Moving on in time to the colonists the students are
introduced to the next generations of Americans, the men who shaped
our foundational documents with a worldview different from their
grandparents. These men, in rebellion and in arrogance, rejected
the established theism of the previous 1700 years for an impersonal
deistic belief. They rejected the pleas of Jonathan Edwards
for the drifters to return to God as a personal father and embraced
the clockwork universe model, deism.
But the American experiment had been a success.
The intellectual Puritans (almost all had graduated from
Oxford or Cambridge), had survived against all
odds. Their combined spiritual
genius lay in the fact that they were men of prayer.
Theology was not an academic exercise for them, it was
the practical application of biblical truth.
Their success bred confidence in their children and the
pioneer spirit was continued.
Men discontinued teaching Greek and Hebrew to their
children, as many of the Puritans had, and began looking to Europe for ideas and
education. The government that would
emerge would be a democracy not a theocracy.
Fueled by writings like Rutherford’s Lex Rex, the British colonists weakened in their loyalty and
challenged the divine right of kings.
Growing discontent over failed promises, taxation without
representation, and broken charters, led thinkers like Thomas Paine to suggest Common Sense measures, and the War for Independence was looming in the near
future.
Students in my classes range from logic to rhetoric
stages in their education. Both stages
are able to comprehend the importance of the slide from theism to deism. With an emphasis on worldview, the students
are encouraged to read selections from their forefathers in the light of
biblical truth. While a public
institution will emphasize ‘revolution,’ my class will emphasize
‘independence.’ Contrary to the secular
practice of comparing the French and American revolutions, my class will
contrast them. The worldview of the instructor
makes all the difference. The students
will read the Declaration and the Constitution with some Christian
commentary and vocabulary help.
Enlightenment thinkers like Benjamin Franklin decided to choose their
own morality. In his Autobiography, Franklin names his chosen virtues,
selected to assist him in his quest for “moral perfection.” Virtue number 13 is “Humility: Imitate Jesus
and Socrates.” Thus, the Puritan gave way to the Yankee and the age of Common
Sense.
What a light has burst over Europe
within the last few years! It first
illuminated all the princes of the north; it has even come into the
universities. It is the light of common
sense!
Voltaire,
Pensees of M. Pascal
The seeds of romanticism, which would destroy much
of the Judeo-Christian culture of America over the next 200 years,
were sown.
The Hebrew concept of individual worth and
responsibility, the worldview of great thinkers like John Calvin and Martin
Luther, the worldview of the Puritans, would give way completely under the
influence of the English romantics, the followers of Wordsworth and
Coleridge. In my ministry to the next
generation of thinkers I place import on the changes taking place in the minds
of the authors we study and the way they represent their culture.
The next step in the American Literature course is
to represent romanticism
clearly. Our culture is so steeped in it
that it has become a large part of our culture, the norm. Most teens do not understand it, let alone
recognize it. Most of the parents of my
students do not recognize it. They may
realize some aspects of our culture offend their Christian sensibilities, but
they cannot verbally express the reason, why? My worldview compels me to open their eyes to
the dangers of romantic thinking. These
are my most popular lectures and I invite the parents to attend.
Logic and common sense had been the impetus for
revolution in France and independence in America. Theistic concepts and traditions had faded
with each successive generation. Neo-classicism
had lost its appeal. The Enlightenment,
glorifying in human reason, was fading.
Now, with the industrial revolution, a new sympathy for the poor was
aroused. The English notions of
romanticism made their way across the sea into the open, seeking minds of the
Americans. The War for Independence had bred assuredness and
fed the pioneer spirit. Individualism is
of supreme import:
I am commencing an undertaking,
hitherto without precedent, and which will never find an imitator. I desire to set before my fellow-men the
likeness of a man in all the truth of nature, and that man is myself. Myself alone!
I know the feelings of my heart, and I know men. I am not made like any of those I have seen;
I venture to believe that I am not made like any of those who are in existence. Confessions, by Rouseau
The revolution
of the hierarchy conception now takes place.
