Two Books on Literature

1. Louis Markos. Literature: A Student’s Guide.  Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition. Wheaton: Crossway, 2012. 143 pp.
2. Leland Ryken. Realms of Gold: The Classics in Christian Perspective.  1991. Repr., Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2003. 230 pp.

Here are two lists that Ryken expounds in his introduction, “Reading the Classics for All They’re Worth” (pp. 1–21):

Five Fallacies about Literature

1. We should read something true rather than something fictional.
2. Everything in a work of literature is offered for our approval.
3. We should read only literature with whose viewpoint we agree.
4. A literary work written by a non-Christian cannot tell the truth.
5. Old literature is irrelevant to us today.

How to Misread the Classics

1. Be sure to read the classics for their ideas.
2. Assume without question that the classics tell the truth.
3. Look upon the classics as “improving literature.”
4. Regard the classics as beyond criticism.
5. Assume that moral considerations are irrelevant to the classics.
6. Be sure that you do not see anything in the classics that the author and original audience did not see in it.
7. Assume that all that matters is what a work says to you.
8. View the classics as relics in the museum of the past.

Related:

1. Liberal Arts
2. Lit!
3. Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition: An Interview [by Justin Taylor] with David Dockery