
John’s emotional spectrum is interesting. (My screen saver currently reads “In Brightest Day, in Blackest Night, no audit error shall escape my sight.”) But I think both Blackest Night and Brightest day have suffered from some twists and turns that hurt the story.
The Judas Contract (and Terra as ‘anti-Kitty Pryde’) was a masterpiece of storytelling. Amusingly they’d not do it today because Deathstroke arranging to murder the Titans is fine, Deathstroke sleeping with a 14 yrar old is icky.
The New Teen Titans “The Terror of Trigon” is just a masterpiece in storytelling along with the George Perez art, particularly the first 2 issues featuring his full pencils & inks; Raven is at last corrupted by her demon father, Trigon the Terrible as the New Teen Titans fight to save their friend. I love the unexpected twists & turns which had been building up since the New Teen Titans original first 50 issues. The end also is a puzzle since it is not clear if Raven survives at all given she vanishes at the end. But that’s another story.