Things I should know in order to better appreciate Western literature

[Evaril]

I feel like I'm always missing allusions and symbols and big-picture social problems whenever I read fiction (and poetry). So I thought I'd remedy that by doing readings in various fields to be more knowledgeable about the things that have influenced Western literature greatly. For example, Shakespeare, the Bible, Greek myths, enlightenment philosophy, and of course, history (which is rather broad). Any others you would like to recommend?

[JBI]

Read Northrop Frye. He explains everything, and is very witty. Though I recommend you just browse through the cliché names, even if you don't understand things, to get a sense of what people are talking about. Sooner or later, things will make sense, but it is a process, one, which unfortunately, is not taught well in schools in many western countries, though for some reason is taught exceptionally well in countries like Japan, which seem to have a higher standard of education.

[mortalterror]

Read Northrop Frye. He explains everything, and is very witty. Though I recommend you just browse through the cliché names, even if you don't understand things, to get a sense of what people are talking about. Sooner or later, things will make sense, but it is a process, one, which unfortunately, is not taught well in schools in many western countries, though for some reason is taught exceptionally well in countries like Japan, which seem to have a higher standard of education.

I don't know that Japan teaches things differently, but I would suggest that any country that scores better on standardized tests than the U.S. spends more time teaching it's students. There does seem to be a correlation between the amount of time spent on a subject and how well a pupil understands it. If I wanted to fix the U.S. education system I'd get rid of the three month gap in the middle of our school year, and make a day ten hours long.

[JBI]

I don't know that Japan teaches things differently, but I would suggest that any country that scores better on standardized tests than the U.S. spends more time teaching it's students. There does seem to be a correlation between the amount of time spent on a subject and how well a pupil understands it. If I wanted to fix the U.S. education system I'd get rid of the three month gap in the middle of our school year, and make a day ten hours long.

There is that - their school year is like 50 odd days longer than the American one, with I believe longer hours, but there is also the focus on poetry, getting students to read the classics, and memorize the classics, engaging more memory and the tradition, which helps establish a critical mindset, from what I hear. I heard that they, in high school, are required to memorize hundreds of poems (mostly short, given their tradition's knack for very short poems). But yeah, I am in agreement.

Actually, a rather strange Canadian writer, Michael Gladwell, has written a book recently called Outliers where he questions these sorts of things. He proposes that the reason poor people do poorly in school is due to what goes on outside of school, and suggests that the fact that they aren't exposed to the rich person's extra curricular activities, and forced rather to work harder for their family, or perhaps are not given the better toys, or sent to the day camp, hamper their ability, when they return to school after vacations, from preforming as well as their rich counterparts.

But yeah, hard work generally does pay off. The notion that someone simply isn't good enough is most times just an excuse for laziness.

[stlukesguild]

If I wanted to fix the U.S. education system I'd get rid of the three month gap in the middle of our school year, and make a day ten hours long.

Of course... were you in charge of education and were you to make such a change... you would immediately be the target of every teacher in the country... and probably a good number of hired hit-men.:lol: Seriously, the concept is not without merit... but who's going to foot the bill for the increased time spent with students? From my own experience I can't imagine spending that sort of time with students considering the sort of chaos and stress we currently have as a result of the absolute lack of discipline in schools. Certainly not without a hefty increase in salary. And even then I suspect many teachers will feel it still is not worth it.

[stlukesguild]

JBI... any idiot looking into the schools in any large American urban setting and many poorer rural ones could have told you the same thing as Gladwell without wasting the time or money upon research. What does one expect when students come to a school from an environment where 95%+ are the product of a single-parent home... with 90%+ headed by a woman... quite often not even the mother (Grandmother, Aunt, older sister, etc...)? What does one expect when a huge proportion of the student's parents have little respect for education and are often ill-educated themselves... when many would rather spend money on pimping out their SUVs, and spending hundreds of dollars upon their nails and hair than they would to spend such money upon seeing to it that their children get a quality education? How do you deal with students as young as first grade... hell, kindergarten... who regularly witness or are the victim of physical/sexual/emotional abuse... drug and alcohol abuse, gang violence, etc... How do you reach students who pass crackheads, gang-bangers, prostitutes, alcoholics, and endless boarded-up houses every day on the way to school? How do you reach a kindergartner who witnessed his mother's murder by her boyfriend and spent 3 days with her body until he was discovered? Many of the problems in education... at least in the US... are societal as much if not more than they are simple questions of educational theory.

At the same time... if anyone is truly interested... E.D. Hirsch has written any number of books upon education (I especially recommend The Schools We Need and Why We Don't Have Them), and has founded a number of highly successful schools based upon his theories. Hirsch argues that the problem with American education is the Liberal or Progressive directions taken by educators. As a political Liberal he argues convincingly that the only way to achieve the Liberal ideals of ending the cycle of poverty... of promoting equal opportunities for all... is to employ a conservative approach to education.

