The Reader's Duty

What is the reader's duty?

I suppose that question sounds out of the blue, but for me it is something I have been trying to consider for awhile. As we moved into the sections of the course dealing with Ethnic and Feminine theories, I began to ask myself--what should I be reading?

Despite our attempts to change, the fact remains that most of the writers I have read in my fifteen, sixteen odd years of schooling have been white males. Their perspective has been promoted and privileged, and I would think that you would be hard pressed to find someone who wouldn't consider this unfair or wrong in some way.

In class we discussed Ngugi's idea of abolishing English Departments and replacing them with Departments that focus more on the study of language and literature, with the literature of the department's native culture serving as the primary focus of study. We affirm this, because we recognize that his culture has been oppressed by colonization, and this oppression should be lifted.

At the same time that we affirm Africans for wanting to focus on African literature, we chastise Americans for wanting to focus on American literature. Specifically, we look unfavorably upon Caucasian Americans for studying primarily Caucasian (American and British) literature.

If studying your own culture's literature is wrong in some cases but admirable in others, it begs the question: why? Obviously, we would say, because Caucasians have long since dominated the literary scene, and ought to open themselves to the discourse of those Other than themselves, whereas those groups that Caucasians have oppressed ought to have the chance to affirm their own writing.

As I've said, I would not necessarily disagree with this, I would, however, question the validity in being ethnocentric in any way, to any degree. I wonder whether it wouldn't be better for all Language and Literature Departments to try and study the fullest, most balanced variety of perspectives possible. Shouldn't it be the duty of all readers to respect and acknowledge diverse views by reading writers of African, Asian, European, Hispanic, female, male, heterosexual, homosexual, etc, etc backgrounds?

Perhaps that is too idealistic--but is such optimism wrong?

Storytelling in the Internet Age

In addition to taking Literary Criticism this semester, I've also been taking a course on science and technology, focusing specifically on psychological science and technology. In that class we've had many chances to consider the benefits and dangers of the technologies which are cherished fixtures in our everyday lives. As my generation has watched the Internet grow and progress by leaps and bounds, and since it is probably one of the most popular and controversial technologies for my generation, it has been on of the biggest sources of discussion for the class.

One question we have focused on in particular is whether the Internet brings people together or whether it instead isolates us. In my Sci/Tech class we examined aspects such as email, instant messenger, Facebook and MySpace, Skype, etc. However, one aspect we did not spend much (if any) time on, but which I feel relates to the issue of isolation, is the ability we have to "publish" works on the Internet, or to upload works previously published in print to the Internet.

Walter Benjamin believed that works in print isolated both the writer and the reader, especially in comparison to the socially engaging storyteller who relayed personal tales to a physical audience. If Benjamin was critical of printed books for isolating readers and writers, I wonder what he would have to say about the Internet.

On one hand, I can see Benjamin criticizing the Internet as being an isolating force. What is relational about sitting in front of a screen? What is relational about reading about your friend's semester abroad on Facebook rather than sitting together with them and hearing their story in person?

On the other hand, I would suggest that in some ways the Internet is reviving Benjamin's notion of a storyteller--to an extent. According to Benjamin a storyteller relates their own experiences to others and provides some sort of counsel. I would submit that this is done, to some extent, by some people, in blogs. My cousin, for instance, maintains a blog where she faithfully records stories from her life and the life of her family, creatively recording them so that her relatives (many of whom are scattered around the globe) can keep up to date on her life. Since she is relating personal experiences, her reports will inevitably contain counsel based on her experiences.

I wonder what Benjamin would think of this form of storytelling. Would he reject it based on its tendency to isolate, or would he appreciate the return of personal storytelling?

(Adjective?) Writer

"One of the most promising of the young Negro poets said to me once, 'I want to be a poet--not a Negro poet,' meaning, I believe, 'I want to write like a white poet'; meaning subconsciously, 'I would like to be a white poet'; meaning behind that, 'I would like to be white.' And I was sorry the young man said that, for no great poet has ever been afraid of being himself." -Langston Hughes

When I read the line "I want to be a poet--not a Negro poet" I interpreted a different meaning than Langston Hughes did. When I first read the line I thought it expressed a positive sentiment. If I were a poet I do not think I would want to be called a woman poet; I would feel that by tacking "woman" before poet it creates a separation between myself and other poets, "real" poets, male poets. Of course, that might just be the little feminist in me talking. But in any other situation wouldn't we feel offended by such qualifying terms? I wouldn't feel right about someone saying "a woman doctor" or "Negro lawyer." Are they any more or less a doctor/lawyer because they are black/a woman? Does that change the quality of their work?

I can see, that in the case of poets, the nature of the work might change due to race, gender, etc. But despite differences in subject matter, poets are still poets, are they not? Hughes is no more a less a poet for being an African American poet. Dickinson is no more or less a poet for being a woman poet.

Is there a benefit to making racial/gender/etc distinctions between poets?

Limits of Language

Just a brief word or two, before I leave off beating the dead (or if not dead, then dying) horse also known as the subject of gender.

