I have decided to do something that I am not quite sure that I agree with in principal, but, in actuality, it will work great. My freshman class next year will read many ancient and mediavel works, spanning from the Greeks through the Renaissance. I would like for them to read La Morte d' Artur, by Sir Thomas Malory, but so much of their reading is going to be dry that I have been looking for ways to read great literature without boring the 15-year-old minds to tears. The solution I have come to, thanks mostly to Julie, is to have them read John Steinbeck's modern retelling of the great book by Malory.
I have read half of the book today, and judging from what I have read, it is both accessible and true to the original. It just seems somehow wrong to depart from the original text of any book and read someone else's retelling of the same story. I believe I will do it, though, because it allows them to catch the humor and the intricacies of the story that might not be had in the Old English.
I love how complex the story is. The heroes are hardly heroic at times, and those who are best are often those who are flawed the most. Artur is the bastard son of a murderous father and an adulterous wife, Merlin is often times nothing more than a juvenile trickster, Gawain is a murderer (or Gahlahad, I cannot remember), and all of the other famous characters are not what they appear.
I look forward to reading it with my class. Check it out if you have ever been scared off from the stories by the language.
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