He quotes the Italian Communist, Antonio Gramsci who pointed out the problems of Progressive education over 70 years ago:

"The new concept of schooling is in its romantic phase, in which the replacement of "mechanical" by "natural" methods has become unhealthily exaggerated. Previously pupils acquired at least a certain baggage of concrete facts. Now there will no longer be any baggage to put into order. The most paradoxical aspect of it all is that this new type of school is advocated as being democratic, while in fact it is destined to not merely perpetuate social differences, but to crystallize them in Chinese perplexities."

By pushing "progressive" educational concepts such as "whole language" (where a child learns to read merely by being exposed to reading... rather than by mastering phonics (the ability to sound out words), "new math" (where mastering the ability to do basics of addition, subtraction, etc... is eliminated in favor of abstract concepts and formula, and the teaching of "higher order thinking" as opposed to the memorization of facts, students in the US have fallen continually behind those in other nations. Hirsch argues quite convincingly... and it would seem but simple logic... that one cannot succeed at higher math or in the realm of "higher order thinking" (analysis, synthesis, comparison, etc...) until one has mastered a certain body of common knowledge... ie. facts.

The problem with this is that in Liberal educational theory to suggest that certain facts are more important to know than others... to suggest that this or that writer, artist, historical figure, historical event is more important and thus should be required knowledge for students at a given grade level, is an idea completely contrary to egalitarianism and multi-culturalism. Hirsch points out, however, that all students within this society must eventually function within this society... nd that this larger society has deemed certain facts essential to their being able to function well. Yes... certainly these students as adults may and should explore contrary facts... histories... achievements, but by denying students a solid body of "core knowledge"... by leaving it up to individual schools and even individual educators to decide what books should be read, what historical figures should be studied, what scientific and mathematical skills should be mastered, the very students who are most in need of a solid education if they are to escape the cycle of ignorance and poverty are the very ones who are most penalized and denied access to an equal playing field.

[mortalterror]

I don't know, StLukes. Are you sure the problem's not that our teachers are failing our kids, and we couldn't just cut the tenure of educators in low performing districts and fire our way to a utopia, where black people don't have any schools, and affluent white neighborhoods have the best paid teachers paid entirely on their "performance" which they are the sole cause of? 'Cause that's what Barack Obama, in his infinite wisdom, believes. You're not disagreeing with Barack Obama now, are you?

You see, students are like any other product, and teachers are just workers on the assembly line. If they produce inferior products then they must be inferior workers, since suggesting that they have inferior tools and materials would be racist, like admitting any other inequalities which don't exist in a democracy. If they are not getting results the teachers must be at fault. Have you tried inspiring the children? I hear that sometimes works.

Oh, and don't forget to be their buddy and start dressing like them to improve your street cred. If movies like Dangerous Minds, Stand and Deliver, and Dead Poet's Society have taught us anything, it's that you have to be scrappy if you really want to reach young minds. You might have to take up smoking.

[JBI]

Gladwell isn't really giving that question, his is suggesting that it is not the schools failing the students, but the extra curricular activities. The blame and the concept of "no child left behind" seems to accuse education, but I believe Gladwell is more nuanced, suggesting it is not education which is failing them, but what goes on outside of their education. True, a very noticeable point, but that isn't central to his thesis, just an aspect of it he uses to forge his argument.

[promtbr]

As a heads up to the OP Evaril, this site is famous for thread sidetracking and totally ignoring the original post...

If you are relatively new to the appreciation of Western Lit, it can be daunting at first with all the unfamiliar allusions. Stick with it, and (as you seem to be doing): READ (educate thyself!).

Your first reply (before they took your thread over) is indeed good advice. Start reading Northrop Frye. Esp. recommend Spiritus Mundi, but he wrote A LOT of works framing western literature in its cultural, mythological, philosophical influences.

Its a sort of journey, enjoy it..

[Drkshadow03]

Mortalterror, I wouldn't want to be at school for an extra three hours a day and lose summer vacations. I think you'd find many people would stop being teachers if that happened unless you're planning to pay them lawyer salaries.

I agree with Stlukes. It partially stems to HOW we teach our children. Higher-order thinking, indeed. They shove that down our throats even in library science. You need to have some basic facts before you can engage in higher-order thinking! E.D. Hirsch is right on the money.

I think it has more to do with cultural views on education. The Japanese memorize classical poems and dramas because tradition is in fact extremely important in Japanese culture as a whole. One might say the greatest dilemma in Japanese society today, as I understand it, is the struggle to find the right balance between tradition and modernization. Keep in mind I don't claim to be an expert in Japanese culture.

