Teaching people to hate literature.

Lame Lantern

donegalfella wrote: »

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There's certainly more than a substantial element of that. However, in its initial form the "canon" of literary works that was inherited by the anglophone world was little more than a list of what was popular with 19th century British (and largely uninformed) aristocrats. When people dared to question this setup, integrating magnificent writers like Emily Dickinson and Edith Wharton into the mainstream, there came a backlash from people like Terry Eagleton who simply would not give an inch and launched into arguments like your own. However, other beneficiaries of this new revision include William Faulkner, the twentieth century's greatest novelist in my view, and HP Lovecraft, whose writing you may not consider "high" but is certainly distinct and massively influential. Both painstakingly white men.

You're right that there is a danger of the pendulum swinging the other way, and to this day authors like Salman Rushdie coast on their apparent (though false) postcolonial image, but let's be wary of going to far down the "political correctness gone mad" route. The problem is not as substantial as you're suggesting. While I cringe every time somebody insists on talking about how great Chinua Achebe is, I cringe even more every time a much larger group people tell me how great Tobias Smollett is. On balance, taking a second look at the canon has been humongously important and positive.

Permabear

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Eliot Rosewater

Lame Lantern: ...I cringe every time somebody insists on talking about how great Chinua Achebe is...

Do you attribute Achebes popularity to this "obligation" people have to include minorities such as Africans in the canon?

Whats everyone elses take on Achebe?

Mark Hamill

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

Mark Hamill said "Its amazing that in anything else, if you have a simple way to do something and a complicated way, its the simple way that is usually considered best."

Wrong for literature, I'm afraid.

Consider the book Slaughterhouse 5 for example. The author Kurt Vonnegut (a character of whom my user-name is named after) goes to Dresden, experiences the bombing. Kurt could do the simple thing - write a memoir of his experience with a simple plot etc etc. Explain how he felt and how he trys to get over it etc etc.

Or, of course, he could do it the complicated way. He could invent a host of supernatural characters promoting a concept of being "unstuck" in time, reinforced by a non chronological narrative structure. The point of these outlandish literary inventions being that Vonnegut or the protagonist Billy Pilgrim cant change what happened. They played so small a part in the war, and in life, they couldn't do anything about it.

Vonnegut never says the book is about dealing with the past. I sure as hell think it is. In fact if you were to ask me about past events in my life Im not proud of, I'm liable to say that thats something I cant change a lá Slaughterhouse 5. See what I did there? See how I applied a dead Americans view of the Dresden bombing in 1945 and what life lessons that entailed to my life in 2009?


As a more accessible example consider 1984. A book that is effectively an attack on totalitarianism and specifically the socialist flavour. It was written in 1949, and Orwell died the next year. Yet 60 years after being published, a person giving out about Google Earth asks me have I heard of the book. See what happened there? See how because its thematic and literary it retains its relevance to our lives years after socialism disappeared from Europe?

I cant quite see how this deals with my point. I said the simple way of doing something is usually the best. You gave an example of two books which, through their elaborate stories, have been relevent at times in your life. But, were in all of that, is the implication that if Orwell and Vannegut had written directly, as opposed to writing hidden meanings in their prose, that the relevence would have been more apparent to more people? You have given two books where you have found relevence to your life through their prose, but you have failed to show how that they are better than the alternative, books where the point is given directly.

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

So where does Terry Pratchett do this, may I ask? :P

Have you not read my sig? :P

Mark Hamill

donegalfella wrote: »

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I doubt many people listen to 50 Cent right now, never mind in 500 years. Gaimen however I would imagine would still be as read in 500 years as now.
The real question, though, is if Shakespeare had never been put on school curricula, would nearly as much people be still reading him?

Permabear

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Eliot Rosewater

Mark Hamill wrote: »

But, were in all of that, is the implication that if Orwell and Vannegut had written directly, as opposed to writing hidden meanings in their prose, that the relevence would have been more apparent to more people?

In other words if they wrote a history book on the Dresden bombing and a political book on totalitarianism, respectively, they would be relevant to more peoples lives. I like reading history however I dont think it pertains as largely as literature does to my personal life.

