Why Homer

And why not

I attended a college prep high school. Entering students took a placement exam to allow the administration to put students in classes they considered appropriate to their talents. Students who scored high were tracked into Latin classes for their language study. Students with lower scores were assigned to Spanish.

I took two years of Latin and learned the rudiments of a language no one had spoken for fifteen hundred years. The knowledge I took away from the program has been of very little use since. I know a bit more about the derivation of a portion of English words. When I read “E pluribus unum” on the seal of the United States, I don’t have to have someone translate it for me. I would have been better off taking Spanish, which would have put me in conversation with a billion of my fellow living humans instead of a few hundred dead ones. But in the context of the thinking of that time, I wouldn’t have been part of the club of smart people who studied Latin.

I think about this when considering what should be taught to young people these days. A case is often made for a great-books approach. The case is made on a few grounds. Our students should read Homer because:

1. His works explore enduring questions of human existence.

True, but so do lots of other works of literature.

2. People in Western culture have been reading Homer for thousands of years. We situate our students in this long tradition.

True. But there are other cultures that have not been reading Homer. Students would benefit from learning what those cultures have to offer.

3. Reading Homer is hard, even in English. Students benefit from accomplishing hard things.

True. But learning the Bayes theorem in statistics is hard, too, and more useful.

4. There is value in a canon, a common body of knowledge and frame of reference. Homer is a good candidate for this.

Maybe a canon has value. But that value can be overrated and become a bogus badge of distinction, like studying Latin rather than Spanish.

An important reminder is in order. I’m speaking here of required courses. Students who want to pick up The Iliad on their own and read it should be free, even encouraged, to do so. They will get much out of the experience, including along the lines identified above.

But required courses entail opportunity costs. My Latin study prevented me from studying Spanish. Homer displaces other authors. The fact that Homer has been on the list for centuries is an argument against keeping him there. Human knowledge has expanded dramatically. So should the options available to today’s students.

At the least, Homer should have to compete for his spot on the list. Perhaps against Virgil, who had views on Greeks. “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes,” Virgil said.