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Cindy
The popularity of superhero stories and movies in our present culture is an intriguing phenomenon. I have noticed that the more secular we get, the more popular “superhero” stories there are. Human nature is such that we admire virtue and justice, even when we live in a society which is leaving traditional mores and beliefs in the dust. The human spirit longs for purpose and meaning, which is simply a reflection of our innate understanding that there is objective truth, right and wrong, good and evil. Superheroes don’t just catch the bad guy: they sacrificially perform acts which help to transform the community for the better. Their commitment is – extreme. Some give up relationships with family and potential spouses in order to accomplish their missions; some willingly offer their lives in the causes they have committed themselves to.
Superheroes’ “special powers” can be viewed as literary “tropes” – vehicles through which the author highlights these protagonists’ moral qualities. The powers are not good in and of themselves, but are only valuable when the virtuous superhero chooses to use them well. The evil “nemesis” characters who attempt to foil the superheroes use their powers for destruction; this seemingly simplistic story pattern never grows old because inside all of us is the desire to triumph over the struggles and conflicts inherent in our world and in ourselves. There was a period of time in the 1960’s and most of the 1970’s when “anti-hero” movies were pretty much all that were being produced (other than musicals). If you wanted to watch a movie with a redemptive storyline, it was hard to come by. When the first “Star Wars” movie came out in 1977, its popularity was beyond belief. People returned to watch the movie 10, 12, 20 times, and lines in the theater parking lots snaked back and forth – and this went on for months. It’s true that the special effects techniques were new, but the most important aspect of the film was that there were good guys and bad guys, and there was right and wrong and there were heroes, not anti-heroes, as the protagonists. Audiences, starved for such fair for over almost two decades, clamored for more of the same.
It is interesting to contrast the modern superheroes to the Greek gods and goddesses. While the Greek gods did have many powers, their universe was essentially an amoral universe. The gods were selfish and self-oriented. They were capricious, and their actions were not predicated on the concept of a moral universe where virtue is rewarded and fulfilling, and evil is punished. However, the superheroes popular today are selfless and hold to the traditions of western values and justice. Their role is to help others, not to craftily scheme against their fellow gods or humans.
Another reason superheroes are popular is that so often now, children are not taught about important leaders of the past, or if they are, only the leaders’ faults are highlighted, without focusing on the greatness of their deeds and their character strengths. So – there is a vacuum there. This is a cultural shift: even back in the 1950’s, there were books and movies about great figures of history and their accomplishments; epic films such as “The Ten Commandments” and others highlighting saints such as Joan of Arc. Most or all of you who are reading this newsletter are already aware of the importance of highlighting great and good historical figures, and that need is all the more true today. The great popularity of superheroes is a “sign” of the cry of the human spirit for lives of honor, sacrifice, and goodness, rather than just being an entertainment phenomenon.
A year ago June I planned the curriculum and chose the texts for the new middle school course, including the poetry selections. At that time I became intrigued with the early American colonial poet Anne Bradstreet and became especially engaged with her autobiographical poem written in 1666, “Upon the Burning of Our House,” which I included in the poetry unit lesson plans for the new course. Little did I realize that three months later, I would be experiencing the burning of my own home in The Dixie Fire. Our home was one of only three which were destroyed in Lake Almanor, CA, and when I say destroyed, I mean – gone. What a “strange” circumstance which, upon reflection now, seemed a providential way of preparing me for the upcoming trial, and getting me thinking about what it would mean to lose the home where precious memories lie, and where inherited family treasures are lovingly cached.
Anne Bradstreet’s vocation was primarily that of a devoted wife and mother, and her poetry reflects her interests and affection for her family. The poem opens with her description of not only seeing but hearing the “thund’ring noise of” the flames as they sweep in and ravage her family’s home. Her subsequent response is to turn to God in her “distress” and while not denying the sorrow she experiences, she comes to terms with it, and learns to bless “his grace that gave and took.” She recounts her fond memories regarding some of the items she misses most, such as the dining table where she and her loved ones had gathered together every day. Then, in an allusion to the book of Ecclesiastes, she says goodbye to her lost possessions: “Adieu, Adieu, All’s Vanity,” moving on to express her new depth of understanding regarding the importance of faith and love, which will last, as opposed to material goods, which, while good, are not eternal. She contrasts the earthly home she has lost to the heavenly home she finds through her deepened faith, and concludes, “My hope and treasure lies above.” Rereading the poem now, it seems to me to be her own way of both letting go of her pain, but also, retaining the good memories in the light of faith and fellowship. In some ways I’m still processing what happened to our home, but like Bradstreet, I attempt each day to look beyond the loss towards the eternal values of love of God and others, hope, and friendship.
