And a Fitting Conclusion to Why Study Literature

So after all this discussion of why we ought to study literature, Dana over at Principled Discovery has this excellent post that makes my point about cultural references. (Thanks, Dana!) ;)

When you click over to it, be sure to follow the first link to the article by Katie Criss that's critical of homeschooling. (You will cringe to read it - it's full of errors - but in order to understand Dana's point, you need to see what Katie says first.) Then read Dana's post.

The better you know Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, especially the eulogy he puts in the mouth of Mark Antony, the funnier you'll find Dana's post. Here's just a taste of her parody.

Educators, parents, students, lend me your ears;
I come to bury homeschooling, not to praise it.
The evil that men do makes headlines,
The good is oft interred with their bones.
So let it be with homeschoolers.

The noble Katie Criss
hath told you homeschoolers hide abusers:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath homeschoolers answered it.
Here, under leave of Katie and the rest,
For Katie did her research;
So did they all, all well-researched people-
Come I to speak in homeschooling's funeral.

It is my lifestyle, precious and full to me:
But Katie says my reasons are unwarranted,
And Katie did her research.
It has brought many families closer together
Whose work did enrich their communities.
Did this in homeschooling seem pernicious?
When the poor hath cried, homeschoolers hath organized:
Isolation should be made of lonelier stuff.

There's more, including some of the funniest lines, over at Dana's blog. I hope you'll take the time to read the whole thing.