The video series Great Authors of the Western Literary Tradition brings to
your living room the opportunity to sit at the feet of some of Americas finest Ivy
League professors as they lecture on the books that form the corpus of the Western
literary tradition. If you have ever thought that sending your child to an Ivy league
college would be a dream come true but were mortified by the current tuition, this set of
remarkable videos might just be the opportunity for which you always hoped. The set
contains eighty 45-minute lectures and can be purchased from The Teaching Company
(1-800-832-2412) for $500 on video and for $350 on cassette with discount for first time
buyers. The per hour price of the lecture time in this series ($6.67/hour on video)
compares almost comically with the price of actually going to an Ivy League College and
sitting in on the lectures in person (over $60/hour at most of the Ivy league colleges).
This set contains lectures on half of the Great Books as The Teaching Company
has put most of the lectures on the philosophically oriented books in the series The
Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition. They also have a separate set on
the plays of Shakespeare that appears quite promising as well as many other series that
provide a wealth of educational opportunities.
The lectures in this series do not focus on such broad topics as Greek
literature or Literature in Venice but each lecture focuses on a
particular book and attempts to prepare the students for an intelligent reading of that
text. This format works very well for you do not have to sit through lectures full of
general and vague observations but are giving ready aid to set out on your own journeys in
the delightful world of first-hand literary exploration.
The lecturers chosen for the Great Authors series are the best that one can
expect from collegiate academia. The lectures are usually aimed at an audience that is
only vaguely familiar with the texts, so much time is spent giving introductory
explanations that are helpful to the first-time reader. The themes discussed are usually
the stock themes that comprise the standard observations usually given when commenting on
these texts. This is a delightful contrast to the trendy college professors who in their
interest in staying abreast of the laquiz literary criticism burden their students with
explanations of esoteric scholarly disputes that bear little relation to the core themes
that make these texts fascinating reading. The professors chosen to lecture in this series
also show themselves delightfully oblivious to the politically correct brow beatings
served up in the laquiz dispatches from the Peruvian Womens Studies Department. This
video series may have done us the favor of preserving for posterity a remarkable sampling
of education before multiculturalism. This series is excellent for those who would like to
have an introduction to the books the comprise the great conversation that has
wound itself down through the corridors of Western history.
Even though this series is not plagued by many of the ills that beset contemporary
education, one should not be so naive as to think that they do not afford some very
serious challenges to the fidelity of those wedded to the Biblical worldview. Before the
advent of the dumbing down of our colleges resulting from the result of multiculturalism,
most Christians going into the secular colleges understood that there was a serious
intellectual challenge to the Christian faith that they would have to face if they were to
remain intellectually vital in these institutions. The same challenge will face those who
would glean from the teaching in these tapes. Even though it is far beyond the scope of
this article to examine in detail the views put forward by each of the lecturers, I would
like to give some general observations on the major ones.
S. Georgia Nugent (Princeton)- Nugent provides most of the lectures on the ancient Greek
writers. In her light but engaging lecture style she is able to bring out the literary
themes that are at the core of what makes the books a delight to read. Even thought she
mentions an interest in feminist studies, this does not come out but in her necessary
observations regarding the low place for and mistreatment of women in Greek society.
Michael Sugrue (Princeton)- Despite his nervous pacing and vivacious gesticulations,
Sugrues content quickly draws one into the literary panoramas he lays out. He shows
tremendous ability in expositing a books central themes, but he is a caricature of
the hard-nosed skeptical intellectual out to champion the secularism found in writers such
a Thucydides and Descartes. His heavy handed treatment of theological questions in his
lecture on the book of Job make his lack of spiritual discernment painfully obvious. In
his lecture on Pascals Pensees, he also shows a deep lack of understanding of
Pascals Christian motivations; however, he does have a good number of helpful
observations on the disagreements between Pascal and Descartes.
Arnold Weinstein (Brown)- Weinsteins introductory lecture to the series is almost
enough to set one against the rest of the tapes to come. Weinstein is a thoroughly modern
man whose vague attempts to find a justification for the study of literature could almost
be a casebook example for the unprincipled wide-eyed liberal attempting to pull moral
phrases out of his own vacuous psyche. He shows a disconcerting ability to find Freudian
metaphors throughout the literature he lectures on, no matter what the period. His
lectures on modern literature show the fruits of what is obviously his expertise; however,
his lectures on the earlier literature have a chaff to wheat ratio that is so high that
they are often not worth the struggle of listening. One thing that can be said in his
favor is that he is so boring to listen to that you need have little fear your children
would pay him attention long enough to suffer the ill effects of his teaching.
If you are interested in finding something to put your student in front of while you do
the laundry, these tapes will not prove the child-safe diversion that you
might hope for; however, for those who are willing to take up the hard work of cultural
discernment, these tapes offer a remarkable opportunity to acquiant oneself with the works
the have shaped our cultures intellectual history.
**Please note**
This series is only available in audio format now.