A Class Catechism for World Literature

Last year I implemented a class catechism in my high school level British Literature class at our homeschool co-op. Like a traditional catechism used to teach the doctrines of Christianity in question and answer form, the class catechism is a series of questions and answers taken from the books we read throughout the year.

This experiment was inspired by Joshua Gibbs’ book, Something They Will Not Forget: A Handbook for Classical Teachers, and I borrowed much of the opening content for our catechism from him. The catechism begins with foundational questions that remind students of their identity in Christ and the role of virtue and wisdom in education. The rest of the questions are taken from the books on our syllabus.

Because we only meet once a week instead of daily, I wasn’t sure how well the catechism would stick. But even though we only recited the catechism together once a week, I found that most of my students were soon reciting parts of the catechism from memory, and they were even using quotes from the catechism in their papers. By the end of the year, some of my students recited their favorite passages from memory for the rest of the class. 

We followed Josh Gibbs’ practice of standing to recite the catechism at the beginning of the class. By 10:00 when literature class begins, my students have already been sitting for an hour in their worldview class, so standing up and projecting their voices is a way to wake up their bodies. My students got used to opening the class this way and were very good sports about it. Even one days when my plans for our discussion flopped, I felt confident that at least part of our class was never a waste of time, knowing we were speaking aloud these beautiful, wise words that have endured for generations. 

This year I created a new catechism for our World Literature class. Following Gibbs’ advice, I kept the first few questions and answers from last year and selected passages from our books that relate to major themes in these works. The hope is that reciting these key passages each week will help keep the themes and characters fresh in their minds. When I’m reading for each class, I love coming upon the passages we’ve been reading out loud in the catechism. They are like familiar friends, and I hope my students feel that way too. 

2024-2025 World Literature Catechism

1. Class, what is your only comfort in life and death? 

That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, by his Holy Spirit he also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for him. 

(From The Heidelberg Catechism)

2. Who made you a child of God?

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. 

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 

(Romans 8:14-21)

3. What is the bondage to corruption? 

The vices are pride, avarice, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, sloth.

4. How do the virtues teach us to be human?

The virtues are faith, hope, love, wisdom, justice, courage, temperance. 

5. Class, who is the source of truth?

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, 

And the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. 

(Prov. 9:10)

6. Why does Odysseus long to return home?

No finer, greater gift in the world than that . . . 

when man and woman possess their home, two minds, 

two hearts that work as one. Despair to their enemies, 

a joy to all their friends. Their own best claim to glory.

. . . So nothing is as sweet as a man’s own country. 

(From Robert Fagles’ translation of The Odyssey by Homer) 

7. Does Oedipus have a tragic flaw?

 . . . . I have to know

Who I am, however low my birth. 

That woman, with her feminine conceit, 

Is ashamed of my humble origins, 

But I see myself as a child of good-giving

Fortune, and I will not be demeaned.

She is my mother, the seasons my kin, 

And I rise and fall like the phases of the moon. 

That is my nature, and I will never play the part

Of someone else, nor fail to learn what I was born to be.

(From Peter Meineck’s translation of Oedipus Tyrranus by Sophocles) 

8. How does The Aeneid begin?

I sing of warfare and a man at war. 

From the sea-coast of Troy in early days

He came to Italy by destiny, 

To our Lavinian western shore, 

A fugitive, this captain, buffeted

Cruelly on land as on the sea

By blows from powers of the air—behind them

Baleful Juno in her sleepless rage. 

And cruel losses were his lot in war, 

Till he could found a city and bring home

His gods to Latium, land of the Latin race, 

The Alban lords, and the high wall of Rome.

(From Robert Fitzgerald’s translation of The Aeneid by Virgil) 

9. How are knowledge and self-control key to The Art of War?

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.  

The onset of troops is like the rush of a torrent which will even roll stones along its course. The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon which enables it to strike and destroy its victim. Therefore the good fighter will be terrible in his onset, and prompt in his decision.  

(From Lionel Giles’ translation of The Art of War by Sun Tzu)  

10. How do we begin to imitate Christ?

Love Him, then; keep Him as a friend. He will not leave you as others do, or let you suffer lasting death. Sometime, whether you will or not, you will have to part with everything. Cling, therefore, to Jesus in life and death; trust yourself to the glory of Him who alone can help you when all others fail. 

(From Croft and Bolton’s translation of The Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis)

11. What poem is written on the gates of Hell?

I am the way into the city of woe, 

I am the way into eternal pain, 

I am the way to go among the lost. 

Justice caused my high architect to move, 

Divine omnipotence created me, 

The highest wisdom, and the primal love. 

Before me there were no created things

But those that last forever—as do I. 

Abandon all hope you who enter here. 

(From Mark Musa’s translation of The Divine Comedy by Dante)

12. How does nature mirror Lear’s despair?

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!

You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks!

You sulph’rous and thought-executing fires, 

Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts, 

Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, 

Strike flat the thick rotundity o’th’world!

Crack Nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once

That makes ingrateful man!

(From King Lear by William Shakespeare)

13. What good is reading without discernment?

In short, he so immersed himself in those romances that he spent whole days and nights over his books; and thus with little sleeping and much reading his brains dried up to such a degree that he lost the use of his reason. His imagination became filled with a host of fancies he had read in his books—enchantments, quarrels, battles, challenges, wounds, courtships, loves, tortures, and many other absurdities. 

(From Walter Starkie’s translation of Don Quixote by Cervantes)

14. What is guilt and what is conscience?

What is it, to run away? A mere formality; that’s not the main thing; no, he won’t run away from me, not just because he has nowhere to run to: psychologically he won’t run away on me, heh, heh! A nice little phrase! He won’t run away on me by a law of nature, even if he has somewhere to run to. Have you ever seen a moth near a candle? Well, so he’ll keep circling around me, circling around me, as around a candle; freedom will no longer be dear to him, he’ll fall to thinking, get entangled, he’ll tangle himself all up as in a net, he’ll worry himself to death! . . . And he’ll keep on, he’ll keep on making circles around me, narrowing the radius more and more, and—whop! He’ll fly right into my mouth, and I’ll swallow him, sir, and that will be most agreeable, heh, heh, heh! 

(From Pevear and Volokhonsky’s translation of Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky) 

15. How can one use power for good?

I see only one hope for our country, and that is when white men and black men, desiring neither power nor money, but desiring only the good of their country, come together to work for it. . . I have one great fear in my heart, that one day when they are turned to loving, they will find we are turned to hating.

(From Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton)