A long time ago, when I was applying to university, I was quite random about it. The basic criteria was that the university be a long way from home, which was London. I didn’t really look at the modules or courses very much, and I ended up at Aberdeen. In the first year, we pretty much read a book a week from the canon. Because I’d always been a reader, and English rather than Scottish, doing A levels rather than Highers, I discovered I’d read virtually all of the books on the list. The challenge came in the second year, which was the year that decided whether you were eligible to take English honours. The courses in Anglo-Saxon and Scottish Renaissance poets were compulsory, and they both opened up new worlds for me. I loathed the mechanics of learning Anglo-Saxon but the verse was a wonder.
As a teacher, when I’ve had the freedom, I’ve tried to introduce younger students to the canon - Heaney’s translation of Beowulf, a wonderful drama adaptation of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and exposure to at least one Shakespeare play each year, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, some Thomas Mallory to go with Kevin Crossley Holland’s books based on Arthurian legends - there are many ways to do this. One of the concerns I have is the serious underestimation of children’s reading power. You can build it up early and give them plenty of depth, and make sure that they engage, however briefly, with complex language as early as possible. Although I have been without faith for most of my life, the years of school prayers and readings from book of Common Prayer and King James Bible have built up both my listening and comprehension muscles. There are secular pathways to building that knowledge and understanding of rich, complex language, but it would require a concerted campaign to work out how to do it. I recently read a novel from the 1950s where a wide frame of reference of novels and poems was clearly standard, and that now seems like a lost world.
Apricot Sky by Ruby Ferguson. I only knew Ruby Ferguson as a tireless producer of books about ponies and horses in the 1970s, when like many girls, I was horse-mad. I came across a blog where it turns out she wrote novels for adults too. This one is set in western Scotland, a part of the world I love but don’t get to visit much.
"You should make sure by hook or by crook that you spend your youth on the best books" should become a saying for literature students. Or for anyone for that matter.
And I think the only way to do that is to take matters into your own hands (as Henry suggests.) I did not discover the highest quality literature until my last two years of college. How can young people punch out of the environment that tells them many of the best writers are not worth reading…? I sympathize with them.
After teaching at FSU and Florida A&M, we moved and I taught at a junior college. I developed my own literature class. Madame Bovary, To the Lighthouse, Howard's End, Crime and Punishment, and Frankenstein were the required readings. I used what I guess would be labeled as universalism criticism, asking questions such as, how did this improve you as a person? What surprised you the most? Was there a moral to this story? All students were very young except one who was mid thirties. She told me after the semester was over that she had read nothing but pulp fiction and romance novels her whole life and she could never return to that! That these books had opened up an entire new world!
One question on the final exam was a bonus question. They received extra points just for answering. "Pick a character you most identified with and explain why you identify with that character." It was heart wrenching to read the answers. I should've labeled the class Psychology 101 instead of a literature class.
Well said. My English prof returned despite tenure highschool English teacher would probably have a tear in her eye right now. She went back to teaching in highschool because of what she was getting as supposedly ready for university, students.
All through school prior, I did most of my own choosing of what I was reading. Jules Verne, Whoever wrote King Solomons Mines, Plato and Homer and many other ancient authors, the list goes on. The schools I was going to between multiple moves, had us reading tripe like "The Outsiders" quite often. Why? I don't know. I was estatic when we got to read anything else after a few years. Of Mice and Men was one such thing I ended up reading due to the curriculum actually changing for once in one such school. And then we did The outsiders after. Different order this time I guess? I tell ya, I know more about Pony Boy than anyone ought to. We had to watch the movie too.
This teacher, she mostly did away with that book. Had to teach it she said, so she made it a weekend homework assignment. We focused more on short stories and old literature comparatively. One such book I read with her teaching in my final highschool was "The Concubines Children". I suggest others read it too if they want a better look at the history of the chinese migrants of the west coast, particularly what is now Vancouver Island and Vancouvee and BC itself. It was as she put it: "A well written period piece that should be kept for historical records."
Anyways. I may not be the most proficient writer of English, despite her best efforts and my own; but I did write this without any spellchecker or suggestors. So if you see an edit to this, it is because I found a typo I missed.
I’m glad I stumbled across you in this world; I’ve limited time, maybe the next few minutes or the next few decades but I’ll spend a large chunk of it on reading, reading and reading.
