Help me out, please. How does education in the Christian story aid understanding of literature?

[Greythorne]

We are atheists but were both raised Christians. I have no problem with the DC learning about the Christian festivals, beliefs, etc. Just as they would learn about other religions and traditions. But I am not pushing it in anyway.

But my friend keeps insisting that they will struggle with European literature at a higher level if they are not well schooled in the Christian story.

What literary texts require a working knowledge of Christianity to be fully understood?

Not looking for a bunfight. Just want to understand.

Loads. Far far too many to list

Just thinking about what I'm teaching at GCSE and A-Level at the moment where it would be helpful:

The Road,
The Miller's Tale,
Measure for Measure,
John Donne,
Browning,
Lord of the Flies,
Assorted GCSE poetry (including the war poets)

And please note I'm not teaching any of the VERY religious texts such as Paradise Lost this year.

Having said that, none of my students are actually Christian. Thus I have to create quite a lot of resources/ give them a fair bit of background information in order for them to access the themes- but it is helpful that they do have religious backgrounds such as Islam and so can relate to the concepts from their own religions. Have never taught an actual athiest before (as opposed to somebody who just doesn't have a religion).

As Tortu says just in English
Chaucer
Shakespeare
Ezra Pound
TS Elliot
even Margaret Atwood (e.g. Handmaid's Tale is set in a totalitarian theocracy)

Some children's literature, if you look at it from an adult perspective - C S Lewis being a prime example

The Lion,The Witch and The Wardrobe, indeed all the Narnia stories.

And Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and arguably the whole series (more as it unfolds than at the outset).

Ok, great
Which Shakespeare needs a Christian angle to be fully understood?

I studied A Comedy of Errors, Much Ado and Midsummer Night's Dream and can't off the top of my head remember anything requiring an understanding if Christianity in those?

I don't know Macbeth well but imagine themes of guilt play into it.

It's very important in analysing/appreciating literature at a higher level when considering social/historical/moral contexts.

Very few of my students are what you would call practising Christians (and neither am I) but that in no way precludes them from learning about how influential Christianity has been in our literary heritage.

Knowing the 'story' of Christianity also leads into the morality of that religion which is even more significant, I think. How can students appreciate, for instance, the moral maze that is Macbeth unless they compare its influence on the Jacobean audience who would have thought the witches were to blame, and they would have been terrified at the anti-Christian stance, compared to the 21stC audience who are much more likely to blame Macbeth/Lady M and their human faults?

Christianity should be learned about in the same way ther religions & belief systems are taught, so that a wide range of contexts can be considered in reading and understanding texts.

If you don't understand the belief system of the author and the audience then it is much more difficult to appreciate the significance / symbolism of some of the concepts and imagery.

To give a related example from Shakespeare
From a modern perspective, when King Lear divides his kingdom, you can see it as a recipe for vicious rivalry between two of his daughters (which it is).

To a Shakepearean audience that believed in the Divine Right of Kings the division of the kingdom is a direct subversion of the correct order of things as ordained by God. God anoints the King so only God can choose who rules and any attempt to subvert this will end in disaster.

Greythorne, I know exactly where you are coming from, I am also an atheist and really struggle with the view that it is necessary to study RE to fully appreciate literature, art and history. I agree that you need some knowledge of the Christian church and it's various beliefs and schisms to fully understand British and European history and also I think art - on a recent visit to the Da Vinci exhibition I had to explain to DD age 12 who the biblical characters were. I imagine if your children were studying a particular author in future they could read about the historical and social context of the time. Frankly I also think you probably need a reasonable knowledge of classics to appreciate some literature and I don't see schools falling over themselves to offer that.

I was furious recently when I queried whether I should withdraw my daughter from RE, that a teacher told me that in order to appreciate the Holocaust my daughter needed to learn about Judaism (I have relatives who died in the Holocaust). In my DD2's school they do RE GCSE in year 9; they consider they satisfy the obligation to teach it in KS4 and say it provides useful study skills for other humanities taken later on in the school and which are dropped in year 9 ot be taken up again as one year courses later in the school. They teach a syllabus where they compare different religions views on moral/social issues; though I must say it infuriates me that religious views are considered to have the monolopy on moral issues.

I don't think you need Christianity: I do think that the Bible, as a text, is a fundamental underpinning of most if not all English literature, at least up to the middle of the 20th century.

I don't do religion. But I do believe in the central, transforming, elemental and primal importance of the written word

You have to just realise that most of literature in English was written by people who were Christian, and pretty much all of it by people well versed in the Bible. There for to understand even through away comments for example in Sahkespeare plays, you need to have a good basic grounding.
The first book a friend of mine was told to buy when starting her English degree was a copy of the Bible, the King James version for preference.

I'm an atheist but I totally agree that an understanding of religious texts is fundamental to understanding a lot of literature, and indeed other subject (history, the social sciences etc) as well. I went to a fascinating lecture last year by David Crystal about the extent to which idioms in the English language come from the bible, and he demonstrated how frequently such use of language is around us in our day-to-day lives. That's not to say that you have to have read the bible (or other texts) to understand these sort of idioms, but your understanding will be richer if you have. If you're a staunch atheist, think of it about understanding the history of language and society, rather than necessarily the religiosity of it.

"But my friend keeps insisting that they will struggle with European literature at a higher level if they are not well schooled in the Christian story"

I don't know about being 'well schooled' but do I find that Theology is training DCs to analyse text and to think and to interpret, skills which will be applicable when the time comes to read non-religious material.

'Well-schooled' is, I think, a key term. I am a Christian (which I find useful for teaching Literature), but can separate The Bible from my religion as a key work of literature in its own right. It was required reading on my degree course at university (and I went to a top university).

You asked for Shakespeares which require an understanding of Christianity in order to access them. Although not all of them are explicitly about Christianity, the religion and the ideas associated with it were so ingrained in society and people's understanding that I think it is almost impossible to separate the two. The three Shakespeares that were mentioned do not explicitly deal with the religion, but I'm fairly confident that there would be references in there (even if it was only 'marry', or 'zounds') that may not be fully understood without a grounding in the ideas.

Some Shakespeare that do require an understanding of Christianity (and this is difficult, because it is SUCH a huge concept):

Measure for Measure
King John
Richard III
Pericles
Romeo and Juliet
Merchant of Venice
Hamlet

Oh I'm babbling now, but basically, I've listed all the texts where I've discussed it in depth with kids. But I don't think you can understand Shakespeare at all from a contextual perspective without understanding a fair amount about Christianity.