A Few Final Comments: The Path Ahead

"Morals are open to being altered by literature; so that we find in practice that what is “objectionable” in literature is merely what the present generation is not used to. It is a commonplace that what shocks one generation is accepted quite calmly by the next."
~T.S. Eliot, "Religion and Literature"

“Literature celebrates the health of a culture; it reveals its depth and richness. …[and] when culture is not healthy, literature has a special utility in making a diagnosis of the situation, [although] a sound diagnosis of our condition, though it is necessary to the finding of a proper remedy, is not the same thing as the remedy.”
~Cleanth Brooks, "Community, Religion, and Literature"

Before you read this post, please read my post from May 1. That was supposed to be my final blog, but as you can tell, I'm definitely not done with the topic of literary criticism, and would very much like to find some answers to all the questions that have been raised for me throughout this semester (which really are more than you can begin to think of... call it crisis of reading, crisis of being a human, really, whatever you will...). When I was writing my critical essay, I read a lot of outside sources to adequately try to understand my topic (in a nutshell, "Do Christians have a responsibility to experience that which immediately seems to violate their standard moral values?"), and the topic was as much for my own necessity as it was for the class assignment. This question has been rolling around in my mind throughout this entire semester, and even though I argued for an experience of these things, I am still not done with the topic and want to pursue it further some day. But especially in light of what I wrote yesterday, I decided that I wanted to post a final blog dealing with these two quotes above, because I think they speak to my situation (and maybe some of your own) very well.

When I first read the quote by Eliot, I was taken aback. So simple in its profundity, I had never even realized that this was the truth. But look back at history (and since I am also a music major, I will start with that): Mozart and Beethoven were "crass" and a disgrace to the musical world. No one wanted to hear their music. Beethoven was even banned in many places, including the home, because his music supposedly "made women do things they shouldn't do" (I think your imagination can figure out the rest). But it didn't stop there. I remember my mother telling me stories about how her father told her to turn "that trash" of the Beatles off... seems ridiculous, doesn't it? The three people / groups I have just listed are now seen as the geniuses of the music world. And now, we spend our time trying to emulate them, keeping their music alive, etc. etc. And they were despised by the older generations when they first started out. It was the same with literature, although I do not know that as well as I do music (which I plan on changing quite soon). And it's the same with literature, music, theatre, movies, etc., now. The works of art that the older generation says is "bringing this country down" (yes, I have heard many people say that) are the very things that will be seen as masterpieces by subsequent generations. That's just the way history goes. But then you wonder, are our morals truly being altered by art? Are we necessarily losing our morality when we accept new forms of art? I would never in a million years call Beethoven's music an opposition to my Christian beliefs. In fact, his music not only is in line with anything I would believe as a Christian, but also lets see a glimpse of the glory of God (through his harmonies, his passions, etc... just listen. You'll understand). But what about music or literature today that uses foul language, sexual references (didn't Shakespeare do that too?), and anything else that seems to be offensive to our Christian morality? If we accept that, then are we losing our morality?

I am still thinking about this question, but I think Brooks' quotation above speaks to this topic, or at least a small portion of this topic, when he talks about literature (or any art for that matter) in making a diagnosis of an unhealthy situation. Yes, literature celebrates humanity in all its richness and beauty (we are, after all, the human creations of God Almighty), but it also can diagnose where it's going wrong... if we are astute enough to see that. And that means we have to be critical readers to see where the author is making a commentary on society, or if they are just perpetuating the wrongs. That, I think, involves a lot of prayer and humility on our part as we approach art (literature, music, visual art, etc.) today. Because many artists are actually writing commentaries on the wrongs in our society (and not viewed very highly because of it... the truth does hurt sometimes), even though they may be doing it in "covert ways" so as not to offend from the outset. We have to be discerning (again, with much prayer and humility) of what is a true diagnosis and what is only perpetuating the evil in society (we can't deny that there is evil...). But we can learn to read charitably, as Alan Jacobs promotes... as he says, you must seek to learn the whole truth, not just the good: "If you love a writer, if you depend upon the drip-feed of his intelligence, if you want to pursue him and find him- despite edicts to the contrary- then it's impossible to know too much. You seek the vices as well" (Julian Barnes, "Flaubert's Parrot" as quoted in Alan Jacobs).

