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American Literature for Christian Schools
Book by Na
731 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1990
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May 10, 2017No doubt the best article was the last one... "Freedom: Our Most Precious National Treasure" by James B. Stockdale. <3 <3
*walks away whistling happy because I'm done with high school literature FOREVER*
*walks away whistling happy because I'm done with high school literature FOREVER*
November 20, 2023
When my wife and I were homeschooling our daughters, I wanted to find an affordable American Literature textbook written from a Christian perspective. Sadly, these aren't very numerous; this one was what I picked from a limited field. I'd have liked to award it more stars, and maybe it deserved a third one; we used it successfully (with a lot of supplementation), I actually learned some facts from it, and it does have its strong points. It does, however, have significant weaknesses.
The weakest portion are the historical overviews that introduce the four major divisions: Early American Literature, American Romanticism, American Realism and Naturalism, and Modern American Literature. Some of these are general failings that are common to most textbooks in the field, both secular and Christian; for instance, there is no attention to the crucial relationship between the production of creative literature and the existence of a flourishing book trade (the latter depending on economic and social conditions that grew gradually, and unevenly, in America). Other problems derive from the author's own perspective. He does make an attempt to relate political, economic and socio-cultural developments to literature, which I think is important; but he tends to do so in what I think is a superficial way, and particularly to force his narrative into a schema of steady decline from a Christian Golden Age, which, IMO, the facts will not support. There is no discussion of the superficial nature of much of the "Christianity" of the early period, where church membership was a status people were typically born into along with their birth into the political community that particular State churches identified with; very little mention of slavery and none of the Indian wars; and no full analysis of the effects of the steadily increasing concentration of both political and economic power since the Civil War. Calvinism is defined in connection with the Puritans, but its role is downplayed and the intense controversies surrounding it through the 1800s are ignored (obviously to keep peace in a divided constituency of textbook customers). St. John also expresses an anti-Catholic bias, in keeping with his Fundamentalist (BJU's own preferred self-description) stance. (In contrast, the early 20th-century Fundamentalist movement is glorified without qualification.)
Another weakness is the treatment of individual authors (in both the overviews, and individual bio-critical introductions to featured writers), and sometimes the choice of writers or works to include in the representative literature selections --which, as in any literature textbook, forms the bulk of the book. There is a tendency to disparage not only non-Christian, but non-Fundamentalist authors, often unfairly and inconsistently. Poe, for instance, is attacked for "his preoccupation with the morbid side of man's nature," while Jewett is faulted for not reflecting "the reality of sin and guilt." St. John's attacks on Sheldon's In His Steps and Lloyd Douglas' The Robe (both of which I've read) are completely inaccurate and appear to be premised on the idea --which was clearly not thought through-- that no true Christian could possibly believe that his/her faith has any social consequences. Hawthorne's Christianity is ignored (even though his "The Celestial Railroad" is an included selection!) and he is classed as a Transcendentalist, which would be funny if this wasn't a textbook for impressionable high schoolers; the author also appears to deny W. H. Auden's Christian conversion. (More examples could be adduced.)
For the colonial period, many examples of utilitarian writing (history, diaries, sermons) are reproduced to make up for the paucity of actual literature in that era --a failing common to other textbooks as well-- but a number of colonial era poets who could have been included are not. Another failing shared with other texts is the use of excerpts from book length works, which would be akin to presenting a picture of Mona Lisa's chin and lower lip as an "example" of da Vinci's art. (Most of these I did not read.) This is perhaps justifiable for writers like Cooper, who didn't write any short fiction; but hardly for writers like Henry James. It's even less justifiable to cut up and present only portions of essays, instead of a complete one, as is done with Emerson. (Nor should Hamlin Garland's "The Return of a Private" have been bowdlerized by the excision of a passage showing the use of a folk method of "scrying.") The decision to chop Hemingway's "Big Two-Hearted River" in two (and then to include only Part II, not Part I) could certainly be questioned. Some major writers are not featured at all, including Faulkner, Steinbeck, and Dos Passos, and while Shirley Jackson's "Charles" highlights an often ignored aspect of her corpus, "The Lottery" would have been a better selection. Writings after 1960 are weakly represented; and women and blacks are underrepresented (and their emergence and flowering in literature not discussed), though not entirely absent --nine women are profiled, including Phillis Wheatley, as is James Weldon Johnson. (One of these women, Fanny Crosby, really belongs to the history of American hymnody, which isn't the same thing as poetry.) Other minorities are entirely absent, however.
All of this said, however, the book does have its positive features. St. John's criticisms of Deism, Transcendentalism, Darwinism, etc. are generally right on the money (though not making the connection of many of these movements to economic interests that wanted "liberation" from religious restraints); and he provides, in the main, a very good introduction to the Romantic school. Surprisingly, his discussion questions are uniformly very insightful, bringing out both what a writer says and an appreciation of the subtleties of how it's said. A number of the featured writers are poets, and the volume does include quite a treasure trove of fine poetry, ranging from Anne Bradstreet to E. E. Cummings. Some of the other selections are quite good as well; Thornton Wilder's one-act play "The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden," for instance, is an excellent example of his drama, and neglected writers like Archibald Rutledge and James Saxon Childers are happy inclusions. Science fiction, usually invisible in literary textbooks, gets its due with Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains."
