I highly recommend reading Dr. John Senior's (RIP) two great modern classics The Death of Christian Culture and The Restoration of Christian Culture. These are excellent books explaining the downfall of the modern West, and classic means to restore Christian civilization, beginning foremost with each individual, marriage, family, and local community.
It is from the perspective of a professor of classics and education, co-founder of the once Integrated Humanities program at KU, and a traditional Catholic. He often attended both the FSSP, and in later years the SSPX, being buried in St. Mary’s, Kansas.
Senior blames the downfall largely on modern education, its roots in modern philosophy, corrupting the youth especially through various forms of literature. The word “literature” being used in a broad sense of the written word, not only expressed as novels and essays, but any thought or idea expressed through media including music or cinema.
He traces a historical timeline of post-medieval period literature turning towards skepticism, idealism, and as a consequent an anti-Christian sentiment. The central bad choice being that fatal turn taken by Descartes, Kant, and the other Enlightenment thinkers, that is a turn away from Realism towards Idealism.
Idealism, not in the sense of commitment to "ideals," but rather a deconstruction of the mental framework of ideas, such that ideas are separate from extra-mental reality. Whereas, Realism is the philosophical commitment to aligning all our thoughts and ideas to that objective, knowable Reality outside the mind.
For example, in literature, Idealism would create a fictional world of fantasy, where the landscape, characters, and plot are largely the product of the author's own relativistic world view and personal fancy, with little or no grounding in the actual world. Such would be the world of Star Wars (which Senior critiqued for its New Age bent) or Star Trek. Or The Matrix for that matter (even though The Matrix somewhat is actually critiquing Idealism or Relativism).
Fr. Bethel, Prior of Clear Creek Abbey, being a student of Senior before he became a monk, recently wrote a book on Senior advocating a restoration of Realism, especially by restoring a Catholic approach to literature. Purchase here.
A Realist form of literature would be one based on planet Earth, with actual humans, anchored in history, with a culture and values similar to those in recorded human history, conveying moral lessons clearly contained in the creed or philosophy of a particular people in the real world. Such were the works of "The Greak Books of Western Civilization," such as Homer's Odyssey, Shakespeare's Hamlet, or Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, to span the ancient, medieval, and modern periods.
That last example, Robinson Crusoe, was highly praised by Senior, for ages 7-12, in his "Good Books" reading list. He did not want to see a modern revival of only the "Great Books," about a hundred very intellectually challenging works, and not all literature per se; he himself was known for being an advocate as well for a "Good Books" reading list, which he painstakingly spent part of his career compiling.
Senior even went so far to be a critic of the "fantasy literature" genre, including aspects of Tolkien's and Lewis' works which he did not include on his list. His view was that fantasy literature is essentially a modernistic form of "Idealism," that tends to lead the reader away from Realism, that is what is truly Real in the world, to be discovered and expressed in the story line.
Any consideration then of reading or writing Catholic literature in today's world needs to at least consider Senior's thesis on the subject. His view did coincide with many other traditional Catholic academics, such as the founders of Catholic colleges like Thomas Aquinas College in California, a Great Books school; yet Senior left a mark of his own. His approach was refreshingly poetic, down to Earth, and accessible to the non-scholar, that is the average man.
In The Restoration of Christian Culture, after his own deep reflection on the de-evolution of modern society by means of modern education, he gives very practical, sage advise on what kind of "literature" to follow, and how to restore culture beginning in the Christian home.
First, one of his most noted lines is "Smash the television set." He was being literal about that, but even more so figurative. The TV representing modern media over a screen. If modern literature (in all its forms) would divorce us from Reality, through artificial, contrived literary methods, to a large extent contributing to the modern, secularist environment, then a turn back to real Christian living, argues Senior, must mean a complete Realist overhaul of one's lifestyle, including what one reads, watches, or listens to.
He is saying to set aside, at least to a great extent watching TV, or a computer screen, and read the good and great books of Western civilization. In actual, three-dimensional books. Listen less to recorded music, of the Rock and Roll era, but instead sing and make REAL music in the home. Especially folk music. Let the Christian culture expressed in classical forms of "literature" be expressed through decorating the home, gardening, observing Catholic feast days with family customs, living closer to nature, and the like. That is how true literature becomes a lived, organic reality, and bears fruit in the soul, argues Senior.
Conclusion: John Senior's works, widely read by traditional Catholics and others, are a great contribution to a Catholic understanding of literature in all its forms. In my opinion, his books are a must read, for all those interested in reviving Catholic literature and culture.
If I had more time to reflect on the subject, and quote his books, I am sure I would do him more justice. I know several of his former students here in Oklahoma, including monks at Clear Creek Abbey, or adult children of those students, who I am sure can elucidate Senior's positions better than me.
Along with writers like Thomas Aquinas and Josef Pieper, John Senior was for me back in the day instrumental in my own turn towards Catholic Tradition, and traditional Catholic living.