This weeks assignment is two-fold, it tackles both persuasive writing, and it starts you thinking about the larger assignment for The Educated Imagination.
Write an open letter to the Ministry of Education arguing persuasively that mythology should become part of the Secondary School English Curriculum.
Use both Frye's The Educated Imagination and the mythology package that I gave you as starting points. Secondary sources are most welcome, but must be cited.
Use at least three rhetorical devices to persuade your reader. There are three pages of rhetorical devices that comprised the last pages of your dialetical journal / literary devices handout.
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To Whom It May Concern:
As a grade 12 student of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, a school under a respected school board, I would like to plea the addition of a Mythology Course to the curriculum. The grade 12 English course is currently one of the strongest subjects of my entire highschool life. Students are learning about important works of literature such as Hamlet, Heart of Darkness, 1984 and Northrop Frye’s Educated Imagination. Undeniably, these works are the keys to opening the mysteries hidden in our contemporary society. But before a baby can walk, he must first learn how to crawl. The roots of these works are Mythology. Everything that students are thought right now are allusions of mythologies. Unfortunately, the study of mythology is not an option for students.
In order to completely understand the literature that students are trying to reading, we must be educated of its roots. A well-acclaimed Canadian critic by the name of Northrop Frye explains the importance of mythology in his essay The Educated Imagination. He mentions that, “We cant read the poem at all until we have placed the reference” (38). For instance, In Hamlet’s first soliloquy, “Hyperion to a satyr, so loving to my mother” (1.2.142), he compares his father to a Hyperion and his uncle to a satyr. The study of mythology becomes the foundation of Hamlet. If students do not know what a Hyperion or a satyr is, then the significance of this line will never be gained.
The two pillars that hold our western society are our Greco-Roman myths and our Judeo-Christian Beliefs. One of the pillars is already established in our current curriculum. But the Religion course does not suffice the knowledge needed to understand contemporary literature. Dr. Frye explains, “We cant read far in Paradise Lost, for example, without realizing not simply we need to know both the Bible and the Classical myths to follow it, but we also have to see the relation of the two mythologies to each other” (68).
The purpose of mythology is not only to know the reference of a literary work. Myths are man’s attempt to understand what they can’t understand. Just like reading a novel, readers do not necessarily have to focus on understanding the plot to grasp the story, but instead, readers must look for the theme. This also applies to mythologies. Dr. Frye states that, “Nobody cares about the historical Achilles, if there was one, but the mythical Achilles reflects a part of our won lives” (36). Readers have to focus on what the message of Achilles rather than Achilles himself.
Mythology is the backbone of literature. If literary works such as 1984, Heart of Darkness and Hamlet are the foundation of our society, then Mythology too is the backbone of our society. Joseph Campbell, author of Hero with a Thousand Faces quotes. "Read myths. They teach you that you can turn inward, and you begin to get the message of the symbols. Read other people's myths, not those of your own religion, because you tend to interpret your own religion in terms of facts -- but if you read the other ones, you begin to get the message." The absence of Mythology in our curriculum is theft of our right to fully exercise our freedom of learning.
Sincerely,
Marc Sison
References:
Northrop Frye. Educated Imagination
Joseph Campbell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell
William Shakespeare. Hamlet
Mythology Package
To Whom It May Concern
The grade 12 curriculums, does not give sufficient training in preparing us the students, for the world we face when we leave the protective environment of high school. The English Curriculum especially, could use enhancing, by teaching us how to use the literature we get exposed to, more applicably in our daily lives. In the past four years of high school, information has been drilled into us about Shakespeare, and other authors and plays, we have been taught on what conflicts the characters go through and the general plot of the novels and dramas, even though our teachers have tried to emphasize on the themes, the students never really understood the purpose of knowing what the theme is.
Even in learning Shakespeare, not much of the plays made a lot of sense since we did not have enough background information. For example, in the play Hamlet: The Prince of Denmark, Hamlet the character uses Hecubah in one of his lines, but not many students understand what that line means unless they know who Hecubah is. We just did not have the knowledge.
Now you may ask how do you give us enough background knowledge to understand the novels we read? Well it not really a question on how much, but what knowledge we get. It is not necessary to have a quantity of knowledge but to have the quality. In the case of literature it would have to be mythology since it is the root of all literature. Northrop Frye exemplifies this idea in his genius book The Educated Imagination. Dr. Frye also says that it is adequate to study the Bible as a work of literature if not for any other reason, to give us insight on what literature is, and what it’s uses are. As I have come to understand in the past month is that literature is mans attempt to imagine a society we would like to live in, but man cannot imagine a society he wants to live unless he knows a society he would not like to live in and this can only be done if mythology is taught.
Mythology by definition is a symbol to portray human experience and take physical form of the spiritual values human’s posses. Therefore mythology is a must. It is often also entertaining, and also gives great depth in our past, and how our ancestors tried to explain what is unexplainable, the only way to make the outside world connect to the world inside us.
This is why mythology should be an integral part in the English Curriculum, since we as students can stand against the current and realize the world we would like to live in.
Sincerely
Andrew Abraham
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