-Sophocles, unaware of future irony

After reading this NYTimes article about literature teaching you social skills, Bwog quickly brainstormed compiled through much effort the complete set of life-lessons first-years will glean from LitHum.

Iliad: Sometimes when people get angry they kill people.

Odyssey: Non cosi fan tutte.

Histories: People lie to make their stories better.

Oresteia: Systems of law are helpful.

Oedipus: Oedipus can’t see she’s just not the girl for him

Medea: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.  Some actions have harsher opposite reactions.

Lysistrata: Men just want to fuck.

Symposium: Wine loosens lips.

Bible: People interpret things differently.

Aeneid: Nationalism, man.

Confessions: We’re all inherently greedy.

Inferno: Go to hell, asshole.

Decameron: People like having sex.

Montaigne: Go to a doctor when you’re sick.

King Lear: Sibling rivalry is real.

Don Quixote: Imagination is not real.

P&P: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.  Similarly, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman must be in want of a man in possession of a good fortune.

C&P: People will go way out of their way to justify their actions.

To the Lighthouse: Sometimes, you’re just a Q.

 

What Columbia students do every single day courtesy of Shutterstock