I find it difficult to discuss gender, because our language for it is so limited, so bound up in the established, old ways of think about gender. Woolf had to coin new terms with man-womanly and woman-manly to even begin to talk about gender in a new and understandable way. The words man, woman, masculine, feminine, sex and gender have such heavy, ancient connotations to them--we can't use them without dragging the culturally established meaning along with them. We're still in the beginning of the Conversation on how sex and gender are two different things (or may be, since the discussion has not yet finished). And since we're still at the beginning, still using terms such as man and woman, and masculine and feminine, still hindered in our ability to discuss the issues due to the restrictions of our language.

Even now I feel myself spinning in circles because I don't know of a better way to state my point, but perhaps in admitting that I am making my point: that I am not shaping language to illustrate my point, language is shaping my point.

Please Put the Stones Down

“At the same time that women writers were being reconsidered and reread, male writers were similarly subjected to a new feminist scrutiny. The continuing result—to put ten years of difficult analysis into a single sentence—has been nothing less than an acute attentiveness to the ways in which certain power relations—usually those in which males wield various forms of influence over females—are inscribed in the texts (both literary and critical) that we have inherited, not merely as subject matter, but as the unquestioned, often unacknowledged given of the culture.” – Kolodny (2148-2149).

Sometimes I am really frustrated with feminism. I cannot fully explain why, but what little explanation I have would likely anger staunch feminists. You see, I often find myself feeling poorly for mankind (and by that I do not mean “humankind,” but the portion of society that bears an XY chromosome). It’s not that I don’t recognize, and to an extent resent, that men have been the privileged gender, that they have—for far too long—wielded “various forms of influence over females” but—and here is where I am liable to be stoned by hordes of angry female types—can we really blame the male gender as a whole?

My problem with some feminist writings (not necessarily Kolodny, she merely got me thinking) is that they gloss over the fact that men are just as much a product of culture as women are. We all (men and women alike) inherit “the unquestioned, often unacknowledged given[s] of” our own culture, be they gender related, race related, etc. How can we place such weighty blame on men’s shoulders when—for centuries—these men had no chance to form any worldviews that weren’t gender biased. Right from the womb the entered into a world of vast gender inequality. Their fathers had been raised in that world, their mothers had been raised in that world—that was all they knew. I don’t think we can truly blame men for going along with this “given” any more than we can blame women.

I am sure that this all sounds horrible and absurd. Of course we must place blame. There’s no true merit in the “well they just didn’t know any better excuse.” I wouldn’t try and argue that sexism is right any more than I would try to argue that the South had the right idea with slavery. What I think I am trying to say is that we have to be fair in our assessment—to blame complacent women as much as we blame complacent men. Of course when you reexamine male writing in light of feminism you will find that their work is fraught with gender inequality. But we must also recognize that many times literature, “even in the hands of women writers,” often implied “the inferiority and necessary subordination of women” (2149).

More on the Man Front

There’s just something about feminism that makes me want to stick up for the male population.

I’m all for gender equality, but I really don’t think we’re there yet. Women have been seen as “inferior” to men for…well…a really long time. But now I feel that we’ve gone in the opposite direction, that men are beginning to be seen as inferior. If you want proof of this phenomenon, I challenge you to look at almost any television sitcom—what do you find? Bumbling men who constantly make mistakes, can never understand their significant other (who, usually is some snappy bombshell who is only with the poor schmuck by the grace of God), and generally causes mayhem due to his, well, stupidity. (Of course, you also tend to have a plethora of shrewish wives and girlfriends, which could support a continued inequality for women, but considering that the shrews are usually at least intelligent—and often beautiful—the shrewish-ness can often be explained away as frustration with the bumbler. Wouldn’t you be frustrated if every occasion ended with a cake/pie/pastry in a guest’s face?)

Women have worked quite hard for equality, but I think in trying to make themselves equal to men, women have felt the need to make themselves out to be better than men. I used to describe this as a “pendulum swing:” men had been superior (pendulum at extreme left), women—to gain equality—are overzealous and end up swinging the pendulum to extreme right rather settling in the middle (equality). Recently, however, I found a new metaphor that works a bit better.

My mother works as an office manager at a doctor’s office. Recently she had to forbid the other employees from touching the thermostat, declaring herself the only one able to adjust the temperature. No, she’s not a control freak. The other employees simply couldn’t grasp the way the thermostat works. If they felt too chilly they would move the temperature from, say, 65 all the way to 80. Now, obviously this would then make the room too hot, so they would change the temperature back to 60 or less. What my mother couldn’t get them to understand (no matter how many times she explained) was that although moving the temperature to such extremes will make it hotter or colder almost instantly, that “perfect” temperature will only last for a brief while. What they were too impatient to do was move the temperature by a few degrees and wait for the system to adjust. Sometimes I feel that’s what has been done. Women were too impatient to get equality, wanted to do it as quickly as possible—so they flung the pendulum or temperature or whatever to the opposite extreme; they made men inferior in order to make themselves superior.

What brought on this epic rant? As I read Cixous (and I regret that I do not have a nice quote to insert), I found myself wondering what she would think about the state of gender relations today. Would she be happy with this new inequality? Would she think that the role reversal is justified? Perhaps she would think that men have had their say for long enough, it’s time to give them a taste of their own medicine. I’m not sure. I really don’t have a handle on Cixous’s thoughts; that’s what makes me so curious. Would a woman who wrote so passionately for women be able to feel sympathy for what her cause has done to men?

