Requirements for the Literature Major and Minor

English Language and Literature

In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do.

C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism Great literature, of which C. S. Lewis speaks, is the gateway to that vast range of human experience which can be expressed and shared with a countless multitude only by means of verbal language transfigured by the moral imagination. Great literature allows the serious reader to enter into the very heart and mind of man, wherein the perennial conflict between good and evil is waged.

The study of literature and language, as uniquely human, is central to a balanced liberal arts curriculum. It should, indeed, train the student to express himself coherently and read critically. But it is also a gateway to the great achievements of the human imagination throughout the ages. It is the purpose of our Department of English Language and Literature to lead the student on that spiritual, intellectual, and aesthetic journey in pursuit of the human heart and soul which is the essence of literary study. As Ezra Pound wrote, “Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree,” and the student of great literature may thus become aware, perhaps for the first time, of the power of language to convey a wide range of human and transcendent truths.

The Christendom student of literature enters into the great conversation with the best practitioners of the literary art, who have also been the “seers” (cf. L. vates) of our civilization. The student learns to see through the eyes of the literary artist both the concrete reality of human life and the ultimate reality of human destiny. The great conversation with some of the best minds of the Western world, which literary study entails, is made all the more fruitful when engaged within the context of the certainties of the Catholic Faith. Thus we are not at sea with a multitude of options; we are secure in the Bark of Peter as the glory and misery of God’s image in this world spreads before us in masterworks of literature.

At Christendom the study of literature does not take place in a vacuum. During the first four semesters, the Literature of Western Civilization core curriculum runs parallel with the History of Western Civilization core, in which each discipline is mutually informed and illumined by the other, as well as by Thomistic philosophy and theology and the study of languages. By writing essays and research papers in the context of analyzing and appreciating major works of imaginative literature, the student develops the skills required for composition and critical reading. These skills are learned through close reading of classic texts and guidance in literary criticism. The Literature Department does not employ large anthologies, in which small fragments of texts are quickly scanned; students are expected to read and master complete works.

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