Friday, October 27, 2017
Incurably Tedious Authors
E.R. Dodds (1893-1979), "The Rediscovery of the Classics," The Irish Statesman 2.42 (April 10, 1920) 346-347, rpt. as "The Classics and Classical Humbug," The Living Age, Vol. 305, No. 3961 (June 5, 1920) 607-609 (at 609):
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Incurably tedious authors, such as Caesar, Xenophon, most of Livy, and Cicero and Demosthenes in their political speeches, should be expelled from the school curriculum. The schoolboy's staple fare might be drawn from the following: in Latin, Cicero pro Archia, pro Caelio, and pro Cluentio, Catullus, Apuleius, the letter writers, Tacitus, Vergil, and Lucretius; in Greek, Lucian, Herodotus, Homer, Euripides, Aristophanes, the myths of Plato, and the Anthology.
