The other day I was conducting a certain thought experiment: What if there were an old-fashioned boarding school - let's call it St. Boniface College - with lots of ancient buildings and esoteric old traditions. And let us assume that among those traditions are readings at the beginning of meal times, somewhat like in monastic refectories. To what sort of readings would I have the boys (and girls too, if this is a coed place) listen?Some countries have a national epic or a pretty short list of canonical works that express who they are, where they have come from and what they stand for. But do I, an Anglophonic American Catholic Christian, a child of the Western Tradition, have a short list of works that I could share with a rising generation at the beginning of each meal? Well, I've endeavored to produce such a list.
Certain works have been excluded because their genre does not fit the context of the thought experiment. (Aquinas' On Being and Essence, no matter how important it may - or may not - be, is never going to make good reading for communal meals.)
Breakfast:
Sacred Scripture
Lunch:
Homer, The Iliad
--, Odyssey
Virgil, Aeneid
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Polybius, Histories
Livy, From the Founding of the City
Unknown, Beowulf
Venerable Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People
Willibald, Life of St. Boniface
Various, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle
William of Tyre, History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea
Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
Unknown, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Thomas Mallory, Le Morte D'Arthur
Edmund Spender, The Faerie Queene
John Milton, Paradise Lost
Dinner:
William Shakespeare, Tragedies, Comedies and Histories
In the end I decided that Sacred Scripture and the works of Shakespeare were too large and too important to have to share a rotating schedule with anything else, so they each get their own meal. I'm fairly happy with this list, except that there are no American works. Granted, there are a number of works that we can safely say the American Founders read, so I'm not overly concerned about it, but, still, it would be nice to see something from this side of the Pond.
There were several honorable mentions that almost made the list:
Plutarch, Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans
Tacitus, Histories or Annals
Nennius, History of the Britons
Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain
Any thoughts from the readership? Suggestions? Things that didn't make the cut, that should have? Or things that I let in that should have been excluded?
Post script: A little while ago on another blog I wrote a post about things that changed my life: books, music, other works of art. There is some overlap, though I think you'll find the scope is somewhat different. Still, if you find one list interesting, you may be intrigued by the other.
5 comments:
While I find your list fairly adequate, and agree wholeheartedly with Shakespeare at an evening meal (I'm thinking Titus Andronicus), I would take great exception at not including an American author. Mark Twains travelogues and stories of childhood embody something that's essentially American. Our own unique struggle in the world needs a voice. If not Twain, might I suggest Arthur Miller or Ray Bradbury. Get rid of the Fairy Queen if you have to, but add an American.
Reading the Iliad during a meal? Ugh. :) Better yet for mealtime, how about the Song of Roland?
I agree with Charles about the necessity of adding in American writers -- besides Twain, I might add Willa Cather.
Perhaps I show my ignorance of medieval literature here, but I thought about the Song of Roland and decided against it, on the basis that it had rather little to do with 21st century Anglophonic Catholic America. Being early, the Iliad influenced a broad swath of civilization. Being in English, works like The Faerie Queene and Paradise Lost influenced a variety of Americans (both colonial and republican). But how important is Song of Roland to us? If this fictional school were in France, definitely. But here? I wasn't so sure...
I would definitely include Tacitus on the list. I think his sharp, severely critical view of politics is what we need right now. It would make good reading for these dark winter nights.
And, if we have to include an American, Twain is the right author. No Melville, that's all I have to say.
Anyone ever heard of Peter de Vries? In the latest First Things, Wilfred M. McClay writes, that de Vries' I Hear America Swinging, is "one book of many coming from the hand of a true master of American comedic prose, a man who deserves much wider recognition than he has ever received. I for one would trade three Twains for one de Vries, perhaps in part because (unlike Twain, who could not stop playing the village atheist) de Vries knew something about religion, bringing a wry Dutch Calvinist sensibility to bear on the fertile subject of modern American confusion. Those who have not yet read de Vries should not deprive themselves of that pleasure for even another day."
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