Through generalizing to a certain extent writers make their books more applicable to different scenarios. If Orwell wrote just about Soviet Russia his book would probably have become a historical artifact. However he didn't, and the fact that 1984 is relevant today and has spawned such adjectives as Orwellian is proof that the scope of literature can be greater than that of a simple plot-based book.

Literature spawns interpretation as such. People reading poetry will interpret it to pertain to their own lives. It can transcend generations and cultures. If you read Cecelia Ahern theres nothing to be read into the book: what happens happens. You might go through a breakup and say thats similar to a one described by Ahern. However I would say that my attitude, that I cant changed what happened, is exactly what I feel Vonnegut was trying to say. Vonnegut isnt talking so much about Dresden as he is about dealing with the past.


@Lord Vetinaris quote: its fine and all. However its pretty shallow. Its means what it says and nothing much more. Contrast that description of evil with Goldings in the Lord of the Flies. Such a general yet effective description of evil that people have applied it to individuals and wars etc. You cant apply Lord Vetinaris's speech to world war 2. You can however read Lord of the Flies as a metaphor of world war 2 and it has been done. Golding gets into the juicy detail of evil, not just the mother and child eating mother and child. He shows how friends can be subdued and how society can force us into becoming the evil we should be repulsed by.

Lame Lantern

donegalfella wrote:

In reality, the notion of "the canon" is a bit of a straw man. Writers and genres have continuously faded in and out of popularity over the ages—metaphysical poets such as Donne and Marvell had almost been forgotten until T. S. Eliot revived interest in them in the 1920s, for instance—and there has never been a set list of books that everyone everywhere has agreed upon. Politicized academics of the 1970s and 1980s have tirelessly promoted the idea that literary history had been shaped by a power struggle over race and gender; but closer study suggests that changing literary taste has played a much bigger role over the centuries.

That's all fair enough, but the canon we inherited in the twentieth century as literature became an academic pursuit was long-standing and very consistent in its composition. Modernists like Pound and Eliot as well as Russian Formalists of the same era began the process of questioning what they had inherited which was, by then, very institutionalised by the first scholars of modern literature.

Politicized academics have tirelessly promoted the idea that everything has been shaped by a power struggle over race and gender, across all disciplines in the humanities. It is a problem. However, I think you're overlooking the fact that the Eagleton canon is still very popular. For all its very visible left wing bias there is still an equally vociferous conservative streak in English academics that is, if anything, more annoying and difficult to negotiate. See the outrage prompted by Chinua Achebe's declarations about Conrad. Though perfectly reasonable and (though I adore Heart of Darkness) largely correct, the academy pulled a complete freaker. Your gripe appears to be with academic theory at large, which is perfectly fine, but it shouldn't throw you into the opposing camp of equally undiscerning "thinkers."

Eliot Rosewater wrote:

Do you attribute Achebes popularity to this "obligation" people have to include minorities such as Africans in the canon?

I think he's included because his works speak exclusively (and fairly simplistically) to a postcolonial theory that's popular with academics (ie one that does not lay the blame on middle class white people because, well, every English academic is a middle class white and often British or French person). His ability as a writer of prose is, in my view, lacking. He belongs on the syllabus because of his influence and profile but should not be held up as a master of the form.

Lame Lantern

Mark Hamill wrote:

But, were in all of that, is the implication that if Orwell and Vannegut had written directly, as opposed to writing hidden meanings in their prose, that the relevence would have been more apparent to more people?

Fundamentally, you're ignoring the expressive qualities of aesthetics in the arts. The goal of the writer isn't to obscure meaning, it is to give rise to new meaning through the creative properties of language. Vonnegut's novel would have been dry and pointless if it contained a single page with the line "war makes you go a bit mental" written on it. A novel's "meaning" is not reducible to easy consumed bullet points. There's greater, more subtle expression in the full sum.

Permabear

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Mark Hamill

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

In other words if they wrote a history book on the Dresden bombing and a political book on totalitarianism, respectively, they would be relevant to more peoples lives. I like reading history however I dont think it pertains as largely as literature does to my personal life.

Through generalizing to a certain extent writers make their books more applicable to different scenarios. If Orwell wrote just about Soviet Russia his book would probably have become a historical artifact. However he didn't, and the fact that 1984 is relevant today and has spawned such adjectives as Orwellian is proof that the scope of literature can be greater than that of a simple plot-based book.