Critical to my presentation of the romantic revolution of 1798-1832
is William Wordsworth, the famous English romantic poet. Wordsworth declared poetry to be a “mirror
held up to Nature,” a big step away from the conception of God as Creator and
Earth as the Creation. The accepted
concept of all art, music, and literature reflecting some part of God’s
character, to honor Him and glorify Him, is casually tossed aside. God’s character is logical and regular, wise,
patient, loving, and consistent. The
romantics reject all of this and embrace irregular forms of literary
expression, dissonant musical themes, and erratic artistic expression. Science had gained the trust of Man during
the advancement of the Enlightenment.
That trust is now placed in sociology, the study of human society apart
from God; in Anthropology, a way to explain Man’s existence apart from God; and
in Psychology, the study of the human mind.
Representative works from American authors are critical to the student’s
overall understanding of the individual concepts.
The Concepts of Romanticism, as I teach them, are as
follows:
The Green Concept, Mother Nature fills the place
of God. In Genesis, Adam is given
dominion over the earth, to rule over it and to subdue it (Gen.1:28). In romanticism, men are worshipping the
Creation, communing with it, instead of the Creator (Rom.1:25). Pantheism.
Needs of the earth have dominion over the needs of the humans. Save the whales, dolphins, and spotted owls –
kill the unborn children. “Nature never
did betray the heart that loved her” “thou doleful Mother of Mankind”(Wm.
Wordsworth). Representative authors
include Emerson, Thoreau, and Bryant.
The Noble Savage, the antihero who breaks
all the rules. A dionysian rebel
replaces the calm, apollonian-type hero.
Sherlock Holmes is replaced by Indiana Jones. Perry Mason is replaced by McIver, a hero who
breaks all the rules and still wins.
Representative authors include James Fennimore Cooper, Longfellow, and
Herman Melville.
Innocence replaces wisdom. Youth is all you can trust. Never trust anyone over 30! Blame the older generation for life’s
problems (2 Chron. 10:8, Prov. 15:22). We see this today in all
forms of media. The typical Disney hero
is a young teen surrounded by inept, stupid adults.
Sensibility, follow your heart, it will never
lie. The romantics placed special emphasis on the
emotions and the heart, on intuition and instinct (Jer. 17:9, Mark 7:21). “O for a life of
sensations rather than of thoughts,” wrote John Keats. William Blake admonished us to, “bathe in the
waters of life.” “Beauty is truth, truth
beauty, that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know” (Keats). Unbridled emotion was celebrated regardless
of the consequences.
The joy, the triumph, the delight,
the madness!
The boundless, overflowing,
bursting gladness,
The vaporous exultation not to be
confined!
Ha! Ha! The animation of delight
Which wraps me, like an atmosphere
of light,
And bears me as a cloud is borne by
its own wind.
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound, IV: 319-324
Subjectivity replaces objectivity. Morality becomes relative, values clarification
is practiced on school children, stress is placed on diversity and tolerance as
individuals find their own relative or subjective truth. Absolutes are denied credibility.
Revolution of all propriety. A rejection of all religious beliefs leads to
the acceptance of the absurd. Without
absolutes or universal law for guidance, men turn to themselves for
direction.
Occult fantasies replace the clockwork
universe. Plots, themes, and characters are developed
that are outside of the scope of normal possibilities. Frankenstien, Dracula, Dr. Jekyl and Mr.
Hyde. Representative authors include
Poe, Hawthorne, Irving, and Henry James.
Imagination replaces reality. Fantasy, Captain Hook, Peter Pan, and Wendy,
imagination becomes reality. ‘Was it a
dream or was it real?’ movies and novels.
Princess Bride.
From the romantic revolution until present day, is a
depressing downhill slide in most of literature. The Civil War, and World War I, each left the
nation reeling in a downward spiral. The
nation’s literature reflects this trend with calm alacrity. The romantic concepts progress in intensity
until we reach our present postmodern culture.
A free press and the addition of inexpensive
magazines to our nation’s printed resources spread ideas easily and quickly to
the masses. Philosophers and theologians
were no longer the only men engaging in the deeper questions of life: poets and
writers of novels were changing the way people thought. Truth and beauty were seen to emanate from
the human heart. As Shelley wrote in
1821, poets are the “unacknowledged legislators of the world.” It was now a fully human world that had
turned its back on its Creator.
Romanticism is not able to fulfill, and the wars
turn optimism into a growing cynicism in literary America. The focus is now entirely void of any
theistic remnants due to the stark reality of the post-war conditions. In 1860, most Americans lived on farms or in
small villages, but by 1919 half of the population was concentrated in 12 major
cities across the continent. Our little
debtor nation had become a strong economic force, by 1914 the world’s
wealthiest and a major world power. Realism, a strong force in literature,
grows to dominance with Samuel Clemens, Henry James, and John Steinbeck. Realism paints the stark reality of bare life
without God, without hope of any redemption. Some realist authors, like Mark
Twain, painted pictures of real situations, but with survivors. Strong characters who survived against all
odds.
When taught from a secular point of view, or with a
few Bible verses thrown in, authors and their works stand as individual
subjects. When viewed through a biblical
worldview they represent part of the big picture of mankind and his relationship
with his Creator. My object is to
continually draw the big picture for my students. The realists represent the unregenerate man
and woman. Life is short: then you
die. To really understand Huckleberry
Finn, you must read an essay by Twain on God.
To teach literature in little bits and pieces is to miss the entire
point. To glorify God, the literature
has to be studied in a way that reveals man in all his glory or shame
honestly. The student should be able to
walk away with skills of discernment, the skill to see things for what they really
are. He or she should be able to place
their own template of worldview onto a newspaper or magazine article and
analyze it accordingly.
From Realism it was a natural progression to Naturalism. The social
Darwinism of the Civil War era had a profound impact on theology and
science. The influence of Freud, Marx,
and Nietzsche cannot be overestimated.
Students should be introduced to the film, Inherit the Wind, and read commentary such as Christian History’s
issue # 55, The Monkey Trial. With innate human depravity denied, with a
focus on experience, authors like Stephen Crane, Jack London and Ernest
Hemingway wrote with a frank amoral attitude towards life. Their philosophy of pessimism and determinism, utilizing strong
characters with animalistic or neurotic natures, took their worldview to every
10 year-old boy who ever read a copy of, The
Call of the Wild, or The Red
Badge of Courage. Balancing literary
studies with selections from non-naturalistic authors, such as Stowe, O Henry,
and Pearl S. Buck makes the reading more palatable to the young mind. My class never balks at difficult assignments
but they do cringe at some of the stories and novels they must read.
Modernism includes the realist and
naturalist writers, becoming a hodge-podge of fragmented works, “these fragments I have shorn against my ruin.” Cubism is the same concept in a visual
form. Gertrude Stein coined the phrase,
“the Lost Generation” to describe these authors. For the modernist, there was no one absolute
reality. Reality and truth were
personal, morality was relative, and it was individual and therefore
subjective. As a general rule, modernism
was less concerned with reality than with how the artists or writer could
transform reality. In this way, the
artist made his own reality. Whereas the
average man of the 19th century valued reason, hard work, thrift,
organization, faith, norms and values; the bizarre, the mysterious, the
primitive and the formless fascinated the modernist. The modernist fashioned a world shaped by the
Irrational. In this way, the modernist
artist and writer reflected the positions of Nietzsche and Freud: the
underlying theme of modernism being anti-tradition.
Endless invention, endless
experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not
of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of
silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance
of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer
to death,
Buy nearness to death no nearer to
God.
Where is the Life we have lost in
living?
Where is the knowledge we have lost
in information? The Rock, by T.S. Eliot
In the ancient and medieval conceptions divine
intervention in everyday events and miracles were accepted without
question. In the modern world there is a
cynical derision and predisposition to unbelief that dismisses even the very
real evidences of divine presence or purpose.
Modern man, liberated from his Creator, has become self-focused,
self-indulgent and self-sufficient.
