By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
I hesitate to open this topic for discussion, since whatever side I take is likely to anger or disappoint a good portion of those reading the column. The topic I have in mind is the question of whether it is wise to include the “classics” among the required reading assignments for high school students, or stick to more modern books that the students will find easier to read and understand, with the goal of developing in them a love of the written word.
The problem is that there is a difference between books that are genuinely classics and those that are merely old, and that sincere and intelligent people will disagree about where to draw that line.
Looking back on my high school experience, I can recall several classic books that were assigned to my classes, but which were a waste of time for me. I simply wasn’t ready for them at the time. I was assigned Moby Dick in the ninth grade, Huckleberry Finn in the 11th grade, Great Expectations in the 12th. I plowed through these books without any enjoyment, trying to remember just enough of the plot to pass the test on them.
But was it a good thing for me to have read them anyway? That is the question.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like to read. I was reading on my own at the time the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, Raymond Chandler’s “Philip Marlowe” stories, and Jack Schaefer’s Shane, as well as, of course, The Catcher in the Rye, works that I still consider to be of genuine literary merit. (I also continued to read Clair Bee’s “Chip Hilton” sports stories, books that captivated me in the seventh and eighth grades. Maybe I shouldn’t admit to that.) But Melville and Dickens simply didn’t work for me, to say nothing of Silas Marner. (Why were so many English teachers enthralled by that book in the mid-20th century?)
I have no quarrel with the idea that assigned high school reading lists should “stretch” teenagers to read things they would not likely pick up on their own. I am glad I was introduced to Shakespeare and T.S. Eliot in high school, even though I did not enjoy the experience at the time. There are works of literature that deserve a “shot” — an opportunity to be appreciated as part of our intellectual heritage. I accept that students will get something of value by wrestling with them, to “get a taste,” even if the students do not enjoy what they are reading.
A parallel can be drawn with classical music. Just because not every modern American appreciates Mozart and Bach does not mean they should not be included in classes on music appreciation. That said, where do we draw the line between what is classic and what is merely old? Opinions will differ.
A new factor has been introduced into the equation. You guessed it: political correctness. Rachelle Peterson, director of research projects at the National Association of Scholars, tackled the topic in the September 2016, issue of First Things. She points to protests by Columbia University undergrads, who were “shocked at Ovid’s insensitive portrayal of Persephone’s abduction, [and] demanded their professors tag Metamorphoses with trigger warnings. Such texts, according to students on the Multicultural Affairs Advisory Board at Columbia, were ‘wrought with histories and narratives of exclusion and oppression,’ making them ‘difficult to read and discuss as a survivor, a person of color, or a student from a low-income background’.”
This is not unlike the ongoing protests over the racial stereotypes and the use of the n-word in Huckleberry Finn.
Peterson’s response? “All books have blind spots. All eras do. We can look back and spy past prejudices, ridiculous and discredited in hindsight. We see their mistaken premises and faulty logic. We can reject geocentric astronomy, the rooting of disease in the ‘influenza’ of the planets, and the race-based classification of the human and the ‘subhuman.’ We see the futility of phrenology and cringe at doctors who bled their patients to cure fever. We laugh at the ‘divine right of kings’ and wonder why Salem thought it wise to hunt witches. Should we avoid books whose authors accepted what passed for wisdom in their own time?”
Peterson’s logic seems sound to me, common sense, in fact. We read to learn, including what led people to think as they did in the past. We are not supposed to agree with the way the characters in Huckleberry Finn treated blacks. That was not Mark Twain’s objective. He was revealing their ignorance, forcing his readers to confront their own prejudices.
Peterson continues:
“Several reasons support wide reading of old, even flawed, books. Censoring history helps nobody. TinTin might stereotype and degrade the Congolese. That might be reason to keep his African escapades from toddlers, who surely are not ready to learn of King Leopold’s reign of terror in the Belgian Congo. But those who are mature ought to know the hard realities of history. We shouldn’t erase the Trojan War because it was bloody, just as we shouldn’t forget Jim Crow laws because they are troubling. We benefit from the clarity arising from past mistakes. We can learn to avoid old errors, of course, but ‘the clean sea breeze of the centuries’ sweeps away hubris, as well. Meeting dead assumptions — whether they are disproven or merely discarded — confronts us with the realization that we may have our own unexamined suppositions. What premises do we consider self-evident that earlier generations scorned? Perhaps our own generation’s ideological fads are not so permanent as they seem.”
Well said.
Peterson continues: “Old books remind us that human nature persists across time. . . . Joy, love, loneliness, valor, heroism, grief, pride — we sense these anew with characters whose lives look nothing like our own. Human emotion isn’t limited by geography, economic conditions, political structures, or time. The stories of long ago reflect to us something of our own experiences, as in a mirror that mimics the major features but twists and alters the rest.”
Peterson closes with the following: “Modern books can be beautiful. Some will become classics, and we should read many of them, regardless of what we imagine future generations will think. They are our books, after all. But sometimes the most exhilarating departure from normal is to travel to another world. Old books are the ticket.”
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Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about this and other educational issues. The e-mail address for First Teachers is fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net, and the mailing address is P.O. Box 15, Wallingford CT 06492.
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