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The first English literature text is the exciting epic poem, Beowulf. It was written in Old English, so it is not readable by most of us in its original form.
Unlike the Homeric epics, Beowulf incorporates a Christian worldview. Wonderful translations of the text have been produced and it is hard to choose which one to study. I use the J. R. R. Tolkien version in our Underclassmen course because I like the “flow” of the story as he has translated it. But other translations are also excellent and each has its strong points. The narrator of the story is a “bard.” Traditionally, a bard had the daunting vocation of memorizing texts passed down from previous bards (which often contained historical content) and then presenting these in song to audiences throughout the land. Usually a bard had a small harp or lyre which he played as he told and sang the great epic tales.
Set around the year 500 A.D. but written a few centuries later, the story of Beowulf is by an unknown British author. It takes place in two Nordic countries, though: roughly, today’s Denmark and Sweden. Like early epic poetry Beowulf does not rely upon rhyme. Instead, alliteration, repetition, litotes (a form of understatement) and the kenning are devices which are incorporated in the meter of this fascinating work.
An interesting instance of a kenning in the text is the “whale-road,” which is a name for the ocean because the majestic whales follow specific routes as they travel seasonally. The word “road” is an expansive image which gives a sense of the rhythm of life in the sea, but it also implies that man, too, conducts himself here and depends upon the sea for his livelihood. The ocean is not just an unknown, vague arena, but rather, a defined space where creatures live their God-given lives. The description even implies that we humans carry on our own lives in a similar, patterned manner as that of the animals. There is a rhythm: a sense of dignified continuity established by God. The sea is a place of goodness and blessing, a rich part of the blessed tapestry of creation. As Psalm 107 says in verses 23-26, “They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; These see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep.”
I have only touched on a couple of aspects of this elemental and compelling story. Beowulf deserves its place in the annals of the heroic epic and its assignation as the first English literature text. This fascinating adventure and its intriguing hero, with his strengths and weaknesses, lays the foundation for English literature and gives insight into the Anglo-Saxon roots of the British cultural experience.
It’s odd for us to consider now, but until the 19th century the novel was considered by most to be a creation which was, at the very least, a waste of one’s time, and by many, an evil invention. The reasoning behind this aversion to fiction was that because the stories did not really occur, they were a form of “lying.” It is likely that this mindset arose from the attitudes of our more extreme Puritan forefathers; this view was most likely further confirmed by some of the rather scandalous early novels published pre-19th century.
Whatever the reason or reasons, it took the genius of the Victorian novelists to give the world the epiphany that a well crafted novel is truth with a capital “T.” Like the rich metaphorical literature of The Old Testament, the parables of Jesus, allegories such as Pilgrim’s Progress, and the symbolic nature of poetry, novels reveal truths to us about the world, human nature, and ultimately, ourselves, in fresh new ways which connect with the soul and spirit through “real” story. So thank you Charles Dickens, The Brontës, George Eliot, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mary Shelley, Elizabeth Gaskell, Joseph Conrad, Wilkie Collins, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Twain, and the many, many others who broke through the veil and brought us the gift of the novel.
The recent upsurge in recycling has inspired a creative new art form: book arches. My son-in-law crafted the first book arch at Sandman Books in Punta Gorda, FL (owned by my daughter Heidi and son-in-law Scott). The original version of his arch represented a Roman aqueduct. Soon after Scott completed the project, other bibliophiles followed suit, including those at The Last Bookstore in L.A., another iconic bookstore.
It took Scott a month of 9-10 hour days to create the sculpture, and I happened to be visiting during the first two weeks of the project. My youngest daughter Harmony and I spent hours bringing him cart-loads of books which had previously been destined for destruction. These rescued tomes were installed on a plywood frame, and using tools such as an air compressor and staple gun, my ingenious son-in-law pioneered a new artistic genre.
When Sandman Books expanded a couple of years ago Scott moved the arch, taking the opportunity to enhance the piece, including lighting it with a favorite old 16mm movie projector given to him by my father. Hanging nearby is Scott’s newest piece: a “book dragon” suspended from the ceiling with chains. These multi-media creations function as a popular backdrop for visitors’ selfies and special events such as author signings, engagement photos, weddings, story times, poetry readings, and history talks.