"The Madwoman in the Attic"

In their book, The Madwoman in the Attic, Gilbert and Gubar write about the artist's "anxiety of influence." They explain it as the artist's "fear that he is not his own creator and that the works of his predecessors, existing before and beyond him, assume essential priority over his own writing" (2025 in Norton). Gilbert and Gubar go on to argue that this anxiety functions much like the Oedipal complex, where the artist seeks to prove his worth as an artist by "killing" his predecessors. This, they maintain, is the struggle that male artists endure; the struggle for female artists is quite different. For women, they argue, the struggle is to find a "female precursor who, far from representing a threatening force to be denied or killed, proves by example that a revolt against patriarchal literary authority is possible" (Norton 2027).

I understand the argument. Men have to worry about proving their worth as an artist, women have to prove that they can be artists. The distinction makes sense, especially examining the history of patriarchy as Gilbert and Gubar do.

However, in reading yet another work that emphasizes the difference between men and women, between their experiences and between them as artists, I find myself wondering when it will end. When will we look at an artist and not have to distinguish them as male or female, but just as an artist? Why can't we just say "author," why do we have to say "female author"? Can't we just accept what Woolf suggests: that we all are masculine and feminine, just in different proportions? I agree with Woolf that an awareness of our sex causes issues--it is what makes us scramble to label artists male or female. I wish we could erase the need for such qualifiers.

Orlando (No...Not Bloom)

When I first read Virginia Woolf's Orlando I hated it.

It was really weird. I mean really. The protagonist starts out as a young man in Elizabethan England and then decides that he will never grow old. And he doesn't. He just continues living until one day--poof!--he's no longer a man (physically), he's a woman (physically). She then continues living and the book ends with Orlando a woman in the 1920's. That's not a storyline I'm used to.

However, after reading the essay on androgyny from V. Woolf's A Room of One's Own, I have a better appreciation for what was happening in Orlando.

The character Orlando is fascinating, once you move beyond the supernatural sex change. When Orlando is physically a man, he seems effeminate, more emotional and submissive than one generally assumes a man to be. And when Orlando is a woman, she seems masculine: less emotional and more assertive than one generally assumes a woman to be. (What one expects of the time period, I mean, or perhaps what one stereotypically expects.)

Gender is a complicated problem throughout the novel. The book begins in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, a grotesque character in the book, but in real life a woman succeeding, peculiarly, in the post generally held by a man. Orlando's first major love interest, Sasha, is a very masculine woman. Indeed, when Orlando first spots Sasha (while Sasha is ice skating), he is unsure whether she is a man or a woman, for she appears androgynous. In addition, Sasha is Russian, which makes her name even more interesting, as it is usually a name used for Russian men. Compared to (man) Orlando, Sasha is far more masculine; in their relationship, it is almost as if the typical "roles" were reversed, with Orlando playing the woman, and Sasha the man.

Later, (woman) Orlando will marry Marmaduke Bonthrop Shelmerdine, Esquire: a fellow who, like Orlando (and Sasha), does not fit neatly into gender categories--for just as Orlando is “as tolerant and free spoken as a man” and Shel is “as strange and subtle as a woman.” In one scene, Orlando exclaims: "You're a woman, Shel!" to which he replies "You're a man, Orlando!"

The above, I fear, barely touches the surface of the issue of gender in Woolf's Orlando, but it is necessary, I think, to even be able to begin talking about her opinions on androgyny.

Woolf asks "whether there are two sexes in the mind corresponding to the two sexes in the body, and whether they also require to be united in order to get complete satisfaction and happiness" (1025). She seems to answer her own question with a yes, for she goes on to state that "a great mind is androgynous. It is when this fusion takes place that the mind is fully fertilized and uses all its faculties" (1025). In Orlando, Woolf presents many of her characters as androgynous. Some are more "man-womanly," others more "woman-manly," but many of the major players defy the typical ways of thinking about gender.

In light of all the gender issues in today's world (homosexuals, bi-sexuals, transsexuals, transgender, etc), I wonder whether Woolf didn't have it right. Can we clearly label men as simply masculine and women as simply feminine, or is the distinction far less concrete. Is there a distinction between the genders at all, or merely distinctions between individuals?

Walk the Tight Rope

Writing is supposed to be a craft.

I get it.

The craft, the artistry of a work is what makes it beautiful, worth reading--it is what sets it apart from fleeting, mundane, mediocre works. True writers work diligently to hone this craft, laboring over every word, every comma, every blank space, every nuance--as they strive towards perfection. These artists seek not only to master an existing craft, they seek to make it their own.

I understand that writing is a craft, and I will be the first to say that the label of "artist" should be applied in an exclusive manner to writers who attain excellence in the craft (and not willy nilly to any Tom, Diane or Harry who calls themself a writer).

Being a craftsmen is one thing--being able to read said craft is another. The question was raised (in class) whether writers/artists should seek to make their work accessible to others.

...

Exactly. How do you begin to answer that? On one hand, we have the possibility that in attempting to reach the common man the craft will be lost--the work will have to be dumbed down. On the other hand, why does the work have to be dumbed down? I'm sure many of us have had an experience reading a piece where it felt like the writer was doing everything in their power to ensure that you had no chance of understanding their work.

