Navigating My Thoughts on Writing a Novella

Novellas have grown in popularity in world language classrooms within the past decade. They provide comprehensible and engaging narratives with lots of repetition of (often) high-frequency vocabulary. I have used one in my Latin I class two years ago (Lance Piantaggini's Piso Ille Poetulus) and have a library of most of the Latin novellas, which I admittedly still need to read. I too would like to jump on the novella hype train, but there are several obstacles that I am facing in the brainstorming stage. The point of this post is to discuss these issues.

First are the challenges that many prospective novella writers face. How do you limit the number of unique words used within one story? Some novellas use under 100 unique words. I'm over here like

On top of that, how do you create a story that students actually want to read and keep reading till the end? I have a quirky sense of humor, which I would like to incorporate in a novella, but that might not necessarily resonate with many younger readers.

Besides these challenges that all novella writers face, I would like to write a novella that would stand out from the crowd and reflect my own interests. One consideration I have is to write a novella in Medieval Latin and/or in a medieval setting. Why? I came to the Classics as a medievalist first and foremost and will always champion the post-classical world among classicists. Sadly, Medieval Latin and Greek are understudied and underappreciated, so I would love to introduce readers to the fascinating stories found in medieval folktales and saint's lives.

One such story is the Navigatio Sancti Brendani (The Voyage of St. Brendan). I first read this text several years ago in a summer online reading group and loved it! It tells the story of St. Brendan and his fellow monks who leave Ireland and sail across the sea in search of the Promised Land. Along the way, they encounter angry blacksmiths, talking birds, a sea monster, even Judas himself. Because of these fun episodes, some Latin teachers teach this text, making it one of the better known texts in Medieval Latin. Most Latinists, however, are not familiar with it, so why not make it accessible to them as well as to my students?

In thinking about adapting the Navigatio for the novella format, two issues come to mind. First, should I try, as best as I can, to preserve medieval vocabulary, grammar, and orthography? Many Latin teachers want texts that include vocabulary that is high-frequency in Classical Latin, so that could be an issue in adapting a medieval text. Some words found in Classical Latin take on different meanings in medieval literature (often with Christian nuances). Medieval Latin grammar and vocabulary, depending upon the text, can vary significantly from Classical Latin, but for the sake of simplicity and for the ease of the reader I would not mind adapting the text with a more classicizing style. In short, I am torn between staying true to the medieval features of the text and making the text appealing to an audience trained in and devoted to Classical Latin authors.

The other issue is related, but pertains to the Navigatio's content rather than its language. The Voyage of St. Brendan was written by a Christian author(s) for a Christian audience to promote Christian morality and inspire its audience to be more pious Christians. My novella would certainly not have the same intent, but I do not wish to separate the narrative from its cultural context. Sure, I could preserve the adventurous episodes and downplay the moralizing, but that seems disingenuous to the original text. How I see it, I can offer a glimpse into the values and customs of early medieval Ireland without endorsing them. For many public school teachers, however, that is too fine a line to walk. The novella would be either too Christian or not Christian enough. Latin teachers usually do not have to deal with the issue of religion because ancient Roman religious practices and myths are regarded as belonging to the past (although it is problematic to ignore the reality that we have pagan students in our classrooms) and are appreciated as a significant part of Western cultural heritage, as found in literature, the visual arts, and music. Christianity, on the other hand, remains potentially too controversial for many teachers to touch, even at the expense of our cultural heritage from medieval Europe.

Teachers of English literature, Spanish, French, German, Arabic, and other languages: how do you sensitively expose your students to the role that religion has played in the cultures of the language you teach? 

I should add that I have other texts in mind for a novella, such as ancient texts that avoid the aforementioned issues. Eventually, however, I still would like to write a novella set in Late Antiquity or the Middle Ages. In any case, I plan over the next year to continue work on a novella. As in any voyage, there will be delights and there will be perils, but I am excited for the journey.