A tiny little micro-canon
Sep 15th, 2007 by Gideon Strauss
“Because we lack cultural self-confidence, we’ve lacked the ability to say, ‘This is a good book and should be taught, this isn’t and shouldn’t.’ ”
– Tony Judt, via the NYT Book Review, via Alissa Wilkinson.
During the years we homeschooled our children, we basically made do with this little canon, which we could enthusiastically recommend to any family or school on the planet: as much as possible of The Bible and Shakespeare and basic mathematics, and all of Jane Austen. Richly augmented with all kinds of stuff we would not necessarily recommend to others as canonical.
September 24th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
I’m curious what makes Jane Austen and Shakespeare the two authors you see as essential curriculum for homeschooling.
September 24th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Shakespeare, because he contains everything and writes the world. For scope of reference, depth of characterization, diversity of personality, complexity of context and magnitude of philosophical intention there is nothing equivalent in English, if in any language.
Austen, because of the subtlety and nuance of her psychological insights, her astonishingly complex political and philosophical attentiveness given the strict constraints of the domestic realm within which she allowed herself to write, and the profound challenge she offers to the contemporary ethos while not being so alien to it as to be incomprehensible on the first read. (I blame Alasdair MacIntyre for my Janolatry.)
I don’t think that for insight into the human either Shakespeare or Austen has been superceded in English.
September 24th, 2007 at 2:12 pm
Not that I necessarily agree with Shakespeare or Austen on anything, ever. (And taking into account that almost every one of Shakespeare’s plays, but at least every set sharing a location, offers us a different “Shakespeare,” in terms of the religious and philosophical stance toward the world being explored.)
September 26th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Thanks! I thoroughly enjoy both authors as well.