Bible Ban at Uni?
- 98
- 6
- 2
(Sorry for the provocative title ;-))
We had an interesting discussion in class the other day. It started when our tutor gave us a poem by Chesterton called "The Donkey." He told us that this poem had been a part of the final examination for future English teachers in Germany. The candidates had an hour to analyse the poem without using any dictionaries or other reference works.
Now, the poem is basically about a donkey who laments that he is ugly and that everybody despises him. But he, too, had his hour of glory: "there was a shout around my head/ And palms about my feet." The last verses contain an allusion to the biblical story of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey and people laying down palm fronds in front of him.
If you don't get the biblical reference, the poem doesn't make much sense. Many students in my class argued that it was unfair to set such a task, especially in an important exam, because many students were Muslims, atheists, agnostics etc. and couldn't be expected to know anything about the Bible.
I am really in two minds about this. On the one hand, it was perhaps a bit mean to use such a text in an exam. On the other hand, the Bible, classical antiquity and many other areas are inherent parts of Anglo-American and European cultural heritage, so students might be expected to read up on these subjects if they haven't already done so. But I'm really not sure about this, so I didn't take part in the discussion, which got very heated indeed :-).
We had an interesting discussion in class the other day. It started when our tutor gave us a poem by Chesterton called "The Donkey." He told us that this poem had been a part of the final examination for future English teachers in Germany. The candidates had an hour to analyse the poem without using any dictionaries or other reference works.
Now, the poem is basically about a donkey who laments that he is ugly and that everybody despises him. But he, too, had his hour of glory: "there was a shout around my head/ And palms about my feet." The last verses contain an allusion to the biblical story of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey and people laying down palm fronds in front of him.
If you don't get the biblical reference, the poem doesn't make much sense. Many students in my class argued that it was unfair to set such a task, especially in an important exam, because many students were Muslims, atheists, agnostics etc. and couldn't be expected to know anything about the Bible.
I am really in two minds about this. On the one hand, it was perhaps a bit mean to use such a text in an exam. On the other hand, the Bible, classical antiquity and many other areas are inherent parts of Anglo-American and European cultural heritage, so students might be expected to read up on these subjects if they haven't already done so. But I'm really not sure about this, so I didn't take part in the discussion, which got very heated indeed :-).
Many students in my class argued that it was unfair to set such a task, especially in as part of an important exam, because many students were Muslims, atheists, agnostics etc.
I am really in two minds about this.or: I have mixed feelings about this.
On the other hand, the Bible, classical works of antiquity and many other areas are inherent parts of Anglo-American and European cultural heritage (OR: part of the cannon), so students might be expected to read up on these subjects if they haven't already done so.
Many students in my class argued that it was unfair to assign such a task, especially in as part of an important exam, because many students were Muslims, atheists, agnostics, etc. // Perhaps these are US/UK or even sub-regional differences, but 1) "to set a task" sounds very strange to me, and 2) there's usually a comma before "etc." if the list contains more than one item. You use American punctuation otherwise, so that's my 2 cents on some (possible) Americanisms.
On the other hand, the Bible, works of classical antiquity and many other areas are inherent parts of Anglo-American and European cultural heritage (OR: part of the canon), so students might be expected to read up on these subjects if they haven't already done so. // I prefer "works of classical antiquity" since "classical antiquity" is a set phrase, but FandeBach's suggestion works too.
I agree that it's good to study classical works, but I think the assignment was kind of unfair. It's true that, despite not being particularly religious, even I know the "palm fronds" reference. However, if the poem referenced the "Odyssey" or an equally well-known and/or culturally important work instead of the Bible, I bet that most people would say it's an unfair task to analyze it. Even within a given culture, no work is universally understood, the Bible included.
But on the other hand, sometimes literature and sacred texts are so closely linked to each other; that can hardly ever be separated. I compare it to Persian: if you do not know anything of the Quran and the prophetic tradition, many of Rumi or Hafez's poems 'd make no sense. I think it should be the same about English or German poems.
(As an aside, I had a physics exam once where the professor wrote a question involving an equation he had not taught us, but assumed we knew by heart because it was so important. Boy, were we all mad after that one...)