In the end, as I have stated before, I am nowhere near finished in my study of literary criticism. Maybe no one else was as profoundly affected as I was... but then again, you take classes to figure out what you like sometimes. Although it was often providing many more questions than answers, Literary Criticism has made me a new reader, ready to see where art diagnoses humanity's faults or celebrates its richness. And it has set me up to be a reader who is informed by my Christian beliefs, even when I can't readily see where these studies will take me.

Again, thanks for listening. It's been a great three months, and really, the journey is just beginning....

A New Reader

"It turned out that you have to know how to read. It is not just a matter of letting your eyes run down the pages. Since Innokenty, from youth on, had been shielded from erroneous or outcast books, and had read only the clearly established classics [of the Marxist-Leninist canon], he had grown used to believing every word he read, giving himself up completely to the author's will. Now, reading writers whose opinions contradicted one another, he was unable for a while to rebel, but could only submit to one author, then to another, then to a third.
~"The First Circle," Solzhenitsyn (as quoted in Jacobs)

Perhaps it's not time for an ending post. Perhaps I still have a few (or many) thoughts dealing with literary criticism. But I read this quote from the Jacobs reading, and felt like it was more of an appropriate ending than anything I've read so far. So let me start with this: I am a new reader. I grew up "being shielded from erroneous or outcast books" (and music, and movies, and many, many other "questionable" things). My parents were just trying to do what was right - and the church backed up their efforts, as talk after talk and magazine after magazine told us that these books, etc., were "bad" and would harm my Christian walk, leading me down the paths of the evil world. I don't blame my parents. But I do oftentimes - especially after this class - wish it were otherwise.

I did grow up believing almost all of what I read in some way or another, because, supposedly, what I read was good and acceptable, so it must be true. Literary Criticism (and a few other English classes I am taking this final semester here), have introduced me to texts I never would have read otherwise, and even some texts that my parents and church would term "bad" (especially in one literature course I am taking right now). In reading all these different views, I have found myself asking what "truth" really is. This discussion has even continued into many different realms of my life, even into my new-found interest in politics. But I have had numerous conversations with people, and the main gist of those conversations is, "who do I believe" among all these conflicting views. And how in the world do I reconcile them with my Christianity without compromising. I have not talked about this in these blogs, first off, because that's personal, and this is a class blog, and second off, I didn't want anyone to misinterpret what I was trying to say. But some of the topics and texts we have covered this semester in all my classes (so this is cumulative now) have made me step back and reassess what I believe, why I believe it, and what I have been taught to believe my entire life. And I don't believe that's a bad thing. But this entire process is just that: a process, something that is really just beginning.

I just want to say that many of these posts had a lot of questions, many of them unanswered, because I don't have an answer. In effect, many of these posts were little essays... and please read them as such. This is my essai, as Bret Lott talks about in his memoir "Before We Get Started." These posts are trials or test runs. I'm still in the middle of figuring it all out, and I think it will take the rest of my lifetime to completely figure it out, especially because I am falling into the same trap of the quoted section above. Sad, yes. Beyond my control, not any more. As I read this, I realized what I had been trying to put words to all semester. I was not able to articulate arguments, even though I loved listening to them in class, but I didn't know what I truly believed about something because I never truly had to defend it before. Or to reassess if what I believed was really in line with the Jesus I serve. Or to get the chance to read things that my parents would say are "liberal," and see for myself what they were really all about. And they have said that to me before about books I have been reading in college. "Just be careful," my mother says. And I want to be careful. I want to weigh everything I read, in effect, being a literary critic throughout everything I do / read / watch, etc. But I also want to be able to "claim the right to evaluate and respond" to what I read (Jacobs 107).

So please excuse my questions and my ethical debates (even though those went on much more behind the scenes than you probably would like to believe). Please excuse my inarticulations and my gropings in the dark. But really, this is where I want to be. If I don't take the risk, how will I ever find out anything?

So thank you, to those who listened, and to those who helped put things in perspective (especially through class discussion, but also through your own blogs and some of your comments here too). Perhaps you will see me on here again (and perhaps soon). But at any rate, thank you for sharing in my questions, and for letting me ask those questions in the first place.