Henry, I read Latin and Greek with Rigor in a small college that has lost its classics program, ( a seminary that was associated with North Dakota State University closed for lack of seminarians) I read the best in those languages and have worked to absorb more of the canon, I just finished the Paradiso and the Decameron this year , and I am trudging through Alters Hebrew Bible, but I have through you got a taste and a little bit of the student behind in my homework feel about my own vernacular's cannon. So I endorse your article for the young and old. The canon should be early and often but also better late than never. I am very happy that you and Zena Hitz pushed me over the edge to start the Catharine Project, I am reading Auden and Woolf, and I have listened to Waugh and Woolf in the car on commutes, you are far to hard on audio books they are great for exploration and getting a taste or distaste for authors, (Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and The Waves are exceptionally good listened too. )
Thanks I feel read more if that what it takes to read the canon is the best of messages.
I agree with you, Henry. I’m an English PhD student and I find all these debates about syllabi interesting, especially as I work toward creating syllabi of my own and getting ready for the workforce (if it continues to exist by the time I’m done dissertating). My undergraduate was at Royal Holloway, and I’d say a lot of the syllabus for Princeton looks similar to second- and third- year courses (or, electives, as the americans say) that were on offer for us nearly ten years ago. But I emphasize the second- and third-year aspect of it because first year was an education in fundamentals. A kind of “great books” style course, poetry, introductory literary theory, etc. By providing the fundamentals FIRST, the school was able to give us the opportunity to understand and develop our skills so that by the time second- and third-year came around, we could make decisions about what we wanted to study based on that. I think that’s the way: the fundamentals, the canon, AND all the discussions around the canon wars and why we have a canon need to be there first.
Flash forward to 2024 and I was getting my MA back in the States. The programme I’m in is so underfunded that the requirement for 4 classes pre-1800 and 4 classes post-1800 had to be abandoned: because of budgetary constraints and lack of faculty, all that was on offer were courses centred around faculty interests.
Sure, that meant faculty were passionate, great teachers, but it led to a major difference between students who had good, foundational knowledge from their BAs and students who didn’t.
You can teach these kinds of classes: specialized, “weird,” alternative, or largely contemporary-theory-driven, but students also need to understand that even the great anti-canon theorists were still versed in the canon. You cannot adequately critique or break down something that you have no grounding in.
If I were in charge, we’d do something like my undergrad: a year of the canon, with a different specialist giving a guest lecture each week and seminar leaders who can guide students through. Ideally, students should know the basic length and breadth of English literature by the time they finish first year (in a UK system, second in the US), which enables them to make smart decisions by the time they get around to becoming more “specialized.” I know I wouldn’t be nearly as good of a reader or a writer had I not been well-versed in the canon (which in my opinion also includes the “major” texts of theory and criticism). It simply helps us understand how to frame the world—to see through the lens of history and understand what has led us to this moment. Quibble with certain authors as much as you like, but you cannot deny the existence of a canon for good or ill.
I agree with my whole heart and reading soul! Imagine not having the joy of getting the rich reference to "quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore."
I am a retired pediatrician in my mid 80s and I do enjoy reading your book reviews. In the years since my retirement (2011), I have been reading the many classics I bought during my years as a busy solo pediatrician. I bought the 100 best books series by Easton Press and started collecting the Harvard Classics and Library of America series. As the LORD gives me more time I will continue to read through my library. I just finished the Odessey and will take up the Iliad next. Your reviews have helped me recapture lost reading times. Many thanks to you and others like you. Nadya Williams, Joel Miller, and the Priory come to mind.
In addition to a requirement to read the classics, I believe that a university should instill the value of lifelong reading. I know that many people discourage reading English literature due to a history of colonialism. But there is so much history, culture and ideas in literature. Instead of minimizing English literature in curriculum, I wonder about adding literature from other cultural traditions. I think it can change someone’s perspective when they realize that human beings have struggled with the same things throughout history. It is discouraging that, in addition to reducing English literature requirements, students don’t want to study history either.
What drove me to reading the classics as a young teenager was running out of books aimed at my age. There weren’t that many around at that time (late 60s), and I was a fast, voracious reader. Once I’d read all the Alan Garners, CS Lewis’s, Arthur Ransomes, TH Whites, even Biggles, I was forced to raid my parents’ bookshelves. This led to me discovering to my astonishment that even 19th century writers could be very funny…
These days there is so much (excellent) YA fiction available there is far less incentive to move on to more complex and densely-written stuff. Not sure how we get round that.
I know you are talking about higher education, and I could not agree more. I’m starting them early. As a 7th grade English teacher we start with ancient texts and go from there. Gilgamesh, Beowulf, The Odyssey…a little poetry.. Ozymandias. And they leave my class knowing these texts and loving them!!
A long time ago, when I was applying to university, I was quite random about it. The basic criteria was that the university be a long way from home, which was London. I didn’t really look at the modules or courses very much, and I ended up at Aberdeen. In the first year, we pretty much read a book a week from the canon. Because I’d always been a reader, and English rather than Scottish, doing A levels rather than Highers, I discovered I’d read virtually all of the books on the list. The challenge came in the second year, which was the year that decided whether you were eligible to take English honours. The courses in Anglo-Saxon and Scottish Renaissance poets were compulsory, and they both opened up new worlds for me. I loathed the mechanics of learning Anglo-Saxon but the verse was a wonder.