I think that a writer should strive for excellence, for mastery of the craft, yes. But I also feel that, perhaps, they should not strive so hard to keep their craft behind closed doors--limited admittance: born and bred intellectuals only. What about the common man? If writers are to be "liberating gods" shouldn't they seek to actually liberate? Why keep their knowledge, their talent hidden away from the majority of the world? Couldn't there be a way to lift the common man up without dumbing their work down?

I Am America

I really, really want to read Stephen Colbert's I Am America (And So Can You!). Although I do not watch The Colbert Report on a regular basis, I greatly enjoy the show and Colbert's sense of humor. Several of my friends (whose tastes I trust) have recommended the book to me, one going so far as to read me a portion of the book (as if I needed the extra convincing). Every time I walk into a Borders or a Barnes and Nobles I see row upon row of the book sitting prominently out with the best sellers, mocking the pennies that jingle in the pockets of my sweatpants.

I want this book.

But why? As I was reading Ohmann's "The Shaping of a Canon: U.S. Fiction 1960-1975," I could not help but examine my own method's for choosing a book to read. (Although, I must be honest, with the amount of books I have to read for school, I rarely have the time to read anything that is not found on a syllabus.) I don't read The New York Times, but I do base much of my reading off the recommendations of others. In fact, I still exchange book recommendations with some girlfriends from high school. It's not impossible to imagine that, through a trickledown effect or degrees of separation, the recommendations I receive can be traced back to "elite" critics. I don't find that much has changed since the time period the article tackles. The middle class or professional-managerial class still plays the deciding role in determining the success of books (movies, music, etc). And, when traced back, the root of these decisions can probably still be found in New York, or other metropolitan epicenters.

Why do I want to read I Am America? To be slightly cynical: because Stephen Colbert was a success on The Daily Show and the higher ups decided it would be profitable to approve a spin off show and the show was (and is) highly successful and the higher ups (in whatever field) approved a book because they knew the fan base would make it profitable and that the soaring sales figures would garner attention...yada yada yada.

I would still like to cling to the belief that I want to read the book because I find Stephen Colbert amusing because I need to believe that my tastes are intrinsically determined. Because that helps me sleep at night.

What's in a form? That which we call a story by any other form...

"The storyteller takes what he tells from experience--his own or that reported by others. And he in turn makes it the experience of those who are listening to his tale. The novelist has isolated himself. The birthplace of the novel is the solitary individual, who is no longer able to express himself by giving examples of his most important concerns, is himself uncounseled, and cannot counsel others." -Walter Benjamin

I suppose my hackles go up because I have grown up on the novel. One of my earliest "book memories" is of meeting the March family and sharing the girls' trials and triumphs in Little Women, and plunging into a good book is one of my favorite pleasures. But it seems, to me, that Benjamin would turn this pleasure into a guilty pleasure. That we readers are somehow cheating ourselves, fooling ourselves by reading the novel.

I can admit that there are differences between the novel and storytelling. I can admit that the author-novel-reader set up does not have the intimacy of the storyteller-story-listener model. But I would not say that only stories come from personal or related experience. Many novels are (at least in some small part) autobiographical, inspired by people, events or experiences in the author's life. And the author of a novel oftentimes writes about the experience of others, just as the storyteller oftentimes passes on stories that he or she first heard from another. The author of a novel, however, also writes the stories of imagined characters. I cannot recall from the article whether a storyteller creates fictional tales, but I would guess that (according to Benjamin) they do not. I would also defend the novel by saying that it too, can take the experience of the characters and "in turn make it the experience of those who are [reading the] tale." Isn't that part of what makes a novel enjoyable, engrossing to the reader? My favorite books are the ones where I feel as though I am right alongside of the protagonist, when their agonies cause me pain, and their joys send my spirits soaring.

I disagree that the author is "no longer able to express himself by giving examples of his most important concerns." Does it make a difference whether the author vocalizes his concerns by setting down his exact experience or whether the author relates his experience through fictional characters and events? I do not think this makes a great difference. Perhaps it could be argued that this makes the storyteller braver than the author of a novel, for the storyteller is willing to lay their personal story bare before an audience while the author hides behind the veil of fiction. But a storyteller also shares stories that are not their own when they relate stories second or third or fourth hand. I have trouble seeing such a stark difference between the author and the storyteller.

I also disagree (quite forcefully) with the idea that the novelist "cannot counsel others." If the story/novel leads the listener/reader to some truth or understanding, what difference does the form make? If a work, for example, leads the consumer to a better understanding of-- let's be flippant--the meaning of life, what difference does it make if the consumer found that understanding in a poem, a novel, a short story, an epic or a oral story? Should we be concerned with the form or the results?

I do agree that in letting oral tradition die we are losing a crucial form of communication, of intimacy. However, I do not agree with the harsh criticism that Benjamin levels against the novel.

Don't Believe the Hype

Is plagiarism that bad?

Yes, and no. I've been trying to figure out my stance (or really, any stance) only plagiarism for awhile now. We're reminding every semester, in every class syllabus that taking the work of others and presenting it as our own is w-r-o-n-g, wrong. But in some of those same classes, I have learned about the great English poet and playwright, Mr. Bill Shakespeare, who lifted many of his plots from other writers--and we hold his works in highest esteem.