The Languages of the Bible

"Against unknown literal signs the sovereign remedy is a knowledge of languages. And Latin-speaking men, whom we have here undertaken to instruct, need two others for a knowledge of the Divine Scriptures, Hebrew and Greek, so that they may turn back to earlier exemplars if the infinite variety of Latin translations gives rise to any doubts. ...For there are some words in some languages which cannot be translated into other languages. And this is especially true of interjections which signify the motion of the spirit rather than any part of a rational concept. ...[a knowledge of this] is necessary on account of the variety of translations."
~Augustine, "On Christian Doctrine"

I really am fascinated by this new section of Christian theory / hermeneutics that we are studying in class, one that I think is so often neglected when studying the Bible in general. I thought of this quote when we were discussing the question of Biblical interpretation. Someone actually brought up the fact that when we interpret the Bible today for ourselves, we are actually "interpreting an interpretation," since the Bible wasn't originally written in English, but translated from the Greek, Hebrew, and Latin (not necessarily in that order - see, I don't even know how our English translation came about!). Therefore, choices were made when interpreting words and phrases from language to language, since Augustine himself talks about the discrepancies sometimes found between languages. And from this short talk on the topic, I was left with a lot of questions and thoughts on Biblical interpretation.

First off, let's just think about one of the questions we discussed in class as a spin-off from this main theme: Do all readers have authority to interpret a text, or do scholars have greater authority based on their greater expertise? From looking at the above context, it seems that only scholars would have the means to go back to the Greek, Hebrew, and Latin to see what the original texts actually said. Then they are able to aid us in our present-day interpretive quandaries. But the common person is not fluent in any of these languages, and therefore cannot even begin to see their original meanings. And with meanings also comes connotations to words. Each society attaches connotations to words and phrases, and different meanings come about for words as the years go on (just look at where a word like "gay" has come from over the centuries, and what it means now). So words and phrases that mean something to us now meant something totally different to the Biblical writers, hence where many of our interpretational difficulties come from. Now, commentaries are available for the common person who does not go to school for Biblical studies or for languages such as the ones mentioned above, but really, let's be honest, when was the last time any of us picked up a commentary or concordance when we read the Bible. I'll be honest: I never have, unless I had to for a class. And I've forgotten most of what I learned there.

I took my last Bible class last semester, and I will never forget something the professor said. Our study was going deep into historical contexts and into many other areas that I had never heard of in the church. The professor said that the average preacher would not know half of these things, for they do not go to school and study all the same things that Biblical professors study... their classes are different for the different degrees (I'm sure I'm grossly misquoting, but the point was that Biblical scholars often "know more" than the average preacher, and if they do know the same amount, there is no way they can cover such intense and obscure topics as we are talking about here in a Sunday sermon - they'd lose half the audience!). That leaves us with scholars who know more about the Bible, or can talk more about the Bible in different ways than the average preacher can on a Sunday morning, and therefore they have authority to help us interpret in ways we couldn't do because of lack of knowledge.

Going back to the beginning, the study of languages opens up a whole new arena for Biblical interpretation, because we are seeing the original language and what those words really were. And if we go into the historical context, we see what those words really meant to the people of that day. My Bible professor last semester often gave us the Greek interpretation of the passage we were reading, focusing on what the words really meant for the people then. It was an awakening for me. But in the end, that's as far as it went. I haven't researched any deeper into it (mostly for lack of time and energy, since life takes over with all its busyness). And that leads me to not be as much as an "authority" as my professor, since I do not know all that he knows. Yes, it is at my disposal with the advent of such a large dissemination of print texts, but I also need the time to go and find those books... and then read them.

In the end, I completely agree with Augustine, and even though I think we are all able to interpret texts in some fashion (isn't all of life an interpretation of sorts?), we cannot do it on the level that authorities can...

The Bible as Literature

"The writing, no matter how good it is, expresses something that (to non-Christians) is not true, so it seems like to them it would be impossible to appreciate the Bible in the way they would any other literary work. They would be left, as Pesta expresses, with merely studying the influence the Bible has had on history. The Bible is not literature; it is a course in culture." ~Danielle Sahm, April 19 Blog

As I was reading through blogs tonight, I was struck by Danielle's blog. I had actually talked a little bit about the Bible as literature, but I didn't really have the words to express everything fully. I thought Danielle did a great job and brought up a bunch of good points, and I'd just like to make a few of my own comments. In the above quote from her blog, she talks about the study of the Bible as literature in the secular arena only being a course in culture. She brings up the question of if we can study the Bible just for its genres and influence on history while ignoring its content, and also its Author.