Many artists today choose to work in mixed media, including 3-D mosaics made of antique china, crystal, jewelry, and other salvaged materials. Now added to the list: books!
The first novel, Robinson Crusoe, written by Daniel Defoe in Britain, was published in 1719 and next to the Bible is the most published book in history. It was inspired by the life of a Scottish man, Alexander Selkirk, an officer in the British navy who was 
shipwrecked on an island in the South Pacific by his captain and survived there for about a year and a half before being rescued by pirates. (You can find a statue of him in Fife, Scotland.) He was incorrigible and probably did not have the redemptive experience which the fictional Robinson Crusoe has.
The novel is composed in the form of a journal wherein Crusoe recounts in detail how he survives and is converted to a holy Christian life through his reading of the copy of the Bible he has found in the shipwreck, and eventually meets his friend Friday. It seems to me that this revelatory tale of one man’s conversion to faith may be the template for the religious tradition which blossomed forth later on of the personal “testimony,” where church members (usually Protestant) stand up and confess the details of how they came to faith. As far as I know, this tradition is peculiarly British and American, which is why I ponder this possibility. The novel is also rife with allusions to biblical stories and topics, keeping continuity with the trajectory of previous English language works.
Robinson Crusoe shifted the trajectory for how a myriad of great authors would write. It affected the future of our cultural understanding of what it means to be an individual, and stands in line with the great Western works which have 
taken us from classical times when individuals and their stories were viewed primarily as a part of the group, a cog in the wheel of their culture, to a time when each person as seen as “a world in himself” to be investigated, understood, and affirmed.
While it is true that the story is rather long-winded, given the fact that Defoe was inventing an entirely “novel” genre of literature the book is astounding. The first person narrative by Robinson himself gives a personal tone to the story which works well in concert with the major theme of the work, which is that of Crusoe’s slow repentance from a corrupt life to that of a holy and prayerful Christian. The tale imagines what it would be like to be stranded with no distractions and nothing except a few items, completely alone with only oneself and God.
The highly personal nature of this first novel and its deep dive into the state of the protagonist’s soul set the stage for novels to follow: they would be stories about individuals, but these would reach beyond the particular characters, expanding the meaning of their experiences to exemplify 
instances of the universal themes of life and morality as worked out in the lives of people and the society surrounding them. Defoe’s choice of the “journal” as his vehicle for telling the tale also set the stage for what became known as the epistolary novel, which would consist of a series of either letters or journal entries, commonly interspersed with narration by the letter writer, or possibly, by another narrator who is telling that person’s story.
The possibilities are endless: a narrator might “discover” the letters of a person from another era in an old attic, or might by chance find the diary of a person whose story otherwise would not have been known, or known as it truly happened. A recent renaissance of the epistolary novel has included elements such as time travel, parallel worlds, and other innovative tropes. Thanks to the ingenious mind of Daniel Defoe the novel lives on, always new, rebirthed and reimagined by countless writers who entertain and inspire us with their innovative characters and stories.
Works Cited:
http://www.britannica.com
I’m sure you are aware of the classic American novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper 
Lee. What you may not yet know is that recently this important book has been banned in quite a few schools and school districts because, like Huckleberry Finn, it contains characters who use an extremely offensive racial epithet. But that’s not what this article is about: I want to talk about other aspects of the book that parents of younger students may not know about which make it inappropriate for younger students to study, no matter what your views on the banning of books.
Some home school programs, including online, require early middle school students to read this book: I know because I was required to teach it at this grade level. Over those years I developed the strong opinion that this book should not be taught until at the very youngest, the 9th grade. People think of the book as having the theme of the evils of 
racism, and while this is true, the plot revolves around the case of Tom Robinson, an African-American falsely accused of raping a white girl, and also includes a scene of an attempted lynching. While there are no directly graphic descriptions in the book (according to today’s standards), implications in the text about these incidents, especially during the courtroom scene, naturally pique students’ interest, causing them to want to know “more” about the repugnant details alluded to.
It’s possible that you’ve never read the book (somehow I got all the way through receiving a master’s degree without having done so), or perhaps if you did read it a long time ago, you don’t recall the details. It’s an important book–one of the most read American novels both here and throughout the world. Its nuanced yet honest 
consideration of the troubled history of the American South leaves the reader with a sense that there is hope that injustices of this society can be overcome through the goodness and the moral strength of brave individuals: As Atticus Finch says, “You never understand a person until you consider things from his point of view . . . until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.” It is, in the end, an affirming and redemptive novel, a gem of the American canon, but it should be assigned to younger students with a judicious eye.
