Help me pick a version of Paradise Lost!

[i.love.lucy]

I know the Norton is the most recommended, but it's expensive.  This is for a Year 2 Tapestry co op class.  I'm going to use WttW for the 1st semester to teach lit anal. but then do literature 2nd semester.  I'd really like to expose them to Paradise Lost and what I think I am REALLY looking for is a No Fear edition.  But to my knowledge that doesn't exist.  My kiddos will mostly be sophomores and TBH they are not the literature superstars we might hope for.  I just don't think they can handle the original version...so should I drop it?  Several of them actually have documented learning disabilities. 

 

I planned (over 18 weeks of a 2nd semester):  Beowulf, Canturbury Tales (select), The Once and Future King (to get the Arthurian legend in), Paradise Lost, and Pride and Prejudice.  For the more capable students I plan to assign more of the Brit Lit genre and they can hopefully turn this course into a Survey of British Literature on their transcript if they would like, but for most of them they really need a Literary Analysis and Writing course.

 

Does that look like a weird list for a co-op? I know there are SO. MANY. BOOKS. we are not covering, but there is only so much time.  I think 5-7 are good.  How would you change my arrangement and/or do you have a Paradise Lost to recommend or what would you sub for that?

 

BTW, so as not to think we are slighting Our Friend Shakespeare, we are doing Julius Caesar this year, Midsummer Night's Dream in a drama class next year, and for the "Brit Lit" suggestion I plan to suggest several more.

[katilac]

There are at least 2 modern English versions: Paradise Lost in Plain and Simple English (Bookcaps) and Paradise Lost in Plain English (Joseph Lanzara). Both are available in paperback and Kindle versions. 

 

I am not familiar with the Bookcaps one, but you can see a sample on Amazon. We used Lanzara, and it was definitely a bit clunky at times, but it held my kids' interest throughout and we did all of PL with it, which we would not have managed otherwise. Definitely you will want to be reading chunks of the original as well. 

 

You will want to pick your excerpts carefully, especially if it's a religious co-op. There's rather a lot of sexual references in it, including Satan having sex with his daughter, who then has a son who rapes her. At another point, you learn that angels don't go to the bathroom, but they do have amazing cosmic sex . . . then the careful reader goes, hmm, aren't all the angels male? Satan is the most engaging character, and lots of teens are liable to sympathize with the idea that it is better to rule in hell than serve in heaven. 

 

We loved it, but it's definitely tough and time-consuming and potentially controversial. 

 

Edited to add that the two books mentioned here do include standard versions as well as plain English. 

[i.love.lucy]

Uh.  I had NO IDEA.  Thank you so much for this!  With this group I can certainly NOT choose this book. Sigh...back to more searching.

 

I have one long semester to attempt as much lit as I can.  I may have planned too long of a reading time for each so maybe I can squeeze in an extra work or two.  Time period is Fall of Rome-1800 (Tapestry year 2). So far I have:

 

Beowulf - Heany (2 weeks)

select Canturbury Tales (3 weeks) <-- to long for just General Prologue and 2 tales?

Once and Future King - White     I chose this because I think exposure to the Arthurian legend is important and this is a good one.  Agree? (4 weeks)

Paradise Lost

Pride and Prejudice (4 weeks)  This one is slightly past the 1800 mark but is on the ToG booklist.

I have a couple of weeks reserved for a final but can rethink that.

 

Please tell me what you would add.  Maybe 2 more works. My mind is spinning with so many books and so little time.  This is a group of 9th/10th grade and most of them have not been challenged by difficult literature before.  Other ideas I had were possibly Robin Hood, skip OaFK and do Sir Gawain instead, Dante??, Aladdin? No Shakespeare is included because we are doing that in a separate classical theater class.

 

I also plan to make suggestions to the parents of additional books the "honors" kids might want to read to turn this year in to a Brit Lit year. 

 

Edited to add: I'm sorry I'm repeating myself.  I just wanted to be clear on what I have chosen and why so I can get some input and suggestions.  :thumbup1:

 

[JDoe]

 

Please tell me what you would add.  Maybe 2 more works. My mind is spinning with so many books and so little time.  This is a group of 9th/10th grade and most of them have not been challenged by difficult literature before.  Other ideas I had were possibly Robin Hood, skip OaFK and do Sir Gawain instead, Dante??

 

Dante would make a good (better) replacement for Milton, maybe go for Machiavelli too

[katilac]

Beowulf: 2 weeks sounds about right. There's a 2007 movie that I haven't seen. 

 

Cantebury Tales: this is another work that can get quite bawdy, so a bit of research is in order. A Knight's Tale is a fun movie that references Chaucer and his times (not terribly educational, so I'd just list it as a possibility to watch on their own). I cannot at all remember how long it took us to read certain tales, but it tends to be time-consuming just b/c you have to establish so much context in order to have any idea what is going on, and what certain things mean. 