What brought this subject to my mind this past week was the example we were given in class to ponder (example 3). Although the question was "does it really matter who is speaking," that was not the question that lay on my heart. As we have been discussing the role of the author and the author's connection to their works, I find myself wondering what some of the critics we are reading would say if their work was plagiarized by another writer. Would they be angry? Would they see it as a violation of their craft or would they see it as nothing at all? If they view their work as something that loses all connection to them (the author) after it is written, then would they say that it really does not affect them if it is stolen? As usual I do not have answers to these questions, but I do wonder.

As a consumer of film and television, I was struck by the plight of the writer earlier this year when we were in a media drought due to the WGA (Writer's Guild of America) strike. While many people were annoyed that their favorite shows were temporarily off the air, I found myself worrying about, praying about, fretting about thousands of writers that I didn't know, that I had never and would never meet. I was outraged on their behalf, and I while I couldn't wait for my favorite shows to return (The Office), I didn't want to see them come back until the writers that made them possible were given fair compensation for their talents.

Although money matters are always a touchy subject, especially when they're Hollywood money matters, the strike made me consider the plight of the author in the internet age. When anything can be placed on line and read/viewed for free, where does that leave the person who has poured their life into creating the work of art, piece of literature, segment of film that we so gleefully watch online (for free) rather than viewing in it's tangible (not free) form? Although the act of writing, for many authors, is not done for the money, it is how they chose to make their living, so what does that mean when we take the fruit of their labor and do not pay them for it?

This may all sound like ramblings, but it has been on my mind since we so briefly touched on the topic of plagiarism. What does it mean for a writer when someone else takes credit for their work? Or does it matter? So long as the words reach people, spark discussion and thought, does it really matter who says it? Or is it the context? Is it wrong to fake a term paper but okay to take a preexisting plot and turn it into Hamlet and pass it off as your own? Is it okay to fictionalize world history but wrong to lie in an autobiography or memoir?

I find it so fascinating that people cannot decide where they stand on the issue of plagiarism and "lying" to the reader. We love Shakespeare and hate Cassandra Claire (shout out to all the purveyors of fanfiction :D), we accept that history is a fabrication but we lambaste an author for embellishing a memoir and passing it off as truth. But...as I am one of those people, I really don't have room to talk.

Nobody Puts Plot in a Corner

"I do think, however, that plot is a notion that critics undervalue and, hence, often disregard."
(Todorov, 2102)

This does seem to be the trend in some of my classes. We do not disregard plot, but we are more interested in talking about the nuances of a character (their flaws, motivations, etc), or about symbolism, motifs, themes, etc. Plot oftentimes get shoved to the background, considered merely the framework for the story, but otherwise unessential compared to the "deeper" aspects of the story.

While plot is, by necessity, a framework that supports the motifs, themes and characters, I do agree with Todorov that we often undervalue it. Just this evening I was at a meeting where a film major was outlining his vision for his upcoming film. His goal is for it to be a Christian film, with Christian themes, etc, but (to paraphrase) he doesn't want it to be "crappy plot, crappy plot, crappy plot, salvation speech, BAM! conversion." He made (what I feel is) a valid criticism of some Christian works--film, books, etc--in that they focus too much on forcing in a literal conversion of one of the characters, that they forget to make the rest of the work any good. I have observed this unfortunate truth many times myself. In an effort to get at the "higher meaning," important aspects like plot and characterization are sacrificed. Unfortunately, when you neglect your important "base" elements (like plot and characterization), then your "higher meaning" often becomes as unbelievable as the shaky plot.

While I dearly love symbolism, motifs, themes, etc, I would not sacrifice the plot of a work for anything. Isn't that what we look for when we pick up a book? Plot? You can't tell me that when you're browsing in Barnes and Noble's you look for the book that looks like it will have the best symbolism. You don't read the back cover/inside flap for insight to the motifs of the novel. No, you look for a plot that looks, if not fresh (for we can argue as to how many "original" plots there really are), then intriguing.

Sometimes I think we get just a little too full of ourselves, a little to assured of our own deep insight as English majors, or literary critics, or whatever. I think we tend to tell plot to sit down and keep quiet, to not draw attention to itself.

But I say: "Nobody puts plot in a corner."

Art vs. Science

I feel (again I show how postmodernism has affected me) that there must be a distinction between art and science.

The standard distinction (however simplistic) would be that art is emotional and science is objective. That is true, I think. Art has some similarities to science, in that different forms of art have guiding rules and regulations that they must follow (a poem is not a sonnet, for example, if it only has five lines). I also believe that art and science are methods by which we can discover truth; however, I believe that they lead us to two very different types of truth (but that is a post for another day). The difference I want to talk about, is that I see art as an expressive way to illuminate truth. I would say a roundabout way, but that carries connotations that I don't want. Art (and specifically poetry, literature) provides a way of expressing a truth without using that wallop I spoke of, that frying pan to the face. Art is able to do so because of our emotions, because of the way true poets meticulously choose their words, their form, their spacing, their rhythm, so that they evoke in (most of) their readers the emotional response that they want. They pick and pluck at the common experiences and emotions that connect us, playing on them and drawing us to a crescendo of emotion that raises us up to the point they wanted to make.

True, the emotion is not the poem, the poem uses emotions as a tool to bring us to its meaning. W and B have it right when they talk about specificity of emotion (1398), but I feel that, overall, they come down a little too hard on emotion, and veer too far towards objectivity for my liking.

Responding to My Own Post...

