Using classical reception to develop students’ engagement with classical literature in translation by Shane Forde text to respond to it personally, but in a a ‘literary’ subject (i.e. English or a Motivation for the Study way supported by evidence. modern foreign language). Student A has an excellent facility for extemporisation While observing A-level students at my and contributes willingly and intelligently PP2 school, I noticed that their responses to class discussions but is less articulate in to classical texts largely consisted of the Classroom Context his written work. Student C, dissimilarly, is identification of stylistic tropes. The very reticent in discussions; however, this students could identify a text’s stylistic I made my year 12 Classical Civilisation reticence is more a sign of thoughtfulness features but they struggled to articulate class the subject of this study. Since the and intellectual fastidiousness than and develop their own personal reactions beginning of the current academic year, ignorance or ill-preparedness. Student A to the text. They had been well-trained in this class been working on the AS level mostly does not read classical texts this sort of ‘feature-spotting’ and module The World of the Hero which outside of class; Student C has read therefore their reading experience was requires the students to read abridged widely within classical literature and has narrowly mechanical rather than versions of classical epic. I took over the read the Odyssey in translation several genuinely exploratory. Every passage they class at the beginning of the second term times. Student B occupies a middle encountered was put through the same (January 2018) and read the remaining ground between the two, both in terms of analytical process with the unsurprising prescribed section of the Odyssey with her expressiveness and the extent of her result that every classical author ended up them. Over the course of the term the prior reading. sounding much the same. This seemed to students had acquired an excellent me to be fundamentally passive way of knowledge of the plot of the poem and engaging with literature. I was struck by could readily recall the sequence of events Muir’s contention that ‘the pupil should for each book. However, their Whole School Context not be a passive recipient in the study of interpretations of the characters often This study took place at an independent, literature’ (!974, p.515). Hence, I wanted tended to be simplistic and two- co-educational day and boarding school to devise a teaching strategy that would dimensional i.e. Odysseus is courageous; where, in 2017, 87% of the students enable my students to be more active in Penelope is faithful; the Suitors are evil. A achieved A* to C grades at A-level and the formulation of a personal response to consensus had developed in the class more than 34% of all results were at A* the text. whereby the elements of the poem that or A grade. On the one hand, I wanted the did not fit into these narrow categories students to develop a more sophisticated were overlooked. and nuanced appreciation of the ambiguities and ambivalences of the Literature Review poem. On the other, I did not wish the The Students students to merely regurgitate my Reader Response Theory interpretation of the poem or that of This study focuses on a top set class another scholar. I thought it important consisting of three pupils, each of whom One of the challenges of this research that each student feel sufficiently has a target grade of A. None of the project was to extend my students’ confident in their own reactions to the students study another classical subject or perception of what constitutes a valid The Journal of Classics Teaching 20 (39) p.14-23 © The Classical Association 2019. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and Downloaded14 from https://www.cambridge.org/corereproduction in any medium,. IP providedaddress: 170.106.33.42 the original ,work on 24 is Sep properly 2021 at 03:16:05cited. , subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2058631019000035 form of reading and interpretation. Two rather than reacting to the text in a reactions to literature as vital to literary theoretical approaches implicitly personal or individual way. interpreting the meaning of the text. dominated my students’ attitude to An alternative theoretical framework Murfin suggests that it ‘focuses on what reading: historicism and new criticism (the is found within so-called new criticism, texts do to - or in - the mind of the reader, latter is often known as ‘formalism’). which takes a strictly formalist approach rather than regarding a text as something Historicism is a style of literary to literature, arguing that it exists in a with properties exclusively its own’ (1991, criticism that attempts to locate the domain that transcends history. One of p.253). Furthermore, Tucker has argued meaning of a text in its context. A the chief proponents of this approach, that this approach involves students in ‘an historicist interpretation essentially treats Cleanth Brooks, argues that ‘form is active, not passive, encounter with the the text as a historical document. So, for meaning’ and that one should not appeal literature…[and] validates them as critical example, reading the Odyssey in a to information outside of the text to readers who are capable of determining historicist manner yields information on interpret the text (1951). New critics view meaning in texts’ (2000, p.199). Both the cultural practices of eighth-century the text as an autonomous, artistic Murfin and Tucker argue for what could Greece such as guest-friendship, ritual construction rather than as a historical be termed hermeneutics of ambiguity. sacrifice and slavery and can tell us how product. In other words, if the meaning of a the Greeks of Homer’s day lived in From this perspective a poem is text is latent and opaque until activated religious, civic and military terms. In this considered to be a formal verbal object anew by each successive reader, this mode, Kahane argues that ‘poetry is never whose meaning is construed through implies that students are free to make detached from its historical surroundings ‘close reading’. In other words, the text interpretive suggestions. The coherence and Homer’s poetry, which tells the story rather than its context is treated as rather than the correctness of the of heroes and war, standard topics of primary rather than secondary. Reading suggestions is what matters. Students who historical writing, must also be seen through the lens of new criticism involves read under the rubric of reader-response against the background of historical, identifying a text’s stylistic features. theory do not need to master a body of social and material contexts’ (2012, p.18). Brooks suggests that a literary text is a knowledge in order to read the text. Reading in this manner, my three Classical ‘pattern of resolutions and balances and Putting the case extremely, Harold Bloom Civilisation students frequently tried to harmonisations’ (1947, p.203) Under this has argued, ‘the individual self is the only find examples in the text of where the model, the students’ task becomes a method…for apprehending aesthetic Ancient Greek laws of xenia (‘guest- matter of acquiring the knowledge value’ (1994, p.23). As long as they can friendship’) were violated or upheld. This necessary to discern this unity. render their viewpoint in the form of a had become the dominant concern of Fundamental to the new critical approach coherent, internally consistent argument, their reading. Van Nortwick suggests that is the notion that a text has a unified the interpretation of the student is valid a historicist pedagogy inculcates in meaning. Tyson argues that a new critical and admissible. Woodruff and Griffin students a sensitivity to anachronism reading must, by definition, identify the argue that this method enhances the (1997, p.188). Similarly, Said argues that formal features of a text and describe direct engagement of students with the works of Homer are best interpreted how they contribute to its ‘organic unity literature (2017, p.113). Moreover, my as manifestations of historical reality and theme of universal significance’ A-level Classical Civilisation students, (2011, p.77). In other words, the student is (1998, p.448). Franzak has argued that the when unburdened by the strictures of reading Homer in order to find out about new critical focus on unity and resolution historicism or formalism, seemed more Homeric Greece. has resulted in the dissemination of the readily able to comment on the text and A consequence of this approach is notion that there is ‘a single correct way to offer even tendentious opinions, though that students need a substantial amount the text’ (2008, p. 331). In a diametric always supported by textual evidence. of historical knowledge in order to be contrast to the historicist approach, However, reader-response theory able to engage with the text in the first students practising new criticism must be does have a significant potential place. This historicist approach to the text able to analyse the text on a formal level shortcoming. As Johnston has argued ‘it erects a barrier between the student and without appealing to contextual can ensnare us in our own values, the the text. One may accept Finley’s thesis information. values of our culture, rather than giving that the Homeric poems are narratives Franzak argues that both of these us a perspective from which we can that describe a concrete, historical reality approaches have been profoundly examine and criticize these values’ (2000).