Really, I agreed with her, but I will play devil's advocate for a few minutes. The Bible IS literature. It is a written word that has been passed down for generations. Can we deny the fact that it is literature? I don't think so. But to Christians, the Bible is much more than just this. It is the inspired word of God. We study it for its wisdom, for the word of God speaking directly to us. We read God's love letters to us through the Bible. It is our sacred book. Sacred literature. But what does that mean when we teach it as just literature? I have heard countless arguments saying that studying the Bible as literature takes away the sacredness of the book and relegates it to the status of any other work of literature. And in a way, I think it does. But it doesn't have to. Knowing that the Bible has literary elements in it (poetry, prose, parable, etc.) adds to the richness of the Bible. It is not just one book filled with the same type of writing, but a multitude of different writings that speak to every single aspect of the human condition. For Christians, I think studying this aspect of the Bible is not wrong or diminutive, but helpful.

Yet bringing that into secular settings may pose the problem. As Danielle said, it could become a study in cultural influences, which in and of itself may not be wrong. But ignoring the content, especially when it is seen as a holy book for a vast number of people, seems very wrong. And then I thought, do we study other religions' texts in the same way? Do we look at the Koran as only literature? Do we remember when doing this that other people view this as their sacred text? What really is going on here, and how far should we go in discussion the Bible as literature? And can we really discuss it without acknowledging the sacredness of this book to people and also the wisdom in its pages from God?

Reading and Writing: A Look at the Present

"...My colleagues and I have remarked on the increasing numbers of students that we have in our writing emphases, many of whom declare forthrightly that they really love writing but don't like to read so much. This, combined with the steady growth of creative writing programs across the country has led me to muse openly with my provost that we seem to be living and teaching at a moment when everyone wants to express themselves, but no one really cares to read much of anything being expressed."
~Pete Powers, "Reading Ethnic Literature Now"

I know this paragraph is not necessarily the focus of this essay (since it deals more with reading ethnic literature now... hence, of course, its name), but this section struck me quite readily as I was reading. Being a writing emphasis student, I wanted to comment on this... and I will start with my childhood. I was a very avid reader when I was younger. I could finish 300+ page books in less than 2 days. I remember curling up on my living room couch and reading all day long. My mom had to force me to take breaks from reading, because she said my eyes needed a break from 5-6 straight hours of staring at the page. I got lost in those worlds, though. I loved fiction. I didn't read much non-fiction, but that was ok. I was reading, and loving it. And then I finally entered middle school, high school, and eventually college. And my reading-for-pleasure days were over. Inundated with thick college textbooks and reading deadlines, I read just to survive.

Let me switch gears slightly... I have been in so many writing classes where the above quoted scenario has played itself out. I personally know many people who say they are English majors, but qualify it by saying they have a writing emphasis, and therefore do not read much, and then further qualify this by saying, "I'm not your normal English major." As if not reading makes you a "bad" English major, and writers want to be "bad" English majors, because that sets them apart from all the people who just sit and read all day, and then talk about what they read at night. No, we are writers, for goodness sakes, and we actually do something with our lives.

Perhaps I grossly exaggerate. Yes, I really probably do. But I have heard talk like this so many times before... and I would just like to conjecture something... I really do love reading. I could read for hours, and never get tired of soaking up the world through books. But do I do it on a regular basis, especially in addition to normal schoolwork? Not at all. I reached a record high last summer when I read about 8 books throughout ten weeks (you readers are saying, "That's it???"), and I had goals of keeping up extracurricular reading throughout this year. And you guessed... that definitely didn't happen. And I would never say I don't love reading, but I would say that the college lifestyle takes a toll on you... that such intensive study can sometimes make you lose the love you once had for reading (or anything else for that matter). With deadlines and reading of things others choose for us (however good those things may eventually be for us), it's sometimes hard to think of reading as anything else but another thing on the endless to-do list.