In re-reading "The Affective Fallacy" (which I'm not sure I understood any better the second time around), I found these two passages towards the end of the essay:

"Poetry is a way of fixing emotions or making them more permanently perceptible when objects have undergone a functional change from culture to culture, or when as simple facts of history they have lost emotive value with loss of immediacy." (1402)

"In short, though cultures have changed and will change, poems remain and explain; and there is no legitimate reason why criticism, losing sight of its durable and peculiar objects, poems themselves, should become a dependent of social history or of anthropology." (1403)

I suppose the above quotes would be W and B's response to my long winded question of poet X and poem Y and World War Z. If I'm reading the essay correctly, W and B are saying that if poet X is responding to World War Z, then, for the poem to successfully display the author's intention, people of any time period should be able to deduce, simply from reading the poem, that it referred to World War Z.

I reluctantly admit that I agree, in part, with W and B. If the poet meant readers to understand that the poem was about a fear of growing old (for example), but the majority of readers do not arrive at this conclusion, then obviously neither the author nor the poem have done their duty.

But there is another part of me that does not agree with W and B, simply because what I feel (yes, feel) they want a poem to be is too straightforward, too clinical. I don't want to be walloped over the head with a poem's meaning; I want to have to think about it, to explore it a bit.

I know I am oversimplifying, but I have not yet learned to put aside my own feelings and emotional reactions, so my response to W and B will be an emotional response, not an entirely rational one.

And I'm okay with that.

The Intentional Fallacy

Because of the way poetry (and literature in general) is taught, I have trouble completely accepting Wimsatt and Beardsley's criticism in "The Intentional Fallacy." Ever since I can remember, my middle school, high school and even (gasp!) college teachers/professors have given us background information on the authors of the works we are reading. We learn about the time period they wrote in, their world views, their personal lives, their influences.

Wimsatt and Beardsley would probably (for I don't like to speak in absolutes) not like this method of teaching literature. They would probably flop my lit crit book down in front of me, flip to page 1376 and jab their fingers down on the line that reads: "The poem is not...the author's (it is detached from the author at birth and goes about the world beyond his power to intend about it or control it)," reminding me that searching for the author's biographical information to help me determine one of the meanings of the poem is to commit the intentional fallacy.

But this is where I have my hang up. W and B also say: "One must ask how a critic expects to get an answer to the question about intention. How is he to find out what the poet tried to do? If the poet succeeded in doing it, then the poem itself shows what he was trying to do." Alright, maybe that is true. But I still think that meaning cannot simply be gleaned from reading the words in a vacuum. If poet X wrote poem Y in reaction to the horrors of World War Z, then the people in poet X's own time, the time s/he published, then they would not even have to ask who poet X was or what they thought. The people of poet X's time would know that this bizarrely constructed and very abstract poem Y is not abstract just for the heck of it, that is reflects the effect of World War Z. Are the people of poet X's time period still committing the intentional fallacy? They've understood the author's intention from the poem, and they've arrived (let's assume) at the same meaning that poet X had in mind when s/he wrote the poem.

But what about the people who came after? Let's say poet X wrote a century before you or I were even born. If we read poem Y, having no knowledge that it was written after World War Z, we may look at it and say: "wow, that is a weird and abstract poem" and then proceed to interpret the symbols used according to our own situatedness (hurrah for postmodernism). But in doing so, we do not arrive at the poem's meaning. (Okay, and we also run the risk of the affective fallacy, but let's say--for this argument--that we avoided that risk.) Would W and B still say that it's the author's own fault that their intention was not made clear in the poem? Would W and B fault us for looking at poet X's time period for a better understanding of poem Y? If we didn't know a little about the poem's relation to World War Z then, in my opinion, it would be like we were reading two completely different poems.

Meaning doesn't come in a vacuum, and while it's nice to be able to interpret a poem without asking the author's permission, to be able to interpret it in light of our own knowledge, I can't help but feel like we're cheapening the poem. If the author did have something important to say, that would have been clear in his/her own time but less clear as time went by--then what is wrong with knowing that?

Perhaps I am being juvenile, or unsophisticated in my way of thinking. Perhaps I am just clinging to a security blanket of authorial intent. But as an amateur writer, one who merely writes every now and then for the fun of it, I can't imagine how it must feel for someone who pours their all into a work, only to be told that their intention is unimportant.

"The Possibility of a Poetic Drama"-T.S. Eliot

When I was reading through T.S. Eliot's "The Possibility of a Poetic Drama" (online, at whatthethundersaid.org, thanks to the wonder of technology) I was struck by the following line: "the moment an idea has been transferred from its pure state in order that it may become comprehensible to the inferior intelligence it has lost contact with art."

My first thought was of my high school chorus teacher, who always told us that it wasn't his job to come down to our level, it was our job to come up to his, handing us a dictionary when we wanted to know the meaning of whatever 25 cent word he had used that day. Of course this thought is rather frivolous, and nostalgically indulgent, as most of my "first thoughts" tend to be as I read.

My second thought is that the line reminded me of another passage we had read for class. It took me awhile to figure out what the connection was, but in looking back through the mess of highlights and scribbles, I found this passage in Emerson's "The Poet":

"For poetry was all written before time was, and whenever we are so finely organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air is music, we hear those primal warblings and attempt to write them down, but we lose ever and anon a word or verse and substitute something of our own, and thus miswrite the poem."

