Stories That Matter: Justice and the Human Heart in European Classrooms
Tuesday 4 November 2025 at 10:43
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Edited by Jim McCrory, Tuesday 4 November 2025 at 10:55
Stories That Matter: Justice and the Human Heart in European Classrooms
I have been dipping into what’s on in the English literature curricula across Europe. It reveals a blend of diversity and unity albeit remarkably similar to the UK high schools. Each country, and often each region or school, shapes its own approach to teaching literature in English, drawing from national priorities, linguistic goals, and educational traditions. Yet, amid this variety, a recognizable group of classic English and American works emerges repeatedly, forming a kind of shared canon that transcends borders. These are the books most often found in European high school classrooms, the enduring “crossovers” that connect students through a common literary experience.
Among these, George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm stand out for their sharp political insight and moral clarity. Their exploration of totalitarianism, propaganda, and human conscience continues to resonate deeply with students in every cultural context. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies joins them as a haunting allegory about civilization and savagery, asking what remains of order and morality when society falls away. From across the Atlantic, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, and John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men offer equally compelling portrayals of human dreams, injustices, and loyalties—each deeply rooted in the American experience yet universal in their emotional reach.
No English literature curriculum would be complete without the towering presence of William Shakespeare. His plays—particularly Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and Hamlet—form the bedrock of literary education across Europe. For generations of students, Shakespeare has served as both a window into Elizabethan culture and a mirror reflecting timeless questions about ambition, love, guilt, and the struggle for meaning. His mastery of language and insight into human nature make his work as alive in translation and performance today as it was four centuries ago.
Beyond these central texts, schools often expand their reading lists with a broader range of British, American, and world classics. British literature offers rich voices such as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, each exploring questions of individuality, morality, and social expectation. Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol continues to remind students of compassion and redemption, while Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales opens a window onto the humour and humanity of medieval England. Along with Shakespeare’s Othello or The Tempest the added theatrical dimension balances satire and tragedy with keen social observation.
From the American canon, novels such as J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn explore the conflicts between society and the individual, while Arthur Miller’s The Crucible continues to provoke reflection on fear, conformity, and moral courage. The inclusion of works like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Homer’s Odyssey broadens the scope further, connecting students to enduring questions of freedom, destiny, and what it means to be human.
The prevalence of these works in European classrooms is not accidental. They endure because they speak to universal themes that cross cultural and linguistic barriers—freedom and oppression, justice and morality, love and loss, faith, and doubt. Their literary excellence and historical significance ensure that students encounter not only the beauty of language but also the shaping forces of thought and imagination that have defined the English-speaking world. The global status of English as both an academic subject and a cultural bridge further reinforces their presence, while the influence of British and American education systems has helped standardize much of what is considered essential reading.
Though each nation on the Continent continues to shape its curriculum according to its own values and traditions, the recurrence of these authors and titles reveals a shared cultural literacy. From Orwell’s bleak visions to Shakespeare’s enduring dramas, these texts remind students that literature is not confined by geography or time. It is a living conversation, one that connects generations and nations through the power of story, language, and the search for truth.
However, as I have mentioned before in this blog, something profound and existential is going on. Many of these books do assume that there is such a thing as right and wrong, fair, and unfair, just, and unjust. And they only make sense because those concepts are real, not invented. If justice were simply a human convention, there would be no reason for readers to feel moral outrage at Orwell’s tyrants, or compassion for Lee’s wronged innocents. The power of those stories depends on the reader knowing, at some level, that justice is not just a social preference, but something rooted in the moral order of reality.
From a Christian understanding, that moral order comes from the nature of God Himself, the source of goodness, truth, and justice. When we respond to injustice in literature, we are responding to something imprinted on our souls by our Creator. Even when an author writes from a secular standpoint, the very existence of moral conflict, the instinctive sense that something has gone wrong and ought to be made right reflects that deeper truth. After all, we are made in the Creator’s image.
Stories That Matter: Justice and the Human Heart in European Classrooms
Stories That Matter: Justice and the Human Heart in European Classrooms
I have been dipping into what’s on in the English literature curricula across Europe. It reveals a blend of diversity and unity albeit remarkably similar to the UK high schools. Each country, and often each region or school, shapes its own approach to teaching literature in English, drawing from national priorities, linguistic goals, and educational traditions. Yet, amid this variety, a recognizable group of classic English and American works emerges repeatedly, forming a kind of shared canon that transcends borders. These are the books most often found in European high school classrooms, the enduring “crossovers” that connect students through a common literary experience.
Among these, George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm stand out for their sharp political insight and moral clarity. Their exploration of totalitarianism, propaganda, and human conscience continues to resonate deeply with students in every cultural context. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies joins them as a haunting allegory about civilization and savagery, asking what remains of order and morality when society falls away. From across the Atlantic, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, and John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men offer equally compelling portrayals of human dreams, injustices, and loyalties—each deeply rooted in the American experience yet universal in their emotional reach.
No English literature curriculum would be complete without the towering presence of William Shakespeare. His plays—particularly Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and Hamlet—form the bedrock of literary education across Europe. For generations of students, Shakespeare has served as both a window into Elizabethan culture and a mirror reflecting timeless questions about ambition, love, guilt, and the struggle for meaning. His mastery of language and insight into human nature make his work as alive in translation and performance today as it was four centuries ago.
Beyond these central texts, schools often expand their reading lists with a broader range of British, American, and world classics. British literature offers rich voices such as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, each exploring questions of individuality, morality, and social expectation. Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol continues to remind students of compassion and redemption, while Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales opens a window onto the humour and humanity of medieval England. Along with Shakespeare’s Othello or The Tempest the added theatrical dimension balances satire and tragedy with keen social observation.
From the American canon, novels such as J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, and Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn explore the conflicts between society and the individual, while Arthur Miller’s The Crucible continues to provoke reflection on fear, conformity, and moral courage. The inclusion of works like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and Homer’s Odyssey broadens the scope further, connecting students to enduring questions of freedom, destiny, and what it means to be human.
The prevalence of these works in European classrooms is not accidental. They endure because they speak to universal themes that cross cultural and linguistic barriers—freedom and oppression, justice and morality, love and loss, faith, and doubt. Their literary excellence and historical significance ensure that students encounter not only the beauty of language but also the shaping forces of thought and imagination that have defined the English-speaking world. The global status of English as both an academic subject and a cultural bridge further reinforces their presence, while the influence of British and American education systems has helped standardize much of what is considered essential reading.
Though each nation on the Continent continues to shape its curriculum according to its own values and traditions, the recurrence of these authors and titles reveals a shared cultural literacy. From Orwell’s bleak visions to Shakespeare’s enduring dramas, these texts remind students that literature is not confined by geography or time. It is a living conversation, one that connects generations and nations through the power of story, language, and the search for truth.
However, as I have mentioned before in this blog, something profound and existential is going on. Many of these books do assume that there is such a thing as right and wrong, fair, and unfair, just, and unjust. And they only make sense because those concepts are real, not invented. If justice were simply a human convention, there would be no reason for readers to feel moral outrage at Orwell’s tyrants, or compassion for Lee’s wronged innocents. The power of those stories depends on the reader knowing, at some level, that justice is not just a social preference, but something rooted in the moral order of reality.
From a Christian understanding, that moral order comes from the nature of God Himself, the source of goodness, truth, and justice. When we respond to injustice in literature, we are responding to something imprinted on our souls by our Creator. Even when an author writes from a secular standpoint, the very existence of moral conflict, the instinctive sense that something has gone wrong and ought to be made right reflects that deeper truth. After all, we are made in the Creator’s image.