As a teacher, when I’ve had the freedom, I’ve tried to introduce younger students to the canon - Heaney’s translation of Beowulf, a wonderful drama adaptation of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, and exposure to at least one Shakespeare play each year, Rime of the Ancient Mariner, some Thomas Mallory to go with Kevin Crossley Holland’s books based on Arthurian legends - there are many ways to do this. One of the concerns I have is the serious underestimation of children’s reading power. You can build it up early and give them plenty of depth, and make sure that they engage, however briefly, with complex language as early as possible. Although I have been without faith for most of my life, the years of school prayers and readings from book of Common Prayer and King James Bible have built up both my listening and comprehension muscles. There are secular pathways to building that knowledge and understanding of rich, complex language, but it would require a concerted campaign to work out how to do it. I recently read a novel from the 1950s where a wide frame of reference of novels and poems was clearly standard, and that now seems like a lost world.
I agree v. much about children's ability. I once worked as a TA with some eight year olds and we performed Shakespeare together and they loved it.
“I recently read a novel from the 1950s where a wide frame of reference of novels and poems was clearly standard …”
Which was?
Apricot Sky by Ruby Ferguson. I only knew Ruby Ferguson as a tireless producer of books about ponies and horses in the 1970s, when like many girls, I was horse-mad. I came across a blog where it turns out she wrote novels for adults too. This one is set in western Scotland, a part of the world I love but don’t get to visit much.
"You should make sure by hook or by crook that you spend your youth on the best books" should become a saying for literature students. Or for anyone for that matter.
And I think the only way to do that is to take matters into your own hands (as Henry suggests.) I did not discover the highest quality literature until my last two years of college. How can young people punch out of the environment that tells them many of the best writers are not worth reading…? I sympathize with them.
I loved this article!
After teaching at FSU and Florida A&M, we moved and I taught at a junior college. I developed my own literature class. Madame Bovary, To the Lighthouse, Howard's End, Crime and Punishment, and Frankenstein were the required readings. I used what I guess would be labeled as universalism criticism, asking questions such as, how did this improve you as a person? What surprised you the most? Was there a moral to this story? All students were very young except one who was mid thirties. She told me after the semester was over that she had read nothing but pulp fiction and romance novels her whole life and she could never return to that! That these books had opened up an entire new world!
One question on the final exam was a bonus question. They received extra points just for answering. "Pick a character you most identified with and explain why you identify with that character." It was heart wrenching to read the answers. I should've labeled the class Psychology 101 instead of a literature class.
“Perhaps I will write separately about “my idea of an English syllabus.”
Please do!
Yes, please write your English syllabus! I want to read it.
Well said. My English prof returned despite tenure highschool English teacher would probably have a tear in her eye right now. She went back to teaching in highschool because of what she was getting as supposedly ready for university, students.
All through school prior, I did most of my own choosing of what I was reading. Jules Verne, Whoever wrote King Solomons Mines, Plato and Homer and many other ancient authors, the list goes on. The schools I was going to between multiple moves, had us reading tripe like "The Outsiders" quite often. Why? I don't know. I was estatic when we got to read anything else after a few years. Of Mice and Men was one such thing I ended up reading due to the curriculum actually changing for once in one such school. And then we did The outsiders after. Different order this time I guess? I tell ya, I know more about Pony Boy than anyone ought to. We had to watch the movie too.
This teacher, she mostly did away with that book. Had to teach it she said, so she made it a weekend homework assignment. We focused more on short stories and old literature comparatively. One such book I read with her teaching in my final highschool was "The Concubines Children". I suggest others read it too if they want a better look at the history of the chinese migrants of the west coast, particularly what is now Vancouver Island and Vancouvee and BC itself. It was as she put it: "A well written period piece that should be kept for historical records."
Anyways. I may not be the most proficient writer of English, despite her best efforts and my own; but I did write this without any spellchecker or suggestors. So if you see an edit to this, it is because I found a typo I missed.
Incidentally, Apparently I cannot edit my comment. So, typos remain. Heh...
I’m glad I stumbled across you in this world; I’ve limited time, maybe the next few minutes or the next few decades but I’ll spend a large chunk of it on reading, reading and reading.
Glad I found you. 💚
Bob Rohan
Thank you!
