A Liberal Arts Education Without the College (Great Book Guides)
Submitted by lbangs on Mon, 11/19/2001 - 10:35
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- Great Books of the Western World and Gateway to the Great Books - Not really guides as much as massive anthologies, the Great Books series at least announces its primary limitation up front - these sets only cover works from and concerning the countries commonly included as part of Western Civilization. While this does exclude some great work, it really isn't quite as limiting as one might originally think. The other major limitation of this set is the price - you can pick up a used Gateway series for a decent price, but the larger set will put you back several hundred. I still haven't scored one yet. However, on the positive side, this set has one of the broadest scopes around, including works in science, mathematics, philosophy, psychology, religion, sociology, and literature. The selections are excellent and include most of the major works of the Western world. The Syntopicon is a unique yet fascinating feature, and having all these works in one set is incredibly handy. The updated edition (early 90s) includes vital works from the first half of the last century and is highly recommended.
- The New Lifetime Reading Plan by Clifton Fadiman and John S. Major - This guide includes non-Western works and Western works, functioning as a great supplement to the Great Books of the Western World series. It also features more contemporary literature, making it perhaps a more popular choice than the previous set. The introductions ("enticements," if you will) by Clifton Fadiman and John S. Major are terrific, working to convince the reader that each work mentioned is well worth a reader's time and effort. I really cannot praise this work too highly. Randomly picking up an older edition at a used book shop at the age of 14 or so, I was quickly seduced into reading some of the greatest works of writing in the world. It probably changed my life. If there is a drawback to this book, it may be that several of the recommended translations favor a scholarly word-for-word approach over attempts to capture the style and substance of the original work. This obviously aids the serious scholar as much as it might harm the serious reader, but this drawback is really a rather minor one when realizes all that is good about this book. The focus is on literature, but some history, philosophy, and science works are included.
- List of Books by Frederic Raphael and Kenneth McLeish - Wide-ranging and very subjective, this little (long out-of-print) guide is a gem. Divided into categories such as History, Fiction, Feminism, Religion, Literary Criticism, and Philosophy, the List of Books rolls out an annotated list of great books in each subject. While the selections and commentaries are enlightening, the real strength and advantage of this book is the translation recommendations. I have found these much stronger than those recommended by the above books, even if the translation choices favor the great over the accessible. The introduction claims that the book will be up-dated every other year. It is really too bad no revision (to my knowledge) ever appeared. This book is still rather Western-centric, with Eastern and other cultures usually represented more by nonfiction, introductory books rather than by works of literature themselves.
- A Lifetimes Reading: The World's 500 Greatest Books by Philip Ward - A bit odd, in that Ward suggests a very regulated course of reading over the course of 50 years, but his comments are still interesting, and his selections range from the Western world to the East, from the past to (at his time, the early 80s) the present.
Author Comments:
You can spot our culture's artistic leanings by noticing that while music and film guides are legion, very few book guides exist, and the few that do are usually genre-specific. Perhaps the task is too intimidating; how many people are really widely read enough to cast just judgments on all the books we've cranked out over the centuries? Sadly, however, I fear the real truth is that we may talk about books, but few actually read them or seek out titles beyond their own pet styles (sci fi, romance, mystery, etc.). Here are a few great attempts at the task, each flawed and wonderful in its own way.
I swa you included this on you "Under-Rated Lists," so I thought I'd check it out. The idea of a Great Books education is interesting, but as I've never read any of these guides I'll ask a few questions about their philosophies overall. Do the authors recommend trying to get as near complete a foundation in the "Great Books" before you delve deeper into genres, traditions, or authors? Sounds like perhaps Ward does (if you have any time left after fifty years!). And how have these types of guides been influenced by recent movements towards inclusiveness? I know the academic perception is that the idea of "Great Books" is inherently conservative and exclusive, but I suspect that is a bit simplistic (academics, simplistic? NO...), although there may be some truth to it.
When I teach World Lit I or II courses (required for sophomores) I often wonder what exactly I should be teaching. World Lit I (up until last year called Great Books I!) is more straightforward, as there is a smaller pool of works to draw from, and so indisputedly "great" works like The Odyssey, Sections from The Old Testament, Greek dramas, and Shakespearean dramas get taught. World Lit II, though, is a whole different animal. Most of the professors, instructors, and grad students have specializations in the period covered by this course, and so the variety in book lists is considerable, as most want to include works they are very familiar with that they feel might be overlooked, or that follow a theme of some sort (War, Birth, Science, etc.) that may or may not be in the spirit/letter of "Great Books."