Literature spawns interpretation as such. People reading poetry will interpret it to pertain to their own lives. It can transcend generations and cultures. If you read Cecelia Ahern theres nothing to be read into the book: what happens happens. You might go through a breakup and say thats similar to a one described by Ahern. However I would say that my attitude, that I cant changed what happened, is exactly what I feel Vonnegut was trying to say. Vonnegut isnt talking so much about Dresden as he is about dealing with the past.

And there a people who read Ahern and say that their relationships are exactly as she writes them, or that they wish that they were. The thing is, its all subjective. In terms of how people are taught in school, however, I think more emphasis should be got on just getting people to read, as opposed to dictating what people should think is good. You say that what Vonnegut writes ressonates with how you feel, but that doesn't mean that it will ressonate with how anyone else will feel or that it even should (ie that they are doing something wrong if it doesnt).

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

@Lord Vetinaris quote: its fine and all. However its pretty shallow. Its means what it says and nothing much more. Contrast that description of evil with Goldings in the Lord of the Flies. Such a general yet effective description of evil that people have applied it to individuals and wars etc. You cant apply Lord Vetinaris's speech to world war 2. You can however read Lord of the Flies as a metaphor of world war 2 and it has been done. Golding gets into the juicy detail of evil, not just the mother and child eating mother and child. He shows how friends can be subdued and how society can force us into becoming the evil we should be repulsed by.

Who says Vetinaris speach is supposed to read in terms of world war 2 though? I read it in terms of any of the man made religions and it fits quite well, the idea of the normalcy and beauty of mother and child eating mother and child for their existence is an apt example of the inherent fundamental evil present in a hypothetical all powerful creator of the universe. Again this just shows the subjectivity of analysis. Not everyone will read the same things (or anything) into metaphors as you or I, but this is not recognised in the current education system, where preset answer styles (almost preset answers) are required to pass.

Mark Hamill

Lame Lantern wrote: »

Fundamentally, you're ignoring the expressive qualities of aesthetics in the arts. The goal of the writer isn't to obscure meaning, it is to give rise to new meaning through the creative properties of language. Vonnegut's novel would have been dry and pointless if it contained a single page with the line "war makes you go a bit mental" written on it. A novel's "meaning" is not reducible to easy consumed bullet points. There's greater, more subtle expression in the full sum.

But only to some people. Some people are more just more direct and dont see the need to bother with subtle expression. They might even wonder why other people cannot appreciate a simple truth and require it subtly expressed through prose. My father always scorns when he hears "Here in Heaven" by Bruce Springesteen, questioning the genuinity of a man who is so sad his child has died that he tries to make money off of it.

Lame Lantern

donegalfella wrote: »

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English departments were relatively young, but literary discourse was not. The reclaiming of Shakespeare, for example, occured in the scholarship of a century earlier. The nineteenth century saw broad, pervasive debate regarding the standard and consumption of literature, but it was not institutionalised in universities. Following the enlightenment, the romanticists and the period of revolutions, the public (if not academic) discussion of literature became widespread and a canon of largely realist prose and conventional poetry was very much contrived as the century developed. The establishment of English departments was not the product of activism but simply a reaction to a pre-existing and long-standing dialogue.

Things were hardly static during the nineteenth century, either. That period saw the rise of the novel, huge increases in public literacy, the advent of cheap paper and mechanized printing, and other innovations that entirely reshaped the literary landscape.

I agree entirely. However, class mobility was still an emerging concept and it isn't until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that literacy as a vehicle for personal advancement becomes understood among lower middle and working class people. That is when literature becomes "intelligent."

My gripe is not with literary theory per se—because even theorists such as Barthes and Derrida were astute readers of writers from Balzac to Joyce

Point right there: There is an increasing body of evidence suggesting Derrida never read Ulysses in its entirety and only read the last page or so of Finnegan's Wake, but that's off topic.

—but with the pervasive displacement of literary study by cultural studies, and with the corrosive "postmodern" mentality that everything is just as valuable (or valueless) as everything else.