But what about those writing students? Because we are so focused on writing our own ideas about the world... with our profound need to express ourselves and assert our own individuality (which is done by most everyone at the college level to some capacity)... we forget that others have things to say too... things that will foster our own thoughts and creativity. But we are so burnt out with keeping up with deadlines and trying to write things that will get us good grades in this grade-conscious society of ours that we feel we have no time to read. And if we have no time, it slips to the sidelines. And soon we think we don't need to read, because we're doing so good without it anyway (our grades are telling us so) and perhaps we say, well, we don't have much of a desire to read anyway. We are writing, and that's what we want to do for the rest of our life.

Along with exaggerating, perhaps I also grossly over-generalize such things. But I think the intensity of college (and even high school) life forces reading (except for those things we must read as dictated by our professors) to the sidelines... and perhaps that is why we don't want to read. We're burnt out, and just trying to keep up with the writing and necessary reading we have to do in class... just something to ponder as we're reaching the end of yet another semester...

Oral Literature (Yet Another Take)

"The study of the oral tradition at the University should therefore lead to a multi-disciplinary outlook. ...Spontaneity and liberty of communication inherent in oral transmission - openness to sounds, sights, rhythms, tones, in life and in the environment - are examples of traditional elements from which the student can draw. More specifically, his familiarity with oral literature could suggest new structures and techniques; and could foster attitudes of mind characterized by the willingness to experiment with new forms, so transcending 'fixed literary patterns' and what that implies - the preconceived ranking of art forms."
~Ngugi, Liyong, and Owuor-Anyumba, "On the Abolishment of the English Department"

I looked at oral literature way back with lectures from Peter Wasamba, and I argued (or at least perhaps tried to argue) for the credibility of oral literature classes as he saw them. I didn't think much about that since then, until we read Ngugi's proposal for class today. And I thought his arguments were quite sound and rational. I know he was talking to primarily the Universities of Africa, but I would like to take some "artist liberties" and extend this a little farther into the Western realm.

The part of Ngugi's article which I quoted above talks about the study of oral literature leading to a multi-disciplinary outlook. Ngugi proceeded to mention how many different disciplines this study would affect: literature, music, linguistics, Sociology, Anthropology, History, Psychology, Religion, Philosophy. And then I thought about any liberal arts colleges (Messiah College to be specific, since that is what I know). We are supposed to take general education classes, the goal being that we receive a well-rounded education. I really do think Messiah does a wonderful job of that... but then I read this article, and thought about how much more we could potentially do. In theory, Ngugi called for one discipline that arched over the entirety of disciplines. Is there any thread that connects all of our disciplines here at Messiah? Perhaps it is the thread of Christianity (although that is not necessarily in every class). But other than that, there seem to be very distinct, separate disciplines with no overarching themes, such as the theme of oral literature studies that Ngugi proposed. And really, are there any threads -besides that of Christianity - that bind each discipline together. Are we asked to look at Sociology in its relation to linguistics on a consistent basis? Or psychology as connected to history? Perhaps it is just me, but I see each separate discipline as just that - separate and distinct from each other. Do we ever truly make an effort to see how each discipline is related to the others, and how each gives us a fuller picture of humanity, our day to day lives, and ultimately, our God?

And I know I put more of the quote up there, so let me just touch on that a little. The rest of the quote, in my roughly summarized terms, talks about how oral literature can open us up to new ways of seeing the world and eventually help us break free from "fixed literary patterns." And I really see his point. New experiences open new viewpoints. New literatures open new stories and discourses... and ultimately conversation. And I want to end with something I hope I can tie into this. Today in chapel, Native Americans spend the 45-minutes telling us about their rich heritage, their rituals, and if I may be so bold, their oral myths too. At the end of the talk, Richard Twiss asked us to stop thinking of Native Americans as a mission field, and to instead see the richness of their past and present. And I think that is also what Ngugi was asking for... that we stop thinking of them as the "other," and start seeing the beauty of their culture. I say all this to bring it back to this: in opening ourselves up to oral literature, we open ourselves up to seeing the culture for what it is, and not what we want it to be (and in doing so, see its beauty), and we therefore open ourselves to seeing how we can break free from using only European literary patterns, which in and of themselves are not bad, but are just not complete without the whole picture of the rest of humanity's cultures... just as each discipline from above is really not complete without the others...

Canonized

"An established canon functions as a model by which to chart the continuities and discontinuities, as well as the influences upon and the interconnections between works, genres, and authors. That model we tend to forget, however, is of our own making. It will take a very different shape, and explain its inclusions and exclusions in very different ways, if the reigning critical ideology believes that new literary forms result from some kind of ongoing internal dialectic within preexisting styles and traditions or it, by contrast, the ideology declares that literary change is dependent upon societal development and thereby determined by upheavals in the social and economic organization of the culture at large."
~Annette Kolodny, "Dancing through the Minefield"

I loved reading Kolodny so much that I had to put another post up here. When I first read this passage, even thought I know she's talking about the literary canon, I first thought of the Bible and its canonization. The canonization that is "inspired." Now, I truly believe it is inspired, and that the men who put it together (ah... the men who put it together) were prayerful and attentive in their decision of what to include in the Bible and what not to include. They were informed on what best served the needs of God's community, and what best showed the character of God. But then there is the Protestant and the Catholic canon. The Catholics include more books (why do Protestants reject so outrightly these books?), and they teach through them. So even within the Church, the canon is disputed. But the entirety of it is still called inspired.

I am fascinated by this notion of canonization, whether it be in the sacred or secular realms. But I really would like to focus on the sacred for a little. Kolodny says that literary change is dependent upon societal development. While this is true of the secular canon, the Biblical canon has not undergone any significant changes (except, perhaps, for using inclusive language) for hundreds of years. This could of course be that nothing is being written now that is in any way close to the Biblical writings of centuries ago. But then again, there are a lot of Christian books out there, too, books that hold their own wisdom... but they are based solely on the wisdom of the Bible (and inspiration that comes from this). So these books are following from the tradition of the Bible, and also responding to changes in society while being informed by the wisdom of the Bible. And this would be why this one book has lasted for so many centuries... and also because of the pluralities of its interpretations (like Kolodny spoke of in regards to women's theories and literature in this same essay).

In my last few posts about Feminism, I talked about some of the Christian approaches I've heard to this discipline... but perhaps Feminist theories are not so far off from our Biblical perspectives, as some would like to think...

Uprooting the Culture

"For what we are asking be scrutinized are nothing less than shared cultural assumptions so deeply rooted and so long ingrained that, for the most part, our critical colleagues have ceased to recognize them as such. In other words, what is really being bewailed in the claims that we distort texts or threaten the disappearance of the great Western literary tradition itself is not so much the disappearance of the either text or tradition but, instead, the eclipse of that particular form of the text, and that particular shape of the canon, which previously reified male readers' sense of power and significance in the world."

~Annette Kolodny, "Dancing through the Minefield"

I am fascinated by the Feminist theorists we have been reading in class, not only because I don't recall reading much by Feminist theorists before (even though I have read works by women writers), but also because I am amazed at what they are actually saying. Brought up in a conservative home and church, the term "Feminism" brought with it some of the most negative connotations and outpourings of anger at how the Feminists are "bringing our country down." And because I did not read anything (perhaps may not have been "allowed" to because that would be siding with the enemy) by Feminist writers, I did think they were "evil."

And I am beginning to see that I was so wrong.

I won't even begin to go in to all the good that Feminism has done for women in our country and in our world, and I will admit that nothing is perfect and that evils and injustices can be done by any group or person in society (including some Feminist agendas in those categories). But I will go straight to the quote I have above from Kolodny dealing with cultural assumptions so deeply rooted in society, cultural assumptions about male superiority, and subsequently, female subordination, and also the assumptions that female writers are less valid than male writers. And I want to focus just for a little on these deep-seated, shared cultural assumptions that infuse all of what we do. Again, I never really thought about these assumptions until reading the Feminist theorists, but once I read them, I realized how true this is. As I spoke of in my last post, change in anything is often resisted, especially if it causes shifts of power in people who never want to lose that power and sway in the public domain (or private, for that matter). And in all these Feminist writings, I see them heralding change, a change that involves unraveling the deep-seated assumptions that males are better then females (sorry to give the most trite summarization possible). Obviously, I think this view is changing now, but I really believe these views are so deeply rooted... women's studies are just beginning to flourish, and also be seen as valid. And we still have a long way to go. But I also think we have to be careful not to go too far in the opposite direction... to do to women what we have done to men in the literary canon for so long. And as Kolodny says, in opening up the canon to females, we are not saying there is nothing valuable in the long-rooted male canon of our history, but instead opening that canon up to new writers, new interpretations, and in effect, a new inclusive canon that speaks to both