 

The Once and Future King is a good choice and will probably be much more accessible than Sir Gawain (1958 fantasy novel vs 14th century poetry). 

 

Robin Hood is another good choice and is very episodic (so there's less of the concern that an excerpt won't get across a true feel for the work). There are also plenty of movies to suggest. 

 

Machiavelli's Art of War has rather more politics and leadership than one might expect based on the name; excerpts were more than enough for us. The context is interesting, as is the idea that some people say it was meant to be satirical. Low-ish appeal to teens, I'd say. 

 

Pride and Prejudics - great choice! Why, no, I'm not biased by it being one of my favorites. Make sure you prep them ahead of time so they have some chance of realizing when Austen is being satirical! The 'lofty' language, while pretty easy to understand on the surface, can easily lead unpracticed readers into missing most of the humor. Lots of movies to recommend. 

 

Dante - we thoroughly enjoyed this, and covered quite a bit of Inferno. It's a pretty tough work, though, even if you use a more modern translation, and, like Chaucer, requires lots of context or you'll just be wondering what this guy is going on about.

 

I would consider adding a week before Beowulf to cover epics in general. That way, they have an awareness of the genre in general, and specifically critical ones like Iliad, Gilgamesh, Inferno, Paradise Lost, and a few others . . . but don't get bogged down in material above their heads (or inappropriate). Ideally, pick excerpts that are funny and/or exciting, preferably ones that we still allude to in this day. So Inferno might be the bit with "abandon all hope, ye who enter here," Paradise Lost might be "better to rule in hell than serve in heaven," and so on. 

 

No thoughts on Aladdin, but a non-Western work would be good. 

 

Also, check out the historyteachers channel on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAiABuhVSMZJMqyv4Ur5XqA

 

They do wonderfully fun videos that impart quite a few facts in just a few minutes. They are based on pop songs and are very catchy. From your potential list, I know they have ones for Beowulf, Inferno, King Arthur, maybe others, and lots that will give historical context, like I'm a Knight. These would be worth watching in class if you can manage it. 

[katilac]

Two more fun extras you might want for class, we have been laughing at these since my kids got them for Christmas: Texts from Jane Eyre and Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Don't Float: Classic Lit Signs on to Facebook. 

 

 

The Facebook one references quite a few of the works on your list; only two in the text one but that one is hilarious, imo. We like them whether we have read the work or not, and more than once they have said, "Okay, now I have to read this!" 

 

They would be worth checking your library for. 

 

Edited to add that the Amazon excerpt of Texts gives you a pretty good idea of the humor, which is not for everyone, lol. 

[JDoe]

 

Machiavelli's Art of War has rather more politics and leadership than one might expect based on the name; excerpts were more than enough for us. The context is interesting, as is the idea that some people say it was meant to be satirical. Low-ish appeal to teens, I'd say. 

 

Machiavelli's The Prince

Sun Tzu's Art of war

 

The Prince can be called the foundation of political science, fit with student interest would be important

[katilac]

Machiavelli's The Prince

Sun Tzu's Art of war

 

The Prince can be called the foundation of political science, fit with student interest would be important

 

I really, really knew that, lol! 

[i.love.lucy]

How about either Gulliver's Travels or Faerie Queen?

[katilac]

How about either Gulliver's Travels or Faerie Queen?

 

Ooh, I second Gulliver's Travels, adding in the super-short A Modest Proposal. We just finished these recently, and we did a comparison to modern satire (The Daily Show, The Onion).

[melmichigan]

We will be picking and choosing from TOG Y2 next year because I we plan to do a much more in-depth study of Dante.  We've already done The Canterbury Tales, Beowulf, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I am currently considering the following:

 

*Song of Roland (Hackett Classics) to compare to Iliad that we did this year.  This is not the TOG edition but the "plain english" edition. Many translations are online so we might spend a day comparing a little to get the feel for them.

*Fierce Wars and Faithful Loves (first book of the Faerie Queen).

*Gulliver's Travels

*Much Ado About Nothing (if time)

*The Annotated Sense and Sensibility 

*Paradise Lost (iffy)

 

The following are not TOG, but things I'm considering after I've read them, and pulled from this list:

*The Travels of Sir John Mandeville  14th century travels through the Holy Land, Egypt, India, and China

*The Prose Edda: Norse Mythology  13th century Icelandic; source of most Norse Mytholgy; Tolkien takes various things from this

*The Poem of the Cid 12th century Spain, story based on 11th century figure

 

ETA:  You must have a different TOG edition than I do.

[i.love.lucy]

No, probably the same version. It's just that ToG is our History spine. I am trying to choose lit that I can essentially do in just one semester because I want to spend the first semester using Windows to the World. So I used the ToG list as well as WTM to figure out the best lit. I appreciate your other suggestions!