For this seminar, we will read and discuss, in the spirit of my book Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child’s Moral Imagination, several classic children’s novels and four of the greatest fairy tales. We will endeavor to uncover the deeply rooted sources of religion and morality that these stories reveal. We will reflect upon how these stories lend insight into that which makes us distinctly human, whether this be the capacity to love, to sacrifice for others, to make friendships, or practice hospitality. Last, we will look into the capacity of these stories to build virtue and enrich us with a moral imagination, the capacity, that is, to see and experience our world as a moral world.
To this end, I have chosen three classic children’s novels: George MacDonald’s The Princess and the Goblin, Kenneth Grahame’s, The Wind in the Willows, and Francis Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden. The four fairy tales we will read are Snow White, Beauty and the Beast, The Nightingale, and Hansel and Gretel.
- Teacher: Vigen Guroian