Although Eliot was speaking more of the dumbing down of ideas for the masses, I cannot help but associate the "art" he spoke of with the eternal truth that Emerson and others were attempting to write down. In my mind we (humans) are quite simply the "inferior intelligence," and in our attempts to render truth comprehensible we separate it from the eternal art and, as always happens when we are trying to summarize a concept we do not fully understand, "substitute something of our own, and thus miswrite the poem."

The Real Dead Poets Society

"Someone said: 'The dead writers are remote from us because we know so much more than they did'. Precisely, and they are that which we know." -Eliot, "Tradition and the Individual Talent" (Norton, 1094)

We (humans) are so awfully arrogant some (most) times. We look back on the past with condescension and pity, confident that we know so much more in 2008 than was known in 1998 or 1898 or 98 BC. We think that because we have split the atom and created flat screen televisions and know that the world is round--we think this makes us better, more advanced, more intelligent, more worthwhile than past generations. We think: 'how did people survive without cell phones' or wonder how scientists got anything done without the equipment we have available today.

Eliot's response to our arrogant assertion that "we know so much more" than the writers of the past was to remind us that those writers are our new knowledge; their works are the new chapters in the history of human knowledge.

While I enjoy the manner in which Eliot burst our bubble of pride, I would argue whether we do "know" anything more from reading the poets of the past. Now, this is not to say that I do not think their works valuable or their voices important. What I mean is that truth does not change. Human nature has not changed much since Adam and Eve left that garden; our desires, our emotions, our pitfalls have not changed much either. We long for the same things that citizens of Plato's Athens longed for, we are burdened by the same things as the people of Shakespeare's England.

I am skeptical as to whether we learn anything new from the writers of our immediate past--for what is there to say that has not already been said? (This, even I admit, is a bit harsh and pessimistic. I hope that we have more to learn about ourselves, but I wonder whether we have reached the limit of what we are allowed to know.) I think that what we gain from the poets of the past is not new knowledge, but a new way of approaching or articulating truth.

Passive Reading?

A question, or thought, was raised today in Lit Crit that really set the mental wheels a-turning. It was suggested that the process of reading may make the reader "passive in the face of someone else's imagination."

As always seems to be the case, I found myself both agreeing and disagreeing with that statement. For me the passivity of reading falls into the category of "it all depends." Naturally I can agree that what we are reading when we pick up a book, or poem, or newspaper, or journal, etc. was created out of the imagination of another. So of course their imagination influences what is created. Nevertheless, in order to truly read and interact with a text (whatever type of text it might be) we must also use our imaginations. You can't just read a passage like: "The hunchback stood at the end of the pit, his pale face lighted by the soft glow from the smoldering oak fire...the hunchback's ears were wiggling furiously on his head...He fluttered his eyelids, so that they were like pale, trapped moths in his sockets. He scraped his feet around on the ground, waved his hands about, and finally began doing a little trotlike dance" (McCullers, The Ballad of the Sad Cafe, 48-49) without picturing the hunchback in your own mind, taking the words from the page and molding them with your own imagination until you have your own version of the author's vision "doing a little trotlike dance" in your head. In fact, many times I find that the author is more at the mercy of our imaginations than we are at his or hers! After all, if we do not agree with a text, or find it distasteful in any way, we can put it down and never bother with it again. But an author has no such measure of control over how his (or her) work is interpreted and changed by the imagination of the readers.

Of course, although I think it essential to use one's imagination when reading, I do realize that there are some people who choose not to, out of laziness, or want of practice, I do not know. I do know that it is possible to get through a book or poem without adding anything of your own to the reading, but I feel that it is a conscious decision on the part of the reader not to participate. I think that reading is only passive if we make it passive. In its truest state, I do not think reading is at all passive.

Oh Reason...

"But poets have been challenged to resign the civic crown to reasoners and mechanists on another plea. It is admitted that the exercise of the imagination is most delightful, but it is alleged that that of reason is more useful." -Shelley in "A Defence of Poetry" (Norton, 710)

Last semester I took a course on Worldviews, during which I finally gained a working knowledge of modernism. Through reason we can know the truth about everything? (Simplistic, I know.) I still find it absurd. It would be wonderful if it were true, but I just do not believe it to be true. We cannot possibly see enough and experience enough in our lifetimes to know the truth. Yes, the "exercise of the imagination" IS "most delightful," but I believe that it is also most necessary; necessary to make up for our lack of experience and knowledge. To understand others we must be able to utilize our imagination. And to come up with the fascinating technologies that we cherish so much, we need to utilize imagination (an i-pod doesn't appear out of thin air, you know). I even believe that to love, we need to utilize our imagination.

Reason is all well and good, but I wouldn't poo-poo imagination.

Reading Responsibly?

I was looking through my notes for class, trying to find that little star that, at the time, I thought would be attention grabbing enough to remind me where I had jotted down a reminder of what I wanted to blog about. Needless to say, I'll be making those little stars a little bigger next time.

Anyway. The star, once found, was marking a list of questions about the nature of reading. The question that caught my blogging fancy was, "is reading dangerous?"

