As a
publisher, I have become passionate about getting the classics into
full use, not only among a general readership, but at the High
School and University levels of education as well. At the High
School level, particularly, lies an opportunity not likely to be
repeated in the lives of most young adults, as once they enter the
college or university level of study, direction and demand by the
teacher lessens to a marked degree. The mind and inquisitiveness of
the teenage years is, in many ways, at its peak of energy in balking
the status quo and asking why or why not, demanding answers, not
only of their parents and educators, but of history as well, and
forging bold new ideas for brighter, more sustainable answers to the
same, timeless questions. When we lose this precious window of
opportunity, I fear it cannot easily be retrieved.
In
order for a work to be read, however, it must appeal to the reader.
What good is a book which sits on the shelf except as a paper
weight? This begs the question of what makes a work which will be
read by the modern reader. For readability, we look for work which
is true to the original but devoid of unnecessary archaic words in
translation. After all, translations done 500 years ago were modern
by those standards. There is no reason to pretend that Old English
is still in use today when it is not. A work is not "more true to
the original" because it is difficult or because it was translated
in a language no longer in use. A work in translation should be
both true to the original and readable by current standards. As the
English language does change and develop over time, one can hardly
expect that current English will be current 500 years from now. It
will be Neo-Middle English or something of the sort and not at all
the definitive example of a "correct" or 'true" work in translation.
Beyond the problem of outmoded vocabulary resulting in literacy
issues, it becomes necessary to discover and address other reasons
the teaching of classics has been on such a steep decline in recent
years. In our interaction with high school educators, it has become
clear that the question is one of relevance. If a student does not
see a book as relevant to his life, then he or she is not likely to
have an interest in reading it. So the question really becomes, "Why
Classics?" or "Why Not Classics?" And this question is one we must
continually make relevant, not only to the student but more
importantly, one which we must help the educator understand for him
or herself, so that he or she can make the text or story relevant to
the student. The general notion that, he who does not read, knows
only his own generation would tend to apply here, and what a severe
loss of vision and beauty that bespeaks. But was there more to know
about this?
In a
recent exchange with Asheville High School's Humanities Chair, a
private high school in Asheville NC, we discussed the issue of ‘Why
Classics.’ In his words, Classics answer, among other things, the
question of what it means to be human. And while society has
changed, the answer to this question hasn't really changed much in
3,000 years. To wrestle with this question, one has to have studied
the history of the human race, not in a fact filled historical
timeline sort of way, but in a meaningful humanistic way. The
philosophic subjects brought home to the student in the classics are
vital to an understanding of life and humanity and therefore of our
future. Why re-invent the wheel by ignoring what has gone before,
what has been hashed out by the poets, writers and warriors of the
past? If one wants to really understand Democracy, let's look to
Plato and the republic as well as to the evolution of democracy in
the modern sphere. Knowing where we've been, and how we came to
where we are, is a vital component in creating leaders and thinkers
for the new world and a better future.
Another High School English teacher, Mary Delie of Southwest High
School in Green Bay, WI, who is herself a strong believer that
classic literature is of value in the English curriculum due to
their ability to help students discover “ the universality of the
human condition.”
‘Why
Classics’, remains, then, the fundamental question to understand
when it comes to teaching the classics and causing them to not
become lost in our modern world of teaching. Certainly, teachers
are faced with a multitude of challenges to this and choices as to
which texts to have their students read in the limited time they
have to parcel. Modern fiction titles have their value, but to
ignore completely the lives and times of generations past, in truth,
our own ancestors, I think we impoverish ourselves and our students.
There is much to deliver, then, beyond a more digestible
translation. It is my belief that the best help we can be to
educators in this endeavor, and which educators can be to other
educators, is something which is inherent in the philosophy of
teaching at its most basic level - the imparting of what one has
learned to others. Educators can become so focuses on transferring
knowledge to their students that they neglect this transference to
ideas to their peers. There is much an educator can do to help
other teachers and educators grapple with the questions of how to
make classics relevant to students through the use of on-line forums
or discussion boards where educators can share their ideas and
successes one with another. In addition to providing texts the
modern reader will understand, this is what we constantly find as
the most requested, most needed help we can offer our educators. To
that end, we will be setting up an online forum to facilitate this
transfer of knowledge on a peer to peer level.
Man
has lived long. Much has been learned. It is necessary to convey
this knowledge as that is the point of education. But knowledge is
not a dry thing, it is a living thing, born of the tears and joys
and fortitude of real living beings who have and continue to people
the earth. There is sometimes tragedy in living, but the greatest
tragedy of all would be the tossing aside of the journeys already
taken, the trials already won, and these can only be lost because we
cease to tell the story.
Background Information
When
I first read the Iliad and the Odyssey
some years ago, painstakingly and with several on-line dictionaries
and encyclopedias to hand, I wasn't aware of the existence of Ian
Johnston's translation, the translations we now publish. The books I
read were, needless to say, a difficult first read, but the beauty
and passion in the stories were nevertheless compelling. I realized
that the trouble with reading these books was that most of the
translations were done in an English no longer in common use, and
yet, I was certain that many people, like myself, wanted to read
them and yet were intimidated by an outmoded
vocabulary/terminology. I decided then and there that a newer, more
modern poetic translation had to be found and made available to the
general public so that anyone who has ever thought of reading these
books would have an opportunity to take in the spell-binding beauty
of Homer's words.
I
had engaged in some reading of classic materials over the years and
had the intention to one day read the Great Books from the list of
reading material at St. John's College in Annapolis and NM. One
day, when I saw the list in a newspaper or journal, I cut it out and
posted it on my refrigerator door as a reminder that I was going to
get to them one day. Certainly, life has a way of creating other
priorities and that was part of the reason for my delay in starting
through the list, however, I have to admit that most of the delay
was a result of my own back-off on attempting such a feat. Without
particular backing in the classics, it seemed a daunting task.
Life, however, created an opportunity for me several years ago to
begin this odyssey, as it were, and so, armed with four or five
on-line dictionaries and encyclopedias, I began reading the
Iliad. It took me quite some time to get through this first
text, but page by page was spellbound, not only by this epic tale of
loyalty, heroism and the sense of holding to something greater than
oneself, but as well the simple beauty of some of the passages. I
found the impassioned plea by Andromache, wife of Hector, to forego
the battle for the sake of his son and her love for him, to be every
bit as beautiful as any Shakespeare I had ever read. At the
conclusion of this book, I lost no time in picking up the Odyssey
and reading it cover to cover. Reading became easier as each page
turned, and by the time I was mid-way through the Odyssey I
was fairly breezing through it. As I closed the book on the last
page of the Odyssey, I knew at once why and how these amazing
stories had survived through the centuries and wished that everyone
would have an opportunity to read them. I first thought, I shall
have to learn ancient Greek and make a more modern translation but
then decided that before going that route I should look and see if
anyone had yet already done that. And so, a search began and our
publications of Ian Johnston's translations of Homer's
Iliad and
Odyssey are the result of that search. It is my hope that these
translations provide everyone who has ever wanted to read these
books with the opportunity to do so.