The Call to Adventure

My problem with the way a lot of Lit courses have been taught (going by the students I’ve tutored) that they have no idea about what Literature is about. They often know about the texts, and often they know an awful lot about them; however, they have little knowledge in regards to where those texts stand in relation to the history of Literature. And I thought that was kinda the point of Lit.

My goal
What I thought would be worthwhile would be to try to choose an example from each major movement of Lit. Obviously that would be impossible, but I thought I could at least give the students a taster of the major movements. My initial thoughts were:

Greek drama (Drama) Medea
Beowulf (Poetry) Beowulf
Chaucer (Poetry) Prologue
Shakespeare (Drama) King Lear
Romantic (Novel) Shelley, Frankenstein
(poetry) Keats
Victorian (Novel) Stevenson, Dr Jekyll, Mr Hyde
Modern (Novel) Great Expectations
Australian (drama) Williamson, Dead White Males
(short stories) Glass Reptile Breakout

The Restrictions
Being an education course there is a syllabus to follow:

The most pertinent parts include:

• I’m doing units 2A & 2B (which are identical)
• I need to do a combination of plays, poems and novels
• I need to do at least one Australian text over the course of the year.
• There is a text list.

I’ve always loathed text lists, but at least this one is extensive (despite the lack of Byron)

The idea
I’ve already dropped Great Expectations, partly for time, partly because a friend asked quite pertinently “Why the Hell would you want to do that to children?”
I’ve swapped King Lear for Merchant of Venice. I actually prefer Lear, but Merchant of Venice just seemed richer for opportunities for discussions of values and multiple readings. Othello would work, but it’s being used in Year 12.
I’ve also decided to do a book of The Canterbury Tales other than the prologue (since I misread the text list instructions). Which, of course, means I have to read the damn thing now.
I’ve also decided instead of simply using one or two readings, I’ll focus on binary oppositions inherent in texts, then after they grasp that, I’ll give terminology for those, such as feminism, post-colonialism etc.

And so the programme (subject to lots of change) looks like:

Year 11 Stage 2 Literature 2011 Program

“What is drama? Drama, again, is the quest of the hero to overcome those things which prevent him from achieving a specific, acute goal.” David Mamet

Literature is the search for answers. It’s no surprise that literature and religion sprang from the same source, and religion always goes back to the narrative to teach its most powerful lessons.
In its simplest form, literature is the exploration of life in a fictional setting. And this exploration is always in relation to questions. These questions almost always take the form of binary opposites, dichotomies, Manichaean dualities.
Good versus evil, alive versus dead, hero versus villain, extraordinary versus ordinary, protagonist versus antagonist, divine versus human, civilised versus savage, male versus female, masculine versus feminine, light versus dark, modern versus old, progress versus tradition, familiar versus foreign, beauty versus ugliness, master versus slave.
Literature is often an exploration of these dualities, whether one is better than the other, or whether true fulfilment comes from a marrying of the two, whether externally or internally. It is symbolised through a character’s journey, either physical or spiritual. This journey is usually a quest narrative, a quest where the hero goes on a journey to save something or someone.


Waddayareckon?