Fundamentally I agree with you, particularly with the prevalence of untenable but popular declarations regarding a postmodern state of mind by people like Frederic Jameson. The interraction of literary and cultural studies is one that is vital, but what I object to (and what you seem to as well) is the shambolic, unrigorous climate within that field that tries to load everything into the amorphous collective of postmodern identity.

Professors of art history don't seem to be arguing that we should ditch all art created prior to 1920 as the oppressive product of dead white male minds, and orchestrate classes instead on modern movie posters and urban street murals—but that is exactly what has been happening in literary studies.

A lot of them do, actually. The climate you experience in literary criticism is largely the climate within all the humanities.

If Eagleton is doing anything with his seemingly reactionary comments on the literary canon, he is objecting to his fellow radicals' desire to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Yet Eagleton is guilty of ignoring virtually any writer existing outside the realist, anglophile sphere. That, to me, is a greater crime than a liberal-guilt revisionism. What existed before this new activism you're objecting to wasn't any better.

Eagleton may be a Marxist, and can apparently reconcile his lefty beliefs with his multi-million-pound bank account, his various distinguished professorships, and his three homes, but he is at least astute enough to realise that when the academy rids itself of the oppressive forces of Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Milton, and is left teaching classes on Harry Potter, The Simpsons, and Star Trek, English doesn't have much disciplinary integrity remaining. A stroke of a provost's pen can then abolish the entire bankrupt enterprise.

If you do English at Trinity you'll have to sit through compulsory semester-long courses on Shakespeare and Chaucer, with Milton figuring very prominently in a first year course on heroism in literature. Harry Potter likely appears on a sophister elective course on children's literature and, as much as I hate the whole franchise with an unquenchable rage, it is a valid area of study in that context. There are compulsory courses on sexuality and postcolonialism in literature, but no Star Trek or Simpsons stuff.

The point I'm trying to illustrate is that both ideologies are alive and well and clashing with each other. In my view, the most ludicrous lectures I had as an undergrad were regarding Shakespeare and Chaucer and I spent most of my early years in the field arguing against the deranged activism critics bring to the table when constructing arguments around those two figures. Postcolonialism, as an area of study, invites debate whereas Shakespeare criticism (or Joyce criticism, which is more painful given my mancrush on the dude) is loaded with unquestioned inanity.

Questioning the canon is not only good but vitally necessary. Going to the other extreme of revisionism is stupid, but it does not render the existing problems of the canon non-existant.

RonMexico

I think you mean Tears in Heaven by Eric Clapton no?:D

Lame Lantern

Mark Hamill wrote: »

But only to some people. Some people are more just more direct and dont see the need to bother with subtle expression. They might even wonder why other people cannot appreciate a simple truth and require it subtly expressed through prose. My father always scorns when he hears "Here in Heaven" by Bruce Springesteen, questioning the genuinity of a man who is so sad his child has died that he tries to make money off of it.

Hemingway's direct prose is fine. However, let's not fool ourselves into thinking there are no aesthetic decisions made in his work. In the Old Man and the Sea, the experience of being alone on the ocean, the desperation of returning to shore with the sharks undoing his work and the relationship between the boy and the fisherman are all constructed meticulously with the same eye to the employing language as a vehicle for expression as Faulkner or Joyce, though the strategy itself may be different.

Writers don't try to obscure meaning when they write unconventionally in the hopes of demanding greater attention from their readership. Rather, they're trying to elicit a distinct emotional response. The Sound and the Fury could not have been written any other way, in my view. Nor could A Farewell to Arms. Writing is a plural field.

Eliot Rosewater

I think Lame Lantern's described it better than I have. In my mind its nearly an axiom that George Orwell is better than Cecelia Ahern, its just describing that reasoning is harder than I would have thought.

Speaking of authors, anyone here have any opinions on John McGahern?

Permabear

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MsDarcy

scriba wrote: »

I completely agree. I am a first year tutor of a humanities subject at an Irish university and I am appalled by their 'abilities' they have picked up prior to third level. Grammar, argument, sentence construction are very poor, while they show reluctance and inability to engage with the texts on any level. It angers me that people are entering courses with no detectable interest in the course, or the bones of a necessary skillset to tackle it. Surely they would be better off working for a couple of years, before deciding what they truly want to do, rather than being shunted into third level for another three or four years of 'school'. I cannot figure out whether it is simply general apathy, a poorer standard of student due to results-driven spoon feeding of information, or something else.

Whatever babysitting has gone on at secondary level, I feel I want no part of it.

Apologies for the little rant.

As someone who just sat their leaving cert and is now studying English in college i can totally agree with you and the user you quoted aswell. With regards to the undergrads who go on and do the dip for the sake of, to students it is even totally obvious to us. I had a german teacher last year and as lovely as she was you could tell she did her b.a and didn't really know what she wanted to do with her life and said sure feck i'll do the dip.

In relation english at college, as i'm learning at the moment, it's a completly different ball game to the Lc. I was lucky to have an amazing teacher who (ironically doesn't even have a dip but was studying for a masters) encouraged us to read all the time and recognised the faults of the system and did his best to open us up to literature as best as he could and help get us a half decent grade at the same time. Generally, i was an average student but i excelled at english purely due to the fact that every since i can remember i have read books for pleasure from enid blayton(sp? ) to Jane Austen to what i'm studying now in college. I was never going to get an A in the leaving cert because i was never an A grade student and i'm not the type who can learn off reams of quotes and 7 page comparative essays.

And as you say students are going into university and are completly shocked at the differences betweent the two. I think i was at an advantage starting, i was aware of what i was getting myself into. My teacher always said to me, you deserve an A at leaving cert, you might not get it, but you'l be the best prepared in your lecture hall in uni. Infact one of my friends who got the A in leaving cert english has just dropped out of the course because she was so used to being able to learn off things and vomit things back up again.

So whilst I am finding english tough (especially reading all those critical essays), i think they are also fascinating andvery interesting, but there is plenty of people getting by without reading anything, and just taking english in college " 'cause they did ok at it leaving cert".

wow.:eek: think i went off on my own little rant here too :P.. just wanted to show an post-leaving cert / first year undergrad opinon..:rolleyes:

Anouilh

MsDarcy wrote: »

As someone who just sat their leaving cert and is now studying English in college i can totally agree with you and the user you quoted aswell. With regards to the undergrads who go on and do the dip for the sake of, to students it is even totally obvious to us. I had a german teacher last year and as lovely as she was you could tell she did her b.a and didn't really know what she wanted to do with her life and said sure feck i'll do the dip.

In relation english at college, as i'm learning at the moment, it's a completly different ball game to the Lc. I was lucky to have an amazing teacher who (ironically doesn't even have a dip but was studying for a masters) encouraged us to read all the time and recognised the faults of the system and did his best to open us up to literature as best as he could and help get us a half decent grade at the same time. Generally, i was an average student but i excelled at english purely due to the fact that every since i can remember i have read books for pleasure from enid blayton(sp? ) to Jane Austen to what i'm studying now in college. I was never going to get an A in the leaving cert because i was never an A grade student and i'm not the type who can learn off reams of quotes and 7 page comparative essays.

And as you say students are going into university and are completly shocked at the differences betweent the two. I think i was at an advantage starting, i was aware of what i was getting myself into. My teacher always said to me, you deserve an A at leaving cert, you might not get it, but you'l be the best prepared in your lecture hall in uni. Infact one of my friends who got the A in leaving cert english has just dropped out of the course because she was so used to being able to learn off things and vomit things back up again.

So whilst I am finding english tough (especially reading all those critical essays), i think they are also fascinating andvery interesting, but there is plenty of people getting by without reading anything, and just taking english in college " 'cause they did ok at it leaving cert".

wow.:eek: think i went off on my own little rant here too :P.. just wanted to show an post-leaving cert / first year undergrad opinon..:rolleyes:

All undergraduates rant...

I would be very pleased if you could share some links to books of criticism that you find particularly interesting.

I mostly read about the visual arts these days, but have kept up with critical trends over the years in relation to French literature rather than English.

Derrida was such an influence years ago, but it would be helpful to see who is setting trends at the moment.

Mardy Bum

MsDarcy wrote: »

. So whilst I am finding english tough (especially reading all those critical essays),

They are the hardest things I have ever read. They take a god awful amount of time to get through. Give me Hemingway or Joyce any day instead!

Anouilh wrote: »

All undergraduates rant...

