Re: Gift and book suggestions?

Some of those sorts of "worth" were hardly subjective in their time --
some people had a pretty clear idea of the morals they wanted
communicated to students through literature at different times, so a
good bit of Ovid would be out but Milton would be in, and even some
accepted authors would be carefully edited for the anthologies.

Today, "moral worth" in literature is sometime defined by its ability to
appeal to the values of multiculturalism, so Toni Morrison is in while
Milton is out. Same thing back when Rhetoric was a specific subject --
specific texts would be selected on the basis not only of their message,
but on their ability to be used to teach students to translate from
Latin to English and then back again -- have to be pretty careful about
what text you select, or you might be teaching students bad Latin, or
trying to get them to translate too difficult a text.

In other words, these estimations of worth weren't/aren't really very
subjective. They're usually motivated by a specific political or moral
framework and the results are predictable even to outside observers.

I'm not advocating any of these specific estimations of worth, though,
just illustrating them.

Jim

Omlor@aol.com wrote:
>
> Ah, what fine people.
>
> Many thanks, Cecilia, for the offline suggestions.
>
> Thanks, also, Tim. And as my good friend Homer says after stopping a
> runaway monorail with a giant one, "Donuts... Is there nothing they
> can't do?"
>
> All the best,
>
> --John
>
> PS: Jim, all of those sorts of "worth" remain rather vague and
> subjective, but yes, one would have to reign in the context to have
> any sort of discussion that wasn't at cross-purposes. And, in the
> case that Scottie raises, my objections would simply be more
> ideological than aesthetic.
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Received on Sun Dec 14 16:06:25 2003