Henry, I read Latin and Greek with Rigor in a small college that has lost its classics program, ( a seminary that was associated with North Dakota State University closed for lack of seminarians) I read the best in those languages and have worked to absorb more of the canon, I just finished the Paradiso and the Decameron this year , and I am trudging through Alters Hebrew Bible, but I have through you got a taste and a little bit of the student behind in my homework feel about my own vernacular's cannon. So I endorse your article for the young and old. The canon should be early and often but also better late than never. I am very happy that you and Zena Hitz pushed me over the edge to start the Catharine Project, I am reading Auden and Woolf, and I have listened to Waugh and Woolf in the car on commutes, you are far to hard on audio books they are great for exploration and getting a taste or distaste for authors, (Dalloway, To the Lighthouse and The Waves are exceptionally good listened too. )
Thanks I feel read more if that what it takes to read the canon is the best of messages.
Very glad you are reading Woolf and Waugh very splendid writers
Splendid indeed…
I agree with you, Henry. I’m an English PhD student and I find all these debates about syllabi interesting, especially as I work toward creating syllabi of my own and getting ready for the workforce (if it continues to exist by the time I’m done dissertating). My undergraduate was at Royal Holloway, and I’d say a lot of the syllabus for Princeton looks similar to second- and third- year courses (or, electives, as the americans say) that were on offer for us nearly ten years ago. But I emphasize the second- and third-year aspect of it because first year was an education in fundamentals. A kind of “great books” style course, poetry, introductory literary theory, etc. By providing the fundamentals FIRST, the school was able to give us the opportunity to understand and develop our skills so that by the time second- and third-year came around, we could make decisions about what we wanted to study based on that. I think that’s the way: the fundamentals, the canon, AND all the discussions around the canon wars and why we have a canon need to be there first.
Flash forward to 2024 and I was getting my MA back in the States. The programme I’m in is so underfunded that the requirement for 4 classes pre-1800 and 4 classes post-1800 had to be abandoned: because of budgetary constraints and lack of faculty, all that was on offer were courses centred around faculty interests.
Sure, that meant faculty were passionate, great teachers, but it led to a major difference between students who had good, foundational knowledge from their BAs and students who didn’t.
You can teach these kinds of classes: specialized, “weird,” alternative, or largely contemporary-theory-driven, but students also need to understand that even the great anti-canon theorists were still versed in the canon. You cannot adequately critique or break down something that you have no grounding in.
If I were in charge, we’d do something like my undergrad: a year of the canon, with a different specialist giving a guest lecture each week and seminar leaders who can guide students through. Ideally, students should know the basic length and breadth of English literature by the time they finish first year (in a UK system, second in the US), which enables them to make smart decisions by the time they get around to becoming more “specialized.” I know I wouldn’t be nearly as good of a reader or a writer had I not been well-versed in the canon (which in my opinion also includes the “major” texts of theory and criticism). It simply helps us understand how to frame the world—to see through the lens of history and understand what has led us to this moment. Quibble with certain authors as much as you like, but you cannot deny the existence of a canon for good or ill.
I agree with my whole heart and reading soul! Imagine not having the joy of getting the rich reference to "quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore."
Thanks!
I am a retired pediatrician in my mid 80s and I do enjoy reading your book reviews. In the years since my retirement (2011), I have been reading the many classics I bought during my years as a busy solo pediatrician. I bought the 100 best books series by Easton Press and started collecting the Harvard Classics and Library of America series. As the LORD gives me more time I will continue to read through my library. I just finished the Odessey and will take up the Iliad next. Your reviews have helped me recapture lost reading times. Many thanks to you and others like you. Nadya Williams, Joel Miller, and the Priory come to mind.
May I suggest Pope's Iliad.
In addition to a requirement to read the classics, I believe that a university should instill the value of lifelong reading. I know that many people discourage reading English literature due to a history of colonialism. But there is so much history, culture and ideas in literature. Instead of minimizing English literature in curriculum, I wonder about adding literature from other cultural traditions. I think it can change someone’s perspective when they realize that human beings have struggled with the same things throughout history. It is discouraging that, in addition to reducing English literature requirements, students don’t want to study history either.
What drove me to reading the classics as a young teenager was running out of books aimed at my age. There weren’t that many around at that time (late 60s), and I was a fast, voracious reader. Once I’d read all the Alan Garners, CS Lewis’s, Arthur Ransomes, TH Whites, even Biggles, I was forced to raid my parents’ bookshelves. This led to me discovering to my astonishment that even 19th century writers could be very funny…
These days there is so much (excellent) YA fiction available there is far less incentive to move on to more complex and densely-written stuff. Not sure how we get round that.
Keen to see your idea of an English syllabus, Henry!
I know you are talking about higher education, and I could not agree more. I’m starting them early. As a 7th grade English teacher we start with ancient texts and go from there. Gilgamesh, Beowulf, The Odyssey…a little poetry.. Ozymandias. And they leave my class knowing these texts and loving them!!
good!