The Bible as Literature: ENGL 310
The Bible is among the world's most influential works and has contributed immeasurably to the literary traditions of the English language. This course will consider the Bible as itself a work of literature, with certain recognizable tropes and genres. No previous exposure to the Bible is needed; the only requirement is a willingness to engage with the Bible as a literary text.
Given my recent interest in religion, when I saw Bible as Lit as a course offering (that would also complete my Pre-1900's course requirement for the English major), I knew I had to take it. This was probably one of the greatest decisions I have ever made, and my only regret is that there wasn't a way for me to take it earlier.
I never realized just how integral the Bible is to English literature. After just the first day of reading, so many allusions that I had come across in the past became clear, and it wasn't even funny how our reading became immediately applicable to what I was studying in my English Honors seminar. In fact, for the one paper I had to write for this class where we were prompted to analyze a Biblical allusion and how that functioned in the given text, I actually used one of the slave narratives from my English Honors seminar.
Bible as Lit was also just a really fun class, not the least bit because Professor LaPorte might just be the greatest lecturer there is. He’s a teacher, yes, but also a performer. He treats his podium like a stage, and injects such passion and humor and heart into his teachings. It goes to show how much he’s invested in the material and how much he’s invested in us. He wants us to learn and become better students of English. One day he actually teared up at the beauty of the passages, and there wasn’t a single person in class who wasn’t moved to some degree.
The class certainly had its challenges. The sheer amount of reading we had to do (we essentially read the entire text, from Genesis to Revelations, over the course of the quarter) was certainly a burden, and I will admit to skimming some of it and not really digesting what I was reading at some points. Engaging with the text was also difficult because there is such a legacy to it. We had to almost relearn all the skills that were second nature to us at this point. When Professor LaPorte asked us to analyze narrative or poetic devices in the Bible, it just felt kind of odd to think about this theological tome in that kind of literary context. But the same ideas do apply, and I think it made me that much stronger of an English student engaging with this particular text in this manner.
I never realized just how integral the Bible is to English literature. After just the first day of reading, so many allusions that I had come across in the past became clear, and it wasn't even funny how our reading became immediately applicable to what I was studying in my English Honors seminar. In fact, for the one paper I had to write for this class where we were prompted to analyze a Biblical allusion and how that functioned in the given text, I actually used one of the slave narratives from my English Honors seminar.
Bible as Lit was also just a really fun class, not the least bit because Professor LaPorte might just be the greatest lecturer there is. He’s a teacher, yes, but also a performer. He treats his podium like a stage, and injects such passion and humor and heart into his teachings. It goes to show how much he’s invested in the material and how much he’s invested in us. He wants us to learn and become better students of English. One day he actually teared up at the beauty of the passages, and there wasn’t a single person in class who wasn’t moved to some degree.
The class certainly had its challenges. The sheer amount of reading we had to do (we essentially read the entire text, from Genesis to Revelations, over the course of the quarter) was certainly a burden, and I will admit to skimming some of it and not really digesting what I was reading at some points. Engaging with the text was also difficult because there is such a legacy to it. We had to almost relearn all the skills that were second nature to us at this point. When Professor LaPorte asked us to analyze narrative or poetic devices in the Bible, it just felt kind of odd to think about this theological tome in that kind of literary context. But the same ideas do apply, and I think it made me that much stronger of an English student engaging with this particular text in this manner.