Customer Reviews

The Devil Knows Latin: Why America Needs the Classical Tradition

5 star:		(6)
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2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

This book is plea for a return to the ancient languages that all past scholarly work was written in, with humanity as its aim. We don't study English so that we can boast, but so that we understand the complexity and beauty that it perfectly lends itself to. Latin and Greek don't exist in a vacuum, but as a tool to uncover the thoughts and values of our(like it or not) Western heritage. To this end Kopff, deftly shows us what our ancient parentage learned; if we are wise, we'll listen. He admonishes us to proudly own our classical tradition, without haughtiness, but understanding its definate intrinsic elitism. Libertity,maturity,and humane democratic ideals, by virtue, are lofty and noble; mandatory to continued freedom. Notice, that he did write in the vernacular to rouse a sleepy complacency.

at first, it seems rather offputting kopff attempts to write on the topic of the classical tradition while doing so for a postmodern attention span. in the beginning of the book, he touches on several topics: the need for the classical tradition in America, a very brief survey of modern economics, and the depravity of modern liberalism, all without delving too deep into his subjects he discusses. however, in the chapter where margaret fuller arrives in Rome and finds her true Self and Home there, the pieces begin to fall into place. following are analyses and biographies of various intellectuals who include J.R.R. Tolkien, James Frazier, and Douglas Young among others who were steeped in the western classics and ultimately made contributions to the conservative culture at large.

this is not a clarion call, but a gentle reminder it is not too late to be initiated into the western classical tradition, and a cogent argument for reviving the humanities in our schools by prying them from the hands of the new critics and postmodern loonies who hijacked them in the sixties and injecting them once again with a good dose of the liberal arts.

sounds plausible to me!

I saw the author read from this book on C-span and enjoyed his performance very much. In particular, his reading of Eastwood's UNFORGIVEN is very insightful. Upon reading Kopff's book, however, I was disappointed by the bland writing style, the conventional points (revoke the 14th amendment; teach more Latin and Greek: boy, what a surprise!) The essays lack organization--ironic for a classicist schooled in the rigors of ancient tongues. He skips from topic to topic, example to example, with no sure direction. Okay, these are essays, so I shouldn't expect the last word on such topics. Granted. But I do expect lapidary, high quality writing for my $20.00, and sadly, Kopff's book does not deliver. I am sure Prof. Kopff is a terrific teacher. But if you want honed insights into Western Civilization, try George Steiner, Josef Pieper, or E. Gilson. This Latin teacher is simply not in their ranks.

This book is an insightful look at why we, as a society, have been going in a downward spiral while insisting we are moving forward. When you don't know where you've been, you can't possibly know where you're headed.

The Devil Knows Latin is a witty defense of tradition in the spirit of Chesterton; and like Chesterton, Kopff is very accessible to the average reader. Not to be missed.

This book fails in a number of ways to bring classics into civilized discourse. Firstly, the author tries to argue for a classical curriculum as a basis for appreciating Christianity and the founding documents of the United States. In the case of religion, the argument is uncontroversial, but not well restated in this book. In the case of politics, the argument is extremely slippery, and the author tries to maintain it anecdotally, through nostalgic discussions of nineteenth-century American puritans. He realizes that many of America's virtues come from a specifically English-language tradition, but he dismisses that tradition in actually calling for the elimination of English in the high school curriculum. Yet it is hard to imagine such an irreverent book as this written in any language other than English.
Secondly, as a justification for the classics themselves, the author turns to Hollywood movies. His insights on films like "The Unforgiven" and "The Godfather" are quite good, but his methodology suffers in trying to meld the commercialism of Hollywood with the elitism (as he freely admits) of his classical curriculum. Again, the author is silent on the fundamental Anglo-Americanism of his outlook. For this reason, this book, which is styled as a work of corrective pedagogy aimed at young people and interested adults, essentially belies its own origins, which are not in antiquity or ancient Christianity, but in Anglo-Saxon commercialism, religious nonconformity in old and New England, and English and American political traditions. The book, however, does partly succeed as a work of scholarship, and deserves one star for its compelling readings of Hollywood movies and one and a half stars for the author's quirkily wide learning, for a total of three stars, after rounding.

My wife and I intend to home school our two young children (ages 32 months and 1 year), so this book promised to help guide our program development. In a word, this book is very disappointing. It offers very little in the way of an actual program for a classical education. What is more, one cannot imagine anyone not already convinced that classical education is worthwhile buying, or even reading, the book, so one wonders what the point of the several chapters on this topic is. (I leave aside the fact that a few of the chapters are reprints of unrelated magazine articles, such as one on Clint Eastwood's none-too-classical films.)

The author takes for granted that Latin is one of the "three Christian languages," and I cannot quite figure out why that should be. The Septuagint, the Old Testament to which more than 97% of the New Testament's Old Testament references refer, is in Greek, and the New Testament is in Greek. Even if one accepts the Protestant notion that the Hebrew-language, not the Christian, Old Testament is normative, so that Hebrew should be studied, where does Latin come in? The idea that Luther is a greater authority on the meaning of the New Testament than St. Athanasius, St. Maximus the Confessor, St. Gregory of Nyssa, or any of several other Greek-speaking Fathers also shocks me; in addition, it undercuts the only explanation for the author's esteem for Latin that recommends itself, which is that perhaps he is a Roman Catholic -- and one who doesn't know the Greek Fathers.

Not a good buy.