Objectionable Material in Great Books of Antiquity

Last time I posted the reading list for my upcoming high school literature co-op class. All of these books are recommended in George Grant’s Gileskirk: Antiquity curriculum and/or Veritas Press’s Omnibus I, as well as almost every list of great books. Most of them contain some objectionable material.

All great literature involves conflict. (No conflict, no plot.) Conflict involves sin. Every family has a different standard for what level of depiction of sin is acceptable. For example, I am willing to have my high schooler study Jane Eyre, The Great Gatsby, and The Odyssey, but not Lolita or Lady Chatterley’s Lover (both of which are considered “great” literature by some academics).

Classical education (really, any true education) requires the study of great books. Whether or not we find them personally appealing and whether or not we agree with the worldview they depict, these books are important both for the literary achievement of the writing and for the profound impact they have had on subsequent culture and literature.

Ancient literature is full of war and other violence, such family members killing one another, usually in vengeance for another violent action. For example, in the Oresteia cycle of plays by Aeschylus, Agamemnon had sacrificed his daughter to obtain favorable winds for sailing to the Trojan War. When he returns, his adulterous wife Clytemnestra kills him, and then their son Orestes kills her to avenge his father’s death. In one myth, Agamemnon’s father Atreus kills and cooks Thyestes’ children and serves them to him, unaware, in vengeance for some evil. These horrifying actions are often reported secondhand rather than depicted in detail.

Wes Callihan explains:  A “convention in Greek drama is keeping action offstage, especially violent action. . . . Although Greek drama does not shy away from telling stories involving horrific violence, it does not show it, because the violence is not the important thing in the play; it is the ideas that are most important, and the Greeks believed that ideas are best conveyed through words, not images” (A Guide to the Great Books, p. 17). The Greek dramatists would probably be horrified by modern culture’s prioritizing images over words.

There is also a great deal of immorality in ancient literature (as in modern literature and in life in any age). The supreme god Zeus fathers children by dozens of women, and his wife Hera’s jealousy is often a main factor in the plot of the story. Warriors are given women as battle prizes, and gods sweep women away against their will. For example, the god Hades carries Persephone to his realm of the underworld, where he marries her and makes her his queen. This myth, by the way, is how the Greeks accounted for the changing seasons—winter comes during the season when Persephone lives in the underworld.

In the Oedipus plays by Sophocles, Oedipus is fated to kill his father and marry his mother . . . and despite everyone’s attempt to thwart the prophecy, he does both (unknowingly). (Centuries later, Sigmund Freud, unquestionably one of the most powerful forces of modernity—albeit a negative one—made the Oedipus story one of the central features of his psychology.) Again, these are terrible things, but the physical relationship is usually not described.

There is no way to study the great books of antiquity without encountering violence and immorality. The terrible consequences of sin are evident. This literature generally provides examples to avoid, not models to emulate.

There are some excellent resources to help us evaluate ancient literature from a biblical perspective, including Peter Leithart’s Heroes of the City of Man, the Veritas Omnibus I (which is recommended for 7^th grade but which I will also be using as a resource for grades 9-12), and Wes Callihan’s Guide to the Great Books, a Veritas Press resource which preceded the development of the Omnibus curriculum.

In addition to reading Leithart’s introduction to Heroes of the City of Man, it would be helpful for parents to read Leland Ryken’s introduction to Realms of Gold: The Classics in Christian Perspective. That excellent introduction covers topics like why the classics matter, how to recognize a classic when you read one, five fallacies about literature, how to misread the classics, and a defense of classic books.

The five fallacies (misconceptions) about literature which Ryken discusses are:

(1)        We should read something true rather than something fictional.

(2)        Everything in a work of literature is offered for our approval.

(3)        We should read only literature with whose viewpoint we agree.

(4)        A literary work written by a non-Christian cannot tell the truth.

(5)        Old literature is irrelevant to us today.

(pages 3-6)

In A Thomas Jefferson Education, a wonderful book about raising a generation of leaders through mentors and studying the classics, Oliver Van DeMille classifies literature into four types of stories: bent, broken, whole, and healing:

A. Bent stories portray evil as good, and good as evil. Such stories are meant to enhance the evil tendencies of the reader, such as pornography and many horror books and movies. The best decision regarding Bent stories is to avoid them like the plague. 

B. Broken stories portray evil as evil and good as good, but evil wins. Something is broken, not right, in need of fixing. Such books are not uplifting, but can be very inspiring. Broken stories can be very good for the reader if they motivate him or her to heal them, to fix them. The Communist Manifesto is a broken classic; so are The Lord of the Flies and 1984. In each of these, evil wins; but they have been very motivating to me because I have felt a real need to help reverse their messages in the real world.

C. Whole stories are where good is good and good wins. Most of the classics are in this category, and readers should spent most of their time in such works. 

D. Healing stories can be either Whole or Broken stories where the reader is profoundly moved, changed, significantly improved by his reading experience. 

I recommend three rules in coming face-to-face with greatness through the classics:

Avoid Bent stories. 

Develop a personal canon of Healing stories. 

Spend the majority of your studies in Whole works, but don’t neglect Broken stories that you ought to be fixing. (A Thomas Jefferson Education, pages 73-74)

I encourage you to grapple with the great books—read and discuss them with your children, particularly your high-schoolers. They are too important to neglect.

I’ll be posting more on this subject once our co-op begins. I’m sure that our class discussion will raise some interesting points!

I’d like to know your thoughts on this topic. Please leave a comment! 

Blessings,

Mary Jo Tate