I plan to write an another article about Harper Lee’s brilliant appropriation in the novel of the southern mockingbird as her symbol for innocents who suffer injustices. If you haven’t read the novel recently, you might be enriched by doing so. You gain something new every reading.
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus is a monster of a story. It incorporates the mores and tropes of the Romantic era in literature while pointing prophetically to the ethical scientific dilemmas of our own time. This much most of us know: In pride and a desire for importance, Dr. Frankenstein creates a nameless creature known only as “The Monster” out of the body parts of corpses, and through a vague sort of electrical process he animates the monster.
But unlike most 20th century movie portrayals, the original story is not a primitive horror film appealing to our base instinct of fear, but rather, a visionary and prophetic tale which imagines a horrific scenario in which man’s attempts to gain the powers of God result in the creation of a misshapen creature who retains the sensibilities and soul of a human being. Since all those he encounters find his visage viscerally repellent, The Monster cannot find happiness and satisfaction for the longings of his all-too-human soul. He aches for human companionship, including a wife and family, but those he meets reject him in 
both fear and disgust before he can reveal his compassionate, loving spirit to them.
So the story is both a psychological insight into a person who is rejected by society – an outsider – and a monolithic statement about the devastation which occurs when man tries to play God. As the plot progresses we trace The Monster through his agonies: he attempts many times to connect with others, but eventually the continuous rejection he experiences fosters a pain in his heart so great that his bitterness turns him towards hatred and a revenge so all-encompassing that The Monster becomes a murderer. He then seeks reparation from his creator for the very act of his creation, murdering Frankenstein’s best friend, his fiancé, and his brother when Frankenstein will not cooperate with his demand to create a wife/companion for him.
While Shelley did not foresee the specifics, she did accurately imagine the philosophies of the 20th and now 21st centuries, as many scientists now coldly glorify eugenics, create and destroy test tube babies, offer parents the choice of destroying unborn children because of their gender or perceived handicaps, and develop new life from harvested fetal cells. In short, she foresaw the philosophy of Hegel’s “Superman,” borne out first in the
Hitlerian Third Reich and in the policies of many “civilized” nations today. The fact that the full title of the first edition of her novel is Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus reveals the depth of her understanding of the ultimate consequences in a society which was already rejecting the spiritual and sacred meanings of what it means to be human. She did, indeed, predict the future.
The ancient desire for power – the power to be like the creator, and the ways in which it would be played out in our world today through misuse of the discoveries of the Enlightenment – is so mightily and uncannily portrayed in Frankenstein that it’s almost unbelievable. Shelley truly saw what would happen if we were to choose to believe that the material world is the seat of our being, replacing the beauty of the soul and the true sense of the creator’s natural order with a mythical “perfection” which cannot be attained in this world.
*Recommended: Kenneth Branagh’s 1994 movie, “Frankenstein,” which is faithful to the original story.
Cindy C. Lange, MA
Sherlock Holmes is perhaps the most curious character in all of literature. By curious I 
don’t mean strange, although he certainly is eccentric; I refer to his voracious appetite for understanding how humanity and the world interact with each other. He observes, induces, then deduces, putting all of the facts together in ways even today’s reader doesn’t “get” until he enlightens us. Like his biographer the dense Dr. Watson, we too wait to be enlightened by the Master about the enigmatic mysteries the great detective investigates.
Although it has been 130 years since his creation, and though the detective mystery genre is overrun with popular stories featuring their lovable or quirky detectives, Holmes remains the king. Why? While we might not actually enjoy knowing him personally, his pure ability to reason, to sort out truth from falsehood and genuine clues from red herrings, remains the pinnacle of the art form. If “imitation is the highest form of flattery,” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle must be the most admired author of all time: not only has the genre bloomed since the creation of Holmes, but Holmes himself has 
been remade in story, tv, and movies.
Why? In spite of his calculating and rather cold personality, Holmes’s brilliance is what most of us wish our own intelligence to be. We don’t want to only be a logic machine: instead, Doyle somehow has us imagine incorporating Holmes’s gifts into our own personalities. This is the genius of the creation of Sherlock Holmes.
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