Literature

Literature involves reading and analyzing novels, short stories, plays, and poetry. Literature is a crucial academic subject for many reasons. Stories supplement history in helping the student understand human nature. They teach values inductively and can be highly motivational. Studying literature enhances language and thinking skills, and it trains students both in concretizing abstractions and in integrating concretes into abstractions. Literature is the conceptual form of art, and an important function of an artist is to translate an abstract idea into something perceptual. Just as a sculptor might concretize the abstract idea of "courage" by means of a statue of a man exhibiting courage, a novelist might concretize the same abstract idea by means of words describing characters and their actions.

Many of stories selected for analysis are classified as historical fiction. To provide maximum opportunity for integration, a story of a particular period of history can be studied when the same period is covered in history. For example, the novel Dar and the Spear-Thrower can be studied during the pre-civilization part of history, while Greek myths and Homer could be studied during the Ancient Greece section of history. The discussion below deals with analyzing novels, but the same basic approach will be applied to plays and short stories.

There are four basic attributes of a novel: Theme--Plot--Characterization--Style. In analyzing a novel we focus primarily on the first three; style is beyond our scope although some reference will occasionally be made to the style.

The first task in analyzing a novel is to summarize the plot in terms of essentials. The plot summary is used later to help identify the plot-theme, theme, and characterization. A plot summary is a condensation of the plot in terms of essentials. It allows the student to hold onto the essence of the story while analyzing it. Also, it trains the student to condense writings and to think in essentials.

Another task is to summarize the main characters. In a good novel, the character traits are established primarily by the actions and words of the character. The student will identify the essence of each main character by their actions and words. Conflicts are essential to a good story. Conflicts lead to struggle which dramatizes values, goals and choices. The student will be required to describe all the main conflicts of the novel, both external (i.e., between people) and internal (i.e., within a person). Internal conflicts are essential to a good story because they dramatize a character’s struggle and choices, which reveal the character’s deeper values.

In addition to concretizing the main theme, a novel typically concretizes many subthemes. For example, the main theme of a novel might be "integrity," but the novel might concretize subthemes such as "friendship" or "courage." Analyzing subthemes and integrating them to one's own experience is very educational and can help the student identify the main theme.

An important goal in having students analyze novels is to train the student in making logical connections, such as between elements within a novel, between different novels, between the novel and history, and between the novel and the student’s experience.

The exercises discussed so far are to be performed chapter by chapter. After reading the novel, the student will use the above ingredients to identify the novel's theme and plot-theme. The theme of the novel is the summation of a novel's abstract meaning. It's the abstract idea that the novel concretizes. The plot-theme, according to Ayn Rand, is "the central conflict or situation of a story--a conflict in terms of action, corresponding to the theme and complex enough to create a purposeful progression of events." The plot-theme is stated in a single sentence and serves as the writer's primary guide in constructing the plot.

In essence, the student will be completing what Ayn Rand called a "circle." The author begins with an abstraction, and then creates the concretes which add up to that abstraction. The student reverses this process by perceiving the concretes and then adding them up to the author's original abstraction.

Good novels are great sources for enhancing other skills such as grammar, vocabulary, and writing. In addition to the exercises designed to help analyze the novel, exercises will be given to enhance these skills using excerpts from the novel. In this way, as much value as possible is extracted from the novel.

A crucially important learning device is "contrast." To clearly understand an idea, a character trait, or what makes a piece of writing good writing, one contrasts it with other similar things. Contrast brings out what's distinct about a thing. For example, to grasp the essential difference between two characters who are similar in many ways, one should carefully contrast them with each other. Likewise, to grasp why a particular piece of writing is good, one should contrast it with writing that is not so good.

The student will be given several short stories that differ in terms of, say, characterization, where one of the stories has poor characterization. The student will be asked to compare the stories and identify similarities and differences. In this way the student will inductively grasp what characterization is and what constitutes good and bad characterization. The same approach will be used for plot, drama, sub-themes, theme and style.

Poetry is quite different than the other forms of literature in that a poem doesn't have to tell a story. Its basic attributes are theme and style. Students would be reading and analyzing good poetry using the same basic approach. They will condense what the poem is saying and identify the theme. They will also contrast different poems to highlight the style. Finally, students would be asked to memorize favorite poems and recite them in front of others, as a good introduction to public speaking.