The Devil Knows Latin: Why America Needs the Classical Tradition [Hardcover]

E. Christian Kopff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1999 | ISBN-10: 1882926250 | ISBN-13: 978-1882926251

In an examination of contemporary American culture--from literature to popular music--concerned with the restoration of Classical traditions, this work is comprised of a series of essays concerned with the still healthy vitality of America's Classical and Christian traditions, the errors of the current powers that be, and the way to cultural and political restoration.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A classicist at the University of Colorado, Kopff believes that the elimination of Latin and Greek from the standard university curriculum has severed our culture from the literature, history, philosophy and political traditions that should constitute its mental infrastructure. He therefore wants colleges to teach liberal arts students to read the classics in the original languages?Dante in Italian; Plato, Homer and Ovid in Greek and Latin; the New Testament in Greek?and insists that the elementary school curriculum should concentrate on ancient languages and mathematics. As the accompanying conservative polemics indicate, Kopff's desire is for a radical return to the past. For instance, he advocates the repeal of the Fourteenth Amendment, which he sees as merely a tool in the Supreme Court's "misguided war against religion in general and Christianity in particular." He also takes potshots at multiculturalism (calling it "culturally promiscuous"), postmodernists, liberals, modernist art (to his mind, "ethically out of touch with ordinary people's hopes and fears" and "frequently downright disgusting") and, in a moment of insensitive hyperbole, even Martin Luther King ("the true American thus stands opposed to the martyr of the inevitable future, whether Che Guevara or Martin Luther King"). Kopff's diatribes are less heavy-handed in several pieces of film criticism and in an interesting essay on Boston Transcendentalist Margaret Fuller's historic stay in Rome in 1847-1849, which led to her History of the Roman Republic. Ultimately, however, the book is for a very specific audience: those conservative enough to believe that the different social positions of men and women were assigned by nature and to view California Republican Pete Wilson as a "liberal."
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The chapters of Kopff's book betray their origins as separate articles by not homogenizing into one continuous argument, yet they sort most agreeably into three sections. Those in "Civilization as Narrative" do form a single argument, one for reestablishing Latin and Greek, together with English and math, as the basic subjects of U.S. education from the earliest grades on. The reason for taking this step, which many will think retrograde, is that just as our language is based on Latin and Greek, so are our fundamental institutions and operating philosophies, such as our politics. The essays in "The Good, the Bad and the Postmodern" are controversial, decrying the baleful effects of liberalism on education and affirming the positive accomplishments of such traditionalists as J. R. R. Tolkien. "Contemporary Chronicles" contains profiles in classical courage drawn from academe and the movies; especially noteworthy are the sketch of classicist and Scottish nationalist Douglas Young and the considerations of The Godfather, the films of Clint Eastwood, and The Lion King as enactments of classical Greek ethical concepts. Kopff concludes with practical proposals for restoring Latin and Greek to elementary and secondary curricula and with guidance for adults who want to learn them. His clean and lively style throughout constitutes a very cogent arguing point for teaching the classical languages again: would that we all wrote this well. Ray Olson

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 344 pages
• Publisher: Intercollegiate Studies Institute (January 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1882926250
• ISBN-13: 978-1882926251
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,259,249 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The books captures the convictions of where our roots are., June 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Devil Knows Latin: Why America Needs the Classical Tradition (Hardcover)

I recommend this book to anyone interested in the clear exposition of how America needs to reawaken to its roots and real tradition. The author masterfully demonstrates how the classical and may I add, Christian tradition relates to today. He provides an eye-opening view of the cults of postmodernism and the failed enlightenment programs. I was outraged by the lack of reverence and general destructiveness that results when we reject our classical traditions. This author needs to be read by anyone who still can transcend the present lies in our culture and elevate themselves to an appreciation of our past as we move to the future. Kopff convinces me to go back to the roots of culture and language.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Solid Foundation Hampered by Lack of Focus, October 25, 2008

By 

Martin Asiner "Adjunct College Instructor" (Jersey City, NJ) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Devil Knows Latin: Why America Needs the Classical Tradition (Paperback)

The serious study of Greek and Latin has been eroding in America's schools since the early 20th century. In THE DEVIL KNOWS LATIN, E. Christian Kopf attempts to explain why this is so and what can be done to bring about a resurgence in the classics. In this, he is only partially successful. For the first half of his book, Kopf is right on target as he provides numerous examples of how western culture has been so thoroughly entrenched in classic learning that we scarcely notice it anymore and hence too many otherwise elite now think that we can dispense with it. His most telling points involve the Great Books controversy. Traditionalists believe that Great Truths do exist, are eternal, and spring from our Greek ancestors. As a consequence, those books that celebrate these truths provide an anchor by which we may not forget where we came from, where we are now, and where we may go in the future. By contrast, postmodernists hold that since words point only to other words in a closed linguistic loop, there is no possibility that a text may connect to external reality. Thus, they argue, the Great Truths of any age are no more than a fiction that stand for no more than the ephemeral biases and prejudices of their writers. Kopf argues that it is no less than insanity to construct a philosophy, let alone a culture, on such a relativistic basis. All this is sound enough and had Kopf cut his book in half, it would have still been an impressive effort. However, the second half devolves into pointless digressions of writers, actors, and film directors whose collective contribution to classic learning is minimal. His concluding chapter on how to reinvigorate public school curriculums is so slight that one gets the impression that there remains much more to be said but for some unfathomable reason, he wearied of writing and closed his book. Still, if one needs a fairly basic text on the how and why that classical education is fast disappearing from our culture, THE DEVIL KNOWS LATIN is a good place to begin.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Witty and convincing, April 7, 2010

By 

Bobby Bambino (Lebanon, NH United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Devil Knows Latin: Why America Needs the Classical Tradition (Paperback)

This is my first book arguing in favor of a return to the classic works and classic languages. I found the book very well written and clever. Though it seems that many other reviewers found the author's tone condescending, I think most of the time the author's seemingly "condescending" tone is a symptom of his frustration for the mass exodus from classics in both popular culture as well as academia. The author argues that while there are very good translations of many classics, nothing is a proper substitute for being able to read works in their original Greek or Latin. He also emphasizes the importance of tradition, which make up the roots of our Western civilization, and why simply abandoning those traditions just for the sake of not clinging to traditions is irrational. A good introduction to the mind of a classicist.