Homer's sexuality
Sir: Does Oliver Knox ('Homer for sex lessons', 27 June) need to return to the Mad to discover the negative aspects of sexual passion when schools still teach Othello, Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night? Paris's thieving and Menelaus's wounded pride offer obscure moral les- sons, especially as the Trojans, who other- wise personify the pleasures of family life, are beaten by an army led by a child murderer and a homosexual. The Iliad is very much an ILEA text but the last book of the Odyssey might suit Mr Knox's Purpose.
There are plenty of valid reasons for the teaching of classics without resorting to the argument that literature can teach us les- sons for life: how can it when even first- hand experience does not? Mr Knox is plainly wrong when he states that the joys of sex have produced less Poetry than the tragedies. David Elwyn-Jones 59 Gloucester Place, London W1
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