What is literature but an insider's
newsletter about affairs relating to molecules, of no importance to anything in
the Universe but a few molecules who have the disease called 'thought'.
from Bluebeard, by Kurt Vonnegut
Representative authors include Ezra Pound, Poe,
Shelley. e.e.cummings, Wm. Carlos Williams, and J. D. Salinger. Poets like Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg
balance the study.
The symptoms of postmodernism
in literature are an excessive political correctness, permissiveness, extremes
in tolerance, overemphasis on ethnicity, fabricated history, and a denigration
of reason. Romanticism is Christian
principles inside out. Postmodernism is
romanticism which has destroyed itself, standing firmly on existentialism.
Works are even more fragmented,
presenting a social picture of our times.
Beat Generation authors Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac paint the
picture well in Kerouac’s On the Road.
Any attempt to label an entire
generation is unrewarding, and yet the generation which went through the last
war, or at least could get a drink easily once it was over, seems to possess a
uniform, general quality which demands an adjective ... The origins of the word
'beat' are obscure, but the meaning is only too clear to most Americans. More
than mere weariness, it implies the feeling of having been used, of being raw.
It involves a sort of nakedness of mind, and, ultimately, of soul; a feeling of
being reduced to the bedrock of consciousness. . . How to live becomes more
crucial than why. . . unlike the Lost
Generation, which was occupied with the loss of faith, the Beat Generation is
becoming more and more occupied with the need for it. As such, it is a
disturbing illustration of Voltaire's reliable old joke: 'If there were no God,
it would be necessary to invent him.' . . . For invented gods invariably
disappoint those who worship them. Only the need for them goes on, and it is
this need, exhausting one object after another, which projects the Beat
Generation forward into the future and will one day deprive it of its beatness.
. . its ever-increasing conviction that the problem of modern life is
essentially a spiritual problem.
This is the Beat Generation, The New
York Times Magazine, Nov. 16, 1952
J.D.Salinger
and Joseph Heller capture the irony and hypocrisy of our world in Catcher in the Rye, and Catch 22. My students will read selections from these
works and a few short stories, plus some poetry from Kurt Vonnegut Jr, and
lyrics to several angst songs by Offspring:
And even if we try
and not become so overwhelmed
And if we make some contribution to the plight we see
Still our descendents will inherit our mistakes of today
They'll suffer just the same as we and never wonder why lyrics
from, Not the One
In a secular
setting students will explore works from many world cultures to fight against
‘Eurocentric enculturation.’ In efforts
to be politically correct, the focus is on the reader, not the author. And anything feminist is politically correct. The traditional grammatical-historian method
of literary criticism has given way to deconstruction, freed from
‘logocentrism.’ “Logocentrists are the
ideologues, the cultureal imperialists who attempt to subjugate others to their
version of the truth.” Teaching from a Christian worldview I am free
to capitalize from the opposing viewpoint.
Over
the course of the last 200 years, romanticism has become pervasive throughout
our culture. It has become more and more
extreme, until it has reached the point of absurdity
in our postmodern world. G.K. Chesterton
calls it ‘Christian principles gone mad.’ The hierarchy was turned onto its
head, where it remains today. The earth
now has dominion over mankind. Plants and wildlife take precedence over the
needs of humans. All of morality and
absolute truth have become subjective.
Each of these themes, when taken to their extremes, constitute
absurdism, as demonstrated in The
Stranger, by Albert Camus, or Waiting
for Godot, by Samuel Beckett.
Although these authors are not American, I have chosen them because they
represent the theater of the absurd so succinctly. My students will listen to a brief oral
synopsis of these works, with sample selections in their syllabus. As the term implies, the absurd work seeks to
portray the feelings of loss, bewilderment, and purposelessness of the current
generation. The piece is successful if
it leaves the reader or audience with a general impression of disjointed,
meaningless dialogue, the very absurdity
of human nature, or, the human condition.
The students must be led to view this generation just so – lost and
without purpose. What better inducement
for eliciting an evangelical response than this? Who is better equipped to provide answers and
truth? My object is for my students to
experience vicariously the culture around them in its bleakest form so they
will be moved to make a difference.