I'm sure we're all familiar with the notion of banning books. Over the past year I've participated in a few book drives that refuse to take Harry Potter books, or any other book that promotes the practice of witchcraft. Schools and libraries have been banning The Catcher in the Rye ever since its publication in 1951, citing everything from the language to Holden being a poor role model. (Of course, the fact that John Lennon's murderer was obsessed with the novel probably didn't help matters.) In Google-ing about banned books for this search, I discovered that many of my childhood favorites have been banned or contested: A Wrinkle in Time (L'Engle), Julie of the Wolves (George), Bridge to Terebithia (Paterson), To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee), and James and the Giant Peach (Dahl).

I constantly wonder about the dangers of reading, especially in light of my preparations to become a teacher. Because, when I'm being honest, I don't think the problem lies with the books, I think the problem lies with the reader. The Catcher in the Rye did not kill John Lennon, Mark David Chapman killed John Lennon. In the hands of a mature, responsible reader, who knows the difference between fiction and real life, and who knows that the thoughts and actions of the author or characters are not blueprints for life, a book should not be dangerous. But in the hands of someone who cannot evaluate the credibility of a narrator, who cannot distinguish between right and wrong, or between fiction and reality--a book can be a dangerous thing.

So perhaps I do see the logic behind banning books, because really, how can you know who will read the book or poem and get the wrong ideas? How can I know, as a teacher, which of my students can handle To Kill a Mockingbird and which can't?

Regardless of the logic, however. I still find it sad, for as I said in a previous post: I love reading characters with flaws. But characters with flaws often do bad things, and think bad things, and say bad things. Must we resign ourselves to two-dimensional, unrealistic, characters in the name of safety?

Ugliness

"For as it is dislocation and detachment from the life of God that makes things ugly, the poet, who re-attaches things to nature and the Whole,--re-attaching even artificial things and violation of nature, to nature, by a deeper insight, --disposes very easily of the most disagreeable facts."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Poet" (Norton, 730)


Any "good" English major knows not to look at a line out of its context. If I am to be a "good" English major, I should not merely tangent off of this line; instead, I should incorporate the following lines into my response to the above passage. However, what struck me was not Emerson's description of nature adopting technology/industrialization "into her vital circles." What caught my attention was the line quoted above.

In the fashion of a true poet, Emerson has presented me with a new insight: "it is dislocation and detachment from the life of God that makes things ugly." It is a simple thing for me to agree with his statement after reading it. From a Christian standpoint, the truth of his statement is quite obvious. Detachment or dislocation from the life of God could easily be renamed sin, and sin, by its nature, is ugly. Simple? But I could not have explained it, written it, penned it as Emerson did.

While I am struck by the truth nestled at the beginning of his sentence, what really caught my attention was the end: "the poet, who re-attaches things to nature and the Whole,--re-attaching even artificial things and violation of nature, to nature, by a deeper insight, --disposes very easily of the most disagreeable facts." Earlier we outlined and discussed our definitions of Literary Theory, and Reading, and Author, etc. for class and in class, and during our discussion we raised many possible definitions and facets of what makes for Literature. Though my initial definition will undergo countless revisions as we learn and grow in class, one portion of my definition that I will stand behind is my belief that literature must contain truth about the human condition, its vices as well as virtues.

Have you ever read a book where the characters are just so good that you can't stand it? As a fan of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, I was delighted when my cousin loaned me a copy of Alcott's first novel, The Inheritance, written when she was just a teen. Although I enjoyed reading her first novel, I was aggravated to tears by the protagonist, who was so perfect it set your teeth on edge. Readers were reminded almost every line of Edith's goodness and humility and kindness and beauty. Beauty is all well and good, but for me, I prefer reading a text where the characters are flawed, are ugly in some way. I cannot relate to total goodness, to angelic perfection. It is not something I can find on this fallen earth, it is not a quality I possess. I am a fallen creature, made ugly by my separation from God. I can relate to and learn from characters who are flawed like I am. (The don't have to have my exact flaws, mind.)

To me, it is more important, more "interesting" (for lack of a better word), more truthful to write of ugliness and imperfection. One of my favorite authors is Flannery O'Connor. I read a few of her short stories for a class in high school, and was drawn to her depiction of ugly, flawed, twisted characters. Though I was partially repulsed by the characters I found in "Redemption" and "A Good Man is Hard to Find," I was also partially drawn to them, drawn to their vices, drawn to her honesty in writing the characters she did. I think we can learn more from her flawed characters than we can from characters such as Edith. Whether we take away a simple template of What-Not-To-Do, or whether we take hope from a flawed character's redemption, or whether we take away something else entirely, I believe we take more away from a work that presents fallen characters for our pity, amusement and edification.

My fascination, and problem, with the second half of Emerson's quote, is that I am not sure how it relates to my beliefs on "Literature," mainly because I am not sure what--precisely--he means by it. Could he mean that the poet, by writing of ugliness, by addressing it, by dealing with it in some manner, re-attaches it to nature? By illuminating it for those of us with blurred sight, does the poet redirect us towards the proper path? Or does he mean that the poet, using his (or her) greater insight, using her (or his) talent with language and truth--transform the ugly? Does the poet hide the ugly from view, and present us only with that which is whole with nature?

Perhaps it is because I have stared at this passage too long, or perhaps it is because I have not the poet's sight, or perhaps it is because of the late hour--but I cannot come to any conclusion.