Given the limitations of what's out there, this is an adequate textbook for high school courses, if it's critiqued in class and supplemented with other material. But a really good Christian textbook in the field remains to be written --a challenge for the Christian academic world!
The weakest portion are the historical overviews that introduce the four major divisions: Early American Literature, American Romanticism, American Realism and Naturalism, and Modern American Literature. Some of these are general failings that are common to most textbooks in the field, both secular and Christian; for instance, there is no attention to the crucial relationship between the production of creative literature and the existence of a flourishing book trade (the latter depending on economic and social conditions that grew gradually, and unevenly, in America). Other problems derive from the author's own perspective. He does make an attempt to relate political, economic and socio-cultural developments to literature, which I think is important; but he tends to do so in what I think is a superficial way, and particularly to force his narrative into a schema of steady decline from a Christian Golden Age, which, IMO, the facts will not support. There is no discussion of the superficial nature of much of the "Christianity" of the early period, where church membership was a status people were typically born into along with their birth into the political community that particular State churches identified with; very little mention of slavery and none of the Indian wars; and no full analysis of the effects of the steadily increasing concentration of both political and economic power since the Civil War. Calvinism is defined in connection with the Puritans, but its role is downplayed and the intense controversies surrounding it through the 1800s are ignored (obviously to keep peace in a divided constituency of textbook customers). St. John also expresses an anti-Catholic bias, in keeping with his Fundamentalist (BJU's own preferred self-description) stance. (In contrast, the early 20th-century Fundamentalist movement is glorified without qualification.)
Another weakness is the treatment of individual authors (in both the overviews, and individual bio-critical introductions to featured writers), and sometimes the choice of writers or works to include in the representative literature selections --which, as in any literature textbook, forms the bulk of the book. There is a tendency to disparage not only non-Christian, but non-Fundamentalist authors, often unfairly and inconsistently. Poe, for instance, is attacked for "his preoccupation with the morbid side of man's nature," while Jewett is faulted for not reflecting "the reality of sin and guilt." St. John's attacks on Sheldon's In His Steps and Lloyd Douglas' The Robe (both of which I've read) are completely inaccurate and appear to be premised on the idea --which was clearly not thought through-- that no true Christian could possibly believe that his/her faith has any social consequences. Hawthorne's Christianity is ignored (even though his "The Celestial Railroad" is an included selection!) and he is classed as a Transcendentalist, which would be funny if this wasn't a textbook for impressionable high schoolers; the author also appears to deny W. H. Auden's Christian conversion. (More examples could be adduced.)
For the colonial period, many examples of utilitarian writing (history, diaries, sermons) are reproduced to make up for the paucity of actual literature in that era --a failing common to other textbooks as well-- but a number of colonial era poets who could have been included are not. Another failing shared with other texts is the use of excerpts from book length works, which would be akin to presenting a picture of Mona Lisa's chin and lower lip as an "example" of da Vinci's art. (Most of these I did not read.) This is perhaps justifiable for writers like Cooper, who didn't write any short fiction; but hardly for writers like Henry James. It's even less justifiable to cut up and present only portions of essays, instead of a complete one, as is done with Emerson. (Nor should Hamlin Garland's "The Return of a Private" have been bowdlerized by the excision of a passage showing the use of a folk method of "scrying.") The decision to chop Hemingway's "Big Two-Hearted River" in two (and then to include only Part II, not Part I) could certainly be questioned. Some major writers are not featured at all, including Faulkner, Steinbeck, and Dos Passos, and while Shirley Jackson's "Charles" highlights an often ignored aspect of her corpus, "The Lottery" would have been a better selection. Writings after 1960 are weakly represented; and women and blacks are underrepresented (and their emergence and flowering in literature not discussed), though not entirely absent --nine women are profiled, including Phillis Wheatley, as is James Weldon Johnson. (One of these women, Fanny Crosby, really belongs to the history of American hymnody, which isn't the same thing as poetry.) Other minorities are entirely absent, however.
All of this said, however, the book does have its positive features. St. John's criticisms of Deism, Transcendentalism, Darwinism, etc. are generally right on the money (though not making the connection of many of these movements to economic interests that wanted "liberation" from religious restraints); and he provides, in the main, a very good introduction to the Romantic school. Surprisingly, his discussion questions are uniformly very insightful, bringing out both what a writer says and an appreciation of the subtleties of how it's said. A number of the featured writers are poets, and the volume does include quite a treasure trove of fine poetry, ranging from Anne Bradstreet to E. E. Cummings. Some of the other selections are quite good as well; Thornton Wilder's one-act play "The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden," for instance, is an excellent example of his drama, and neglected writers like Archibald Rutledge and James Saxon Childers are happy inclusions. Science fiction, usually invisible in literary textbooks, gets its due with Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains."
Given the limitations of what's out there, this is an adequate textbook for high school courses, if it's critiqued in class and supplemented with other material. But a really good Christian textbook in the field remains to be written --a challenge for the Christian academic world!
February 23, 2016
Used this textbook at Northside Christian School (2007-08, 2008-09).
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews