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Another Great Books question ... regarding where to start


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Well, it sort of depends on what you think your kid would be most interested in. I'd pick Medieval .We loved Beowulf and The Green Knight...but I've heard others say how difficult it was. Maybe the key is whatever period try to pick mainly theones that you think are going to grab your child's attention and only a few of the ones that you think are going to be difficult.

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Generally speaking, I think the modern books are the easiest. There are fewer language hurdles and you're more likely to get the cultural references.

 

That said, the list of great books in my edition of TWTM has quite a mix of easier and more challenging works in all the time periods.

 

For example, for the Ancients, I think the Bible passages and the Greek plays are the most accessible. Those are the ones I read in high school, with some selections of Plato and Plutarch thrown in.

 

For the next time period, Beowulf (a good translation), Everyman (another play), Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, selections of Canterbury Tales (again, get a good translation), Utopia, Faustus, Shakespeare.

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Well, we started our Great Books study with 8th and 9th grade DSs and did the ancients with no problems -- in fact it was quiet enjoyable for all of us. BUT, a lot of it had to do with what works we selected -- high interest adventure epics (Iliad, Odyssey), short dramatic plays (Oedipus the King, Antigone), exciting myths (various Greek myths), and even the cardinal "no-no" of doing a few works as abridged retellings rather than full translations (Gilgamesh, Aeneid) in order to keep interest and not burn out on TOO much ancients in one year.

 

We also did the Literary Lessons from the Lord of the Rings the year we did the ancients, so it wasn't ONLY about the ancients; it is nice (to us) to throw in some works outside of the time frame as a "break".

 

We can always "revisit" some of the longer or more difficult works, or the histories (Herodotus, Plutarch), philosophy (Plato, Aristotle) later on, when they might make a good comparison with a more modern work or fit in well with a civics or government course (i.e.: Plato's Republic), or other history (i.e.: Shakespeare's "Julius Caesear" when reading other Shakespeare).

 

There -- having put a plug in for the ancients as a very do-able option for starting your Great Conversation with the Great Books (lol), below is a list of classics that are easier reads with themes more readily accessible; I included a lot of short stories, too, as sometimes short works make for an easier entry into discussion classic literature.

 

Also, check out this past thread with some good ideas on getting started doing The Great Books: http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=133932 Enjoy your literary adventure! Warmest regards, Lori D.

 

 

Ancients

- various Greek myths -- short story length

- The Iliad (Homer) -- novel length; a few long chapters listing boats, warriors, weapons, etc.

- The Odyssey (Homer) -- novel length epic hero tale

- Oedipus Rex (Sophocles) -- play

- Antigone (Sophocles) -- play

- Till We Have Faces (Lewis) -- Cupid & Psyche retelling; novel written in 20th century

 

 

Medieval / Renaissance

- The Once and Future King (White) -- novel on King Arthur (written in 20th century)

- Beowulf (annonymous) -- short story length

- several of The Canterbury Tales -- short story length

- Macbeth; Romeo and Juliet; Hamlet; Midsummer Night's Dream; Much Ado About Nothing; Twelfth Night (Shakespeare) -- play

 

1800s - American

- Adventures of Tom Sawyer; Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Twain) -- novel

- Little Women (Alcott) -- novel

- Rip Van Winkle; The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Irving) -- short story

- Young Goodman Brown; Rappaccini's Daughter (Hawthorne) -- short story

- Fall of the House of Usher; The Black Cat; Tell-Tale Heart (Poe) -- short story

- The Raven (Poe) -- poem

- poems by Dickinson

- poems by Longfellow

- Bride Comes to Yellow Sky (Crane) -- short story

- The Luck of Roaring Camp (Harte) -- short story

- Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge (Bierce) -- short story

 

1800s - British

- A Modest Proposal (Swift) -- essay

- Gulliver's Travels (Swift) -- novel; try just excerpts, or just the Lilliputian section

- Ivanhoe (Scott) -- novel

- Around the World in 80 Days (Verne) -- novel

- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll) -- novel

- Treasure Island (Stevenson) -- novel

- Pride and Prejudice (Austen) -- novel

- Silas Marner (Elliot) -- novel

- The Time Machine; War of the Worlds (Wells) -- novel

- Oliver Twist (Dickens) -- novel

- A Christmas Carol (Dickens) -- novella

- Cyrano DeBergerac (Rostand) -- play

- Sherlock Holmes short stories (Doyle) -- short story

- Rikki Tikki Tavi (Kipling) -- short story

- The Monkey's Paw (Jacobs) -- short story

- The Open Window (Saki) -- short story

- A Child's Christmas in Wales (Dylan) -- short story

- Rime of the Ancient Mariner -- poem

 

20th Century - American

- To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee) -- novel

- Call of the Wild (London) -- novel

- Farenheit 451 (Bradbury) -- novel

- My Antonia (Cather) -- novel

- The Joy Luck Club (Tan) -- novel

- The Old Man and the Sea (Hemingway) -- novella

- The Most Dangerous Game (Connell) -- short story

- The Lady or the Tiger (Stockton) -- short story

- Gift of the Magi (Henry) -- short story

- The Catbird Seat (Thurber) -- short story

- There Will Come Soft Rains (Bradbury) -- short story

- The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (LeGuin) -- short story

 

20th Century - British

- Peter Pan (Barrie) -- novel

- Three Men in a Boat, To Say Nothing of the Dog (Jerome) -- novel

- Watership Down (Adams)

- Life With Jeeves (Wodehouse) -- collection of short stories

- Animal Farm (Orwell) -- novella

- The Importance of Being Ernest (Wilde) -- play

- Pygmalion (Shaw) -- play

- Father Brown short stories (Chesterton) -- short story

 

20th Century - World

- The Good Earth (Buck) -- novel

- A Day of Pleasure (Singer) -- autobiography

- The Overcoat (Gogol) -- short story

- Metamorphosis (Kafka) -- short story

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