My teacher handed me the Iliad when I was fourteen, and I hated it. Eight years and two full tours of the Great Books later, I had learned to like the Western Canon but not how to understand or study it. I still felt like a person at a feast with a stuffy nose. Then I got hired to write Literature class plans and suddenly there was no more "try." What happened next was stranger than fiction, but that's a story I'll save for later.

For now, can you relate to my experience? Maybe they kee...