Joseph Pearce
Those who fail to share my profound admiration for William Shakespeare will no doubt query my apparent obsession with one author to the exclusion of all others, as I propose an ideal classical curriculum for the freshman and sophomore years of high school.
In last week’s essay I presented the texts that I would include in an ideal classical curriculum for the freshman and sophomore years of high school. The freshmen would study the pre-Christian classics by Homer, Sophocles and Virgil, and the sophomores would study medieval literature (Boethius, Beowulf, Dante, Chaucer and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight). In this week’s sequel, I’d like to present the texts for what I would consider to be an ideal literature curriculum for high school juniors. We will conclude with the selection for the senior class next week.
Continuing with the chronological approach, the juniors would study early modern literature (1500-1800). With respect to this period, I will confess a desire to spend the whole year, or at least most of it, on Shakespeare. Alongside Homer and Dante, Shakespeare is a member of the triumvirate of literary giants which straddles the centuries, the tremendous trio forming a collective colossus whose presence is the hub and heart of the literary heritage of civilization. His absence would be unthinkable. The only question is the extent of his presence. Ideally, the students should read Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar in the first semester, perhaps squeezing in Antony and Cleopatra for good measure. The first of these three plays highlights the dangers of allowing passions to overthrow reason and virtue; the second highlights the use and abuse of rhetoric in the pursuit of power; the third connects the other two in sharing the cautionary theme of the first and the historical context of the second.
In the second semester, » Read More
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