Those of us who have spent our lives with the humanities — actively engaged in literature, art, music, philosophy or religion — often lament that things have changed for current college students and the young adults they are becoming. We read in the press the opinion that universities should be concerned for turning out job-ready workers, that they need to abandon the liberal arts as unaffordable luxuries in today’s competitive economy.
During our recent summer together at the family log cabin in Maine, I had a conversation on this subject with my grandson, Carter, who was about to enter his sophomore year in college. As he sat in front of the fire on a cool evening reading Wallace Nichols’ book Blue Mind while I enjoyed the new Seamus Heaney posthumously published translation of Virgil’s Aeneid Book VI, we talked about his book and about mine. His curiosity about the hero Aeneas led to my questions: “Have you taken your last humanities class at Bates? Do you have any sense that you would ever decide to read anything related to classical mythology as time goes on?”
He admitted that his one experience in that area — the common one of being required to plow through portions of The Odyssey as a ninth grader — had been negative. And though he would likely take another writing class, he acknowledged that he was probably finished with literature. Finished with an area of study that continues to intrigue and engage me, many years after my first exposure at the liberal arts college I attended in the ’60s.
Alas, I thought. He’ll miss so much that I value in life, like the anticipation of heading to the bookstore to purchase the new Heaney translation of Virgil because of a great review in The New York Times.
That review, by Karl Kirchwey of Boston University, promised me an encounter with “the old myths (which) are not quaint and remote; they are resonant paradigms of contemporary life.” And it further suggested that the subject matter of Book VI, Aeneas’ visit to the underworld to find his father, had had a profound impact on Seamus Heaney himself, perhaps allowing him to meet his own sudden death in 2013 with equanimity, as he sent a final text message, in Latin, to his wife saying, “Be not afraid.” I needed that book for myself.
For me the humanities are a connection to a solid rock, as the seas around me vacillate between calm and choppy. Virgil took Aeneas to the underworld to learn from his father, and I find myself consoled, at the age I am now, by reading and talking about the story. In Aeneas’ conversations with the dead, there is a depth of legacy and a breadth of continuation that soothe my fear of death. Beyond Aeneas, the stories of other ancient heroes remind me of further realities of life. Hector was a monument of strength as he said goodbye to his wife on the eve of the Trojan War. Achilles, a stunningly brave man, took to his tent because of a wounded ego. And Odysseus was quite the adventurer, as the patient Penelope waited it out at home fending off the suitors.
By now, my immersion in literature, art and music are also a lifestyle, a joyous one. I thrive in museums, in part under the tutelage of a daughter who is an art historian, and I travel because of classical mythology. A recent trip to Greece with a retired professor of classics at my alma mater, Grinnell College, led my husband and me to places that took my breath away in recognition. “Being at Delphi,” I wrote in my travel notebook, “will likely be the high point of our time in Greece. Truly, my life would be incomplete had I not come here.”
Not long after that momentous visit to Greece, I was back at Grinnell for a few days and attended a class taught by another, younger, classics professor, a gifted woman able to bring Greek and Roman culture alive for her students. It was spring and the class that day focused on civic identity in ancient Athens, aiming to prepare the students for an experience in what Grinnell calls “course embedded travel,” when school ended in May.
Those students were smart, enthusiastic and oriented, because of their class, toward classical Greece. There are islands in today’s educational systems where the humanities are thriving and influencing current 20-somethings. And perhaps there is hope for that influence to soften the impact of Wall Street mandates that a good university education be aimed solely at job preparation.
While Carter may never take a class like the one I visited, at the very least he and I had a conversation that evening in Maine about why I had bought the Heaney translation. Maybe it will make a difference to him, as time goes on.
All of us who live by the light of the humanities need to seize opportunities to attest to their significance. We require broader frames of reference to create interactive, supportive communities that go beyond our expertise as individuals. Job skills are essential, but they only go so far in making us human.
Mary K. Otto lives in Norwich.