I am about to submit a book order for a summer term World Lit II course, and I've been wanting to do a themed course on immigrant literature and autobiography for awhile, but I have thought about whether or not I should do this when I have one chance to get students in this required class to actually give a wide range of literature a shot. However, some students might actually find themselves more interested in a course when there is a theme, like the one I mentioned. Few of the works I will assign (outside of My Antonia) will be recognized as "Great Books," although I think they all deserve to be read. What are your thoughts?
Johnny Waco
Yipee, a post on this list!
Wow, a loaded one…
I think the philosophies of the above differ, and those differences affect their contents. The top set sees a liberal arts education as an entrance into the stream of intellectual thought binding together the western tradition across the centuries. The controlling idea is that of a “great conversation” taking place between authors across time and geography. The editors selected 102 Great Ideas that this discussion supposedly orbits about, and the works are selected based on the text’s contribution to this discussion. As such, the selections are more about spurring the reading on to ponder these issues and less about covering foundational contributions to literature or philosophy.
Scanning the contents, you might have trouble noticing much of a difference generated by this approach; the set contains most of the foundational works of the tradition from Homer to Waiting for Godot. No effort is made for diversification; the editors bluntly remark that either a work meets the selection criteria, or it does not. The closer one gets to modern times, the wider the net gathering authors grows, but it is still mostly composed of, yup, dead white guys.
Fadiman and Major’s approach is more general, with the criteria being the selection of books that will develop one’s mind and offer delight. Women, minorities, Eastern authors, and other non-dead-white-guys abound. This list spans our beloved Gilgamesh to Things Fall Apart, with a special appendix of one hundred twentieth century authors who are good candidates to join the larger list over time. The list includes just about any work the editors love, including many works labeled as “children’s literature” (the Alice novels, Robinson Crusoe) and, especially in the appendix, such genre authors as Tolkien and Le Carre.
Raphael and McLeish’s book is category-driven and very Western-centered, although it is quite inclusive of that entire tradition. Unlike the other items on this list, it is not a “program of study”; it is a, well, List of Books. The Novels section includes substantial sub-lists for Mystery and Science Fiction works.
Ward is a librarian, and his list is incredibly scattershot and varied. Basically, they are books he enjoyed and felt made him grow as a person. He is incredibly (perhaps very consciously) inclusive, and includes many genres and more specialized books.
As for your course, that is a tough call. I understand both the desire to teach books a bit off the hardened canon and the desire to expose students to as many of the “Great Books” as possible in the short time you have them in the class. Off the top of my head, I can think of no ‘immigrant’ literature that would place in all or most of the above lists of great books (unless you count the Aeneid =cough=), though certainly several autobiographies would (Augustine’s Confessions, Franklin’s, Henry Adams', possibly Cellini’s).
I guess I am dodging the bullet of responsibility here and letting it strike you. My personal tendency is to hit the biggies, but that is most likely simply my personal leanings.
Did I get anywhere near addressing anything you were actually talking about? :)
Shalom, y’all
L. Bangs
Thanks for explaining the differences between the books. I find Ward's interesting partly because it sounds so personal. It seems to be very close to your idea of favorite/best being the same thing. Does he have anything particularly unique on his list that the others would most likely avoid?
A few more thoughts I have on World Lit II. First, I'm surprised that My Antonia wouldn't be considered one of the great books; it may be my favorite novel, along with Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, which may make it the greatest novel of all time;)
One thing that affects the way I'm viewing this class is the movement of integrating disciplines, something I consider more natural. Of course, historical context has always been important to the study of most literature, but taking a topic like immigration, one that most students probably don't actually know much about, and revolving the readings around that, should hopefully make for an eye-opening class.
And I need to look at some of the lists of great works that these books contain, but there is something in me that rebels at the idea that certain books (or kinds of books) are excluded. Autobiographies traditionally have never been regarded as highly as many other genres (with a few exceptions, as you noted), and especially immigrant works, where the writers may not have the ability of a Henry Adams (and really, who does?), but nonetheless there is a wealth of things to talk about, and the relative simplicity of the writing doesn't exclude it from being a work of literature either.
I have more to say, but I'll get some of your thoughts (and rebuttals?) first. Good discussion.
Johnny Waco