America is a country with many traditions, with people who have many different backgrounds who might not relate to the dominat culture, and even granting such a culture exists, with its own history, unique foods, celebrated authors, and such, this society is still in many ways cultureless compared to these much older societies. So should it be so suprising that many American students do no feel compelled to memorize Emily Dickinson or Robert Frost? They don't feel that same existential pressure coming from their cultural traditions of the past as someone in Japan or even Europe might; they only care about their cultural traditions of the present.

[mortalterror]

Mortalterror, I wouldn't want to be at school for an extra three hours a day and lose summer vacations. I think you'd find many people would stop being teachers if that happened unless you're planning to pay them lawyer salaries.

I agree with Stlukes. It partially stems to HOW we teach our children. Higher-order thinking, indeed. They shove that down our throats even in library science. You need to have some basic facts before you can engage in higher-order thinking! E.D. Hirsch is right on the money.

I think it has more to do with cultural views on education. The Japanese memorize classical poems and dramas because tradition is in fact extremely important in Japanese culture as a whole. One might say the greatest dilemma in Japanese society today, as I understand it, is the struggle to find the right balance between tradition and modernization. Keep in mind I don't claim to be an expert in Japanese culture.

America is a country with many traditions, with people who have many different backgrounds who might not relate to the dominat culture, and even granting such a culture exists, with its own history, unique foods, celebrated authors, and such, this society is still in many ways cultureless compared to these much older societies. So should it be so suprising that many American students do no feel compelled to memorize Emily Dickinson or Robert Frost? They don't feel that same existential pressure coming from their cultural traditions of the past as someone in Japan or even Europe might; they only care about their cultural traditions of the present.

So, you're saying he should take up smoking?

[kiki1982]

ON TOPIC THIS TIME:

Greek mythology is also something that is important from the renaissance on. Particularly the Iliad of Homer. But also the rest of the canon of myths.

But the sources of allusions and intertexts largely depend on the one particular author you are reading.
Also the French use more French sources than the English. Of course through time translations came about and things filtered through, but still later and less...

Just be vigilant. If you see something that puzzles you, you can research it. One can never know all the bible, Shakespeare (plays and sonnets!), philosophy, etc etc by heart. On top of that, regarding works from the past, certain views/authors/philosophies/types of literature were more popular than now. Some of them have even disappeared into oblivion or researched and put right. A good example of such a thing is in Twenty Years After of Dumas: he wrote about the relationship between cardinal Mazarin and the Queen of France, who was regent to young Louis XIV, drawing on memoirs of courtiers that intimated that they were married. In the meantime, 100 years after the book, it has been put right that they were never married, but Dumas still writes in the conviction that it was a well-known truth. Of course this doesn't have anything to do with things like philosophy, but misconceptions like that can also occur in natural history, or even literature. For example in the 19th century Shakespeare's King Lear had another conclusion (I think Cordelia wakes up). Or King John signs the Magna Carta in his play (the title of which I forgot), whereas in reality the Magna Carta was a bad thing for the kings of England, yet in the 19th century they saw as a democratic accomplishment and put it in the play which was also wrong chronologically.

Nowadays at least we have got the internet, so we just put in the main part of the alleged allusion and the source comes up... Before, if you didn't where to look, it was your problem.


OFF TOPIC:
I think the education in literature particularly largely depends on the teacher in question. I personally had teachers for Dutch, English and French. (German was not advanced enough for most of the class...)
When literature and reading came about in later advanced level-years, the French teachers seemed to love those modern trash French books (nineties) about child-abuse, anorexia, suicidal people, unplanned pregnancies and preferably everything combined. If you didn't like that you could always choose one about the Jews in the WWII. No offense, but after the third book of those you want to kill yourself. Yet there are so many good things, short things even, like Molière that are not too difficult. Then there are longer things like Dumas, but easy as well. I would have preferred to do a project of two years on Monte-Cristo in stead of having to read something about an anorexic suicidal girl... When I told my French teacher she was puzzled...
For English, fortunately, we had a big list with everything on it: Christie, Austen, Dickens, Doyle... You name it it was on it. Great literature teacher as well for Dutch, she was...
Then later we got another English teacher and that year we were going to read all together Brave New World. No offense, at least it was a serious book, but maybe there was just the fact that the teacher wasn't prepared to read anything long or different...
If you give a list as a teacher you need to read it yourself and understand it preferably...
I think the main thing of literature class should be making the students aware of allusions, intertexts, and such things (we all do on this forum). Unfortunately not everyone has the system for it... It takes talent, I believe, and not everyone has that talent. As a teacher you risk to be put right by your students. However, practice makes perfect and so the more you know, the more you notice. But then again I don't think knowing whole works by heart is going to serve you very well. Unless it is something very substancial and well-used like the bible, but then again, as soon as you read an author who draws on something else like Japanese zen-philosophy, you've had it.