Wednesday, October 26, 2011

There are two types of literary study today. One is literary in nature. We start with the details in the book, making connections and links to ideas, history, art, and industry. If the literary course is historical in nature, we are given a brief review of that history and see how each book or writing explicates or differs from that history in terms of content, language, format, and style. It is all compassing, but it starts with the book as the starting ground of discussion.

If you have a bad professor, like I do, you will not start from the details in the book. The professor will spit out two "major concepts" and all the conversation will stay in the general arena. You will agree or disagree and that's it. The discussion does not have room to grown beyond those major concepts because it is being bracketed.

The other camouflages itself as a literature class, but does not essentially talk about the book at all. I don't know what to call this other study, but it comprises of reading in Middle English (not intending to learn or finding more insight about the Middle Ages or novels from the Middle Ages, but do it because it is fun) or locating all the British castles referenced in a piece of fiction. These classes are often obsessed with learning the motivations or experiences of the authors without assigning any autobiography, essays, or criticisms. One simply reads a book and then talk about how the author might have "felt." These are not literature classes. These are foreign language classes (Middle English or Elvish) or Fictionalized Reality courses (trace the locations in Dubliners). Sometimes they are not courses at all, like the one where you read a book and attempt to discover how a writer felt without any first person reference. I hate these classes. These classes veil themselves inside undergraduate and graduate English programs and in my opinion, threaten the legitimacy of literary study. Not only that, I don't learn anything from these courses. I know nothing about the book. All I have is what someone "felt" or a map of Dublin marked with asterisks. What education does one take from this? How did this come to pass? What program approved this course and its professor?

No comments:

Post a Comment