Headmaster’s Perspective - Illuminating Experience through Literature: Seeing the Universal in the Particular
The study of literature at Chesterton Academy of St. John the Evangelist (CASJE) goes hand-in-hand with the study of history because the works read and discussed each year in literature align with the historical period to which a particular year is devoted. For example, the focus of freshman year is the ancient world, so the literary texts studied are Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and Virgil’s Aeneid. History therefore provides the framework for the curriculum, but more time is devoted to literature than history: five periods per week as opposed to three. This emphasis on literature is not simply due to the length of the three great ancient epics of the Greco-Roman world, for it reflects the relative importance of these two complementary disciplines. As Aristotle explains in the Poetics, the study of literature is more philosophical because it tends to express the universal, and history, the particular.
Aristotle is right to insist that literature concerns the universal, even though literature presents us with particular characters in a particular setting who face a particular conflict. Consider Homer’s Odyssey. The story is about Odysseus and his struggle to return home, but it is readily apparent that the poem is not concerned with the historical question of whether Odysseus really existed or where exactly he traveled. Homer’s epic is not a documentary or travelogue but a study of human nature as it is revealed through the life of the protagonist. Therefore, when we discuss the meaning of the Odyssey at CASJE, we will be concerned with what Homer has to teach us about the nature of man as such, though we will come to this knowledge as it is seen in and exemplified by the particular.
Great authors who reveal the universal through the particular have the extraordinary ability to construct scenes that are truer than life. But how is this possible since the author must imitate life itself when he depicts human nature in action? Here the literary artist is like every other artist: he is not merely the apprentice of nature, but also the master who perfects nature even though nature provides the standard that guides him. A farmer, for example, must imitate the natural processes of vegetative growth if he is to produce food; but the farmer who masters this art can, by deliberate and careful cultivation, produce more and better-quality food thereby assisting nature in reaching the goal for which it is striving but, in the absence of man’s assistance, fails to achieve. So, too, the literary artist must imitate human action; but by careful and deliberate arrangement of the plot he can make his readers experience life more fully than they would if left to themselves.
To illustrate this point, consider the man who attends his father’s funeral but finds himself wondering why he does not experience the profound sadness he knows is in his heart. But at a later time, while reading a well-crafted depiction of a funeral scene, the man may experience the deep sense of loss that he did not feel at his father’s funeral. At the actual funeral of his father, life confronted the man with a seemingly endless array of distracting details concerning funeral arrangements, family tensions, and his father’s property, not to mention the worries arising from having to house, feed, and transport friends and family members. The author, however, by artistically selecting and arranging all the core elements of the event and eliminating anything extraneous, perfected the man’s participation in the universal experience of a father’s death such that a genuine catharsis was experienced
According to Aristotle in the Poetics, catharsis is the final end or purpose of the art of tragedy. Through the purification of fear and pity, we are better able to experience fear and pity in the right way, at the right time, and with respect to the right objects. As the students of CASJE will learn from their study of Aristotle’s Ethics, there is danger in excess or deficiency in the virtues that should guide our actions: if we have too much or too little fear, we will be cowardly or reckless; and if we have too much or too little pity, we will be overly sentimental or brutish. The well-being of our souls, then, depends on the literary art since we cannot count on unaided life to purify or purge the potentially destructive elements of fear and pity.
Plutarch, in his introduction to his life of Pericles, further notes that literature which imitates acts of virtue produces in the mind of the reader an emulation and eagerness that may lead the reader on to imitation. Literature is thus a powerful stimulus to the practice of virtue, but it also informs us intellectually so that we may better understand ourselves and our place in the cosmos. The study of literature at CASJE will therefore assist students in the development of both moral and intellectual virtue. Like philosophy, which aims at knowledge of man, nature, and the divine, literature reveals to us what is universally true. But Philosophy gives us definitions of virtue and vice, whereas literature shows us virtue and vice in action, thereby inspiring us, expanding our experience, and deepening our understanding.
The students at CASJE will learn that literature also plays a supportive role with respect to the queen of the sciences, theology. The importance of literature in this respect was understood even apart from the revelation of the Old and New Testament, for Socrates argues in Plato’s Republic that education about the divine must begin with telling fictional stories to children. Socrates stresses the importance of carefully choosing the right stories because the soul of a child is a super absorbent sponge with an unimaginable wicking power. Therefore, Socrates rejects as untrustworthy both Homer and Hesiod because their stories at times depict the divine as the source of evil for human beings. Paradoxically, Socrates assigns the poets the all-important task of telling the truth about divinity—representing the divine as it truly is—through fiction. But Socrates does not tell us where we can find such a poet or who can judge rightly concerning poetry that depicts the divine. The Platonic dialogues implicitly present themselves as superior myths to those of Homer and Hesiod, but even the beauty of Plato’s poetry necessarily falls short of the truth, for he makes no claim to have received a special revelation. Here, then, is where Christian revelation solves the critical problem identified by Plato. Thanks be to God, we can tell our children Biblical stories which are not only truthful but are the actual historical truth—for the author is God Himself.
Most importantly, the study of literature will prepare the students at CASJE to read well the Book of Books, Holy Scripture. Although authored by God, the Bible was produced by divinely inspired human agents employing literary devices the knowledge of which is essential if the Bible is to be read profitably. The search for truth and meaning in the Bible, as in any text, demands receptivity to the mode of the author so that we may avoid the extremes of both under and overinterpretation. Our students will therefore learn not to read into a text but to read from within in a manner consonant with the nature of things. Hence, the study of the fundamental literary techniques, such as diction, imagery, setting, plot, structure, character, figurative language, and irony, will be studied in the great books of western literary culture so that they can be understood in the sacred text. Finally, the study of literature at CASJE will help cultivate love of the Church’s liturgy which employs all the elements of prosody to make worthy our worship of God. Without the beautifully adorned and elevated language of poetry, the liturgy could not be differentiated from the mundane language of the marketplace, which would make our worship poor indeed.
