So, I’ve been checking regularly to see if my course instructors are listing books for the fall semester. I found books for two classes right away and lucky for me I had the exact edition of one of the books here in my library because I saved it from last semester.
Then today I found a new course had listed it’s reading list. There were twelve books. TWELVE. For ONE class. These aren’t easy reads, either. I’ve read about half, but still. The list is as follows:
The Divine Comedy - Inferno
Epic of Gilgamesh
Aeneid
Odyssey
Hamlet (which, btw, I hate)
Waste Land
Moby Dick
Rape of the Lock (and other poems)
Paradise Lost
Major Works (for Wordsworth)
To the Lighthouse
And….the New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha -NSRV
Now, the real kickers are Hamlet and the Bible for me. I really do not like Hamlet, either the play or the character. The Bible, I like. The Apocrypha, I do not. Now, since I took Old & Middle English Lit. I did have to read a lot about Saints’ lives and a couple excerpts from the Apocrypha, but being Baptist I pretty much avoided reading anything other than my non-Catholic KJV Bible. I even got the handy Scofield Bible as a gift with the cool notes on the bottom.
Academically, I suppose the Apocrypha - and the Bible itself - are very interesting, especially since some people may see the Apocrypha as having been censored. It just may not be a good idea to include it with standard classroom literature. After all, I was going to take a course that dealt just with the Bible. It just wasn’t offered this semester.
Personally, I’m not so sure I want to be reading the Apocrypha - not because I think it’ll corrupt me or anything like that, but because I place little value on it and I think it’s ridiculous that it’s still used in any way, shape, form or fashion to relate people to God - and I don’t think it should be touted as the Word of God. (We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one. I’m not violently anti-Catholic, I just know what I believe and Catholic doctrine doesn’t make the cut.)
Back to the classroom: I think that when it comes to literature like the Bible, which is more than a creative endeavor, academics need to tread very, very carefully. For the professor teaching the class that may be fairly easy, but for the students it may not be - especially if we start talking interpretation. I can keep my mouth shut and my mind on the matter at hand if the matter is strictly academic. I’ve come across many people who can’t see the difference between academic interest and personal belief - and can’t, or won’t, keep it to themselves.
And, if I think someone is being deliberately provoking or obtuse - or hopelessly ignorant - I have more trouble keeping my remarks to myself. After all, being Christian doesn’t make me perfect. It just means I try my darnedest to be nice and live up to an example. Salvation I have. Complete control over my brain-to-mouth filter is just a work in progress.
So, I’m approaching that part of the class with mixed feelings. I also really don’t like reading anything other than the King James Version. I’ve been reading that since I first when to church when I was about seven and that’s all I’ve read ever since. Even reading the NKJV makes me twitch. Seriously - I have one version of the NKJV that was a gift and I freak out reading it because it doesn’t “sound” right to me.
Yeah, I may be a little old-fashioned. Or a stickler. Maybe both.
Anyway, the rest of the reading I am cautiously looking forward to. I just know I’ll probably bog down reading it because even as quickly as I read, when you get into translations of Greek epic poetry and its ilk, even I slow down to a crawl.