I would be very pleased if you could share some links to books of criticism that you find particularly interesting.

I mostly read about the visual arts these days, but have kept up with critical trends over the years in relation to French literature rather than English.

Derrida was such an influence years ago, but it would be helpful to see who is setting trends at the moment.

Freud's Uncanny is interesting along with Luce Irigaray's The Power of Discourse and the Subordination of the Feminine also check out Judith Butler and Gloria Anzaldua

kowloon

Plowman wrote: »

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I'd prefer to see my work devalued over my royalties .
Is it better to have a minority delve deeply into someones work or have a far greater number derive enjoyment from it instead of being driven away entirely?

Anouilh

http://www.erraticimpact.com/~feminism/html/women_cixous.htm

This seems to be a useful site.

Anouilh

donegalfella wrote: »

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Tolstoy hated Shakespeare, and I have often had occasion to think he had a point.

I was surprised at the effect that three years reading English and French had on me. It left a lifelong distaste for dry critical writing that has never been repaired.

Somehow the traditions set up centuries ago in universities have not been encouraging to many students. So many of my friends dropped out of college after one or two years because of the sheer boredome they felt.

I once summarised my experience by saying that after a few years I could not have cared less about the conversations great writers had with one another.

However, the groundwork done then means I read Proust and George Eliot with great pleasure.

The OP about teaching people to hate literature is quite serious.
I think it is possible to bore students to death with detail.

Ave Sodalis

Anouilh wrote: »

The OP about teaching people to hate literature is quite serious.
I think it is possible to bore students to death with detail.

Boredom can make students hate anything fairly quickly.

That was the name of the article, I didn't make it up.:)

994

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

Lame Lantern: ...I cringe every time somebody insists on talking about how great Chinua Achebe is...

Do you attribute Achebes popularity to this "obligation" people have to include minorities such as Africans in the canon?

Whats everyone elses take on Achebe?

"Things Fall Apart" was interesting, but more as a view of a very different culture than as a novel, and I'd have enjoyed it as much as a magazine article. It wasn't Proust by any means.

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

But wouldn't Gormenghast be considered canonical by now? And the idea of "classics" as a genre is a bit shaky, after all "Nineteen Eighty-Four" is dystopian sci-fi, and "Crime and Punishment" is a psychological thriller about a mad axe-murderer.

Regarding Leaving Cert English - it was pointless. For starters, to gain any real idea of literature you'd have to have seen 20 good plays, read 20 good novels and 100 good poems, but in a school setting that's not possible and I know a guy who got a B2 at higher level and said he had never read for pleasure in his life. Our class memorised how to do several strange exercises, but how many were made more likely to read "seriously", or go to the theatre, or even become great writers? None.

Anouilh

The influence of Colonialism and Orientalism continue to knock heads together.

I have always had difficulty with "Heart of Darkness", but not for the reasons that Achebe found:

http://powayusd.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/teachers/dmasur/An%20Image%20of%20Racism%20in%20Conrad%27s%20Heart%20of%20Darkness.htm

Conrad's involvement with the outsider is explored in finer detail in "Lord Jim" where the image of a man who is born falls into the sea is very poignant and one which unites all people.

I have never found Conrad racist. Such a reading would be similar to accusing Flaubert, just as those who put "Madame Bovary" on trial did, of being small minded, bigoted and a corrupter of society.

The struggle in reading all literature is to find where the writer and the narrative voices co-incide and diverge.

Writers, like Conrad, who deal with extreme violence, are often open to misinterpretation. He uses "The Dark Continent" as a metaphor. Recently, on the World Service, a series of programmes analysed "What is Wrong with Africa". It generated a lot of debate.

Anouilh

There is a cultural aspect to all this.

Irish people tend to read a lot, on average, and now it seems that students in arts faculties are soaring.

French people often read graphic novels and are very taken with visual material, over and above the written word.

Has anybody ideas on why this is so?
I think that the Irish climate is one element in this.

This site

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=55aa5076-fe5d-409e-b4f3-f901559be698

claims that reading on average 20 books a year is the sign of a voracious reader.
That would be chicken feed to me.

I have scoured the libraries of Dublin in the past and was welcomed in one place with the question...
"Have you read all the books in your own library"
which made me LOL.