Tiny rant: What are they teaching these days?

So I took a look this morning at a paper my nephew wrote for his U of Oregon junior-year English lit class.  It was about Shelley's famous sonnet, "Lift not the painted veil . . ."  He'd asked his mom, my sis, to look it over and give him feedback.  The paper, which he was rewriting, was assessed by what the U of O called a GTF (graduate teaching fellow) but which I used to call (when I was one) a TA (teaching associate) or GS (graduate slave).  The final will be graded by the course teacher.  I scanned the essay as I was drinking my coffee and was pleased to see him make a thoughtful argument in which he used the term "ontological angst." 

I was not pleased to note two knowledge deficits (which I, of course, will blame on his previous education, not him since he is my beloved nephew).  First, he didn't know that fourteen lines with end rhymes was a sonnet.  How can someone get through high school and not know what a sonnet is?  Second, he didn't recognize that "the Preacher" mentioned in the final line is about the writer of the Book of Ecclesiastes.  AND, more to the point, neither did the GTF! 

So, my mini-rant would be, why wasn't this English major taught something about the Bible?  Especially about the book that, arguably, is one of the best known among the non-religious?  Eric S. Christensen, in Ecclesiastes Through the Centuries, says this:

In the spirit of Renaissance interpreters, the nineteenth century sees Ecclesiastes and/or the Preacher himself coming gradually to signify a general spirit of inquiry that is as intoxicating as it is dangerous or frustrating.  This is evident in the way in which writers such as Percy Shelley found kinship in Qoheleth's [the preacher's] observations seeing increasingly that the world is a 'spectacle of emptiness. . . this was sometimes coupled with a profoundly frustrating sense of futility, such as in Shelley's 'Sonnet' (1818). . . .

My irritation about this lack of Biblical knowledge among English majors is not unsimilar to my irritation with the same lack of knowledge among the conservative Christians who inhabit my classes.  The Christians should read the Bible because they profess to believe it.  English majors should know at least those parts of the King James Version which so thoroughly influenced British and American writing. 

But, perhaps I should just calm down.  As the Preacher said (Chapter 3) (Quotation lifted from the Bible Gateway site).

 ¹To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

 ²A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

 ³A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

 ⁴A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

 ⁵A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

 ¹⁰I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.

 ¹¹He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.

 ¹²I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life.

 ¹³And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.

So now I think I'll go and eat and drink and enjoy the good of my labour.

Wonderful Example of Love Gone Wrong

I followed a Facebook link to the blog "Slightly Disheveled" and found some terrific writing, including a wonderful parable about puzzles and mistaken love.  It does a fine job illustrating two important concepts.  The first is one that is so important in Interpersonal Communication:  ambiguous language and misunderstanding.  The second is vital to my love education courses:  the unfortunate fact that people "in love" project their expectations  onto the love object, thus being unable to see the love object with clarity.