tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post8367047469782801507..comments2024-03-28T17:53:43.541-04:00Comments on DarwinCatholic: We Need the ClassicsDarwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08572976822786862149noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-40972333997780660712021-02-11T20:14:20.494-05:002021-02-11T20:14:20.494-05:00RevDr Laura Marie Grimes,
Thanks for commenting!
...RevDr Laura Marie Grimes,<br /><br />Thanks for commenting!<br /><br />I definitely agree that it's a mistake to "teach" Homer if that mostly involves using summaries and short selections. <br /><br />I've had my high schoolers (three daughters so far, but our eldest boy will hit it next) read the Caroline Alexander translation of the Iliad followed by the Stanley Lombardo translation of the Odyssey. I think I may have picked up those newer copies (my old ones are the Lattimore translation, which I like as one which seems to reflect the text pretty well, but is not the most reader friendly English) before Emily Wilson's came out.<br /><br />I'm a little perplexed about your comment that up until Wilson the hanging of the maids had been ignored and mistranslated. I definitely recalled it from Lattimore when I read his translation in high school and college. Darwinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08572976822786862149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-10361010072801608622021-02-07T20:48:43.535-05:002021-02-07T20:48:43.535-05:00Thanks! This is a fascinating topic for me as a cl...Thanks! This is a fascinating topic for me as a classical and intersectional scholar who has taught college and seminary theology and humanities, elementary STEAM and SEL, and a diverse and rigorous Great Books middle and high school homeschool program.<br /><br />I agree that canceling traditional classics, as the gentleman you discuss seems to be advocating p, is foolish, <br /><br />But I also get frustrated by cancellation panic, with false accusations of purging and trendiness, as in Meghan Cox Gurdon’s recent problematic editorial in the Wall Street Journal, She accused hard working, underpaid, life risking secondary teachers who made a prudential judgement to remove the long and complex Odyssey, often taught by uninformed summaries and tiny selections, from the required curriculum a mob of book banners plotting to prevent children’s access to classic books. (Which she curiously summed up as Homer, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Dr. Seuss. Silly patristic/medieval feminist scholar —I would instead deem the Big Three ito be Homer, Bible, and Bard!!)<br /><br />She proves herself someone with no love of reading nor understanding of basic English p, treating professional educators with the same entitled disrespect as I assume she treats waiitstaff, and above all someone who takes zero responsibility for her children’s learning. <br /><br />Because banning is a hateful and ignorant lie when the Odyssey remains in the school library, can be chosen for a research paper as desired, checked out from the public library, purchased st a bookstore —and above all read by her with her children!<br /><br />The overwhelming majority of scholars who add race and gender analysis are also trained and skilled in traditional approaches— deeply passionate and thorough translators and analysts of texts deemed classics. We seek to critically appreciate and bring the tradition forward, as has each generation of interpreters for centuries,<br /><br />Analyzing and discussing what makes a classic, which deserve to keep that status, which deserve to be added (which, yes, may mean making room by deprioritizing some mediocre/time bound works).<br /><br />Hence adding Hildegard to Thomas Aquinas, the great Catholic Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison to American Lit surveys, etc.<br /><br />And, as gifted Black and female and etc scholars previously and unjustly barred from significant graduate education and research and teaching, adding the wisdom and life experience of a broader portion of the human community to the scholarly conversation and accurate textual analysis.<br /><br />Hence, as I did with my daughter, teaching the full text of the Odyssey in Emily Wilson’s phenomenal translation and analysis, accompanied by Margaret Atwood’s brilliant Penelopiad. Which latter, along with a plausible crestive take on the story from Penelope’s POV, focuses on the horrific and inexcusably ignored and mistranslatied (till Wilson) culmination of Odysseus and Telemachus’ suitor bloodbath: hanging ten beautiful “slutty” maids for the crime of being raped by the suitors. Which provided some huge and crucial conversations with my daughter —and son—about their upcoming college exoeriences and responsibilities—and hence could reasonably be postponed to that educational level when taught in large groups!Dr. Laura Marie Grimeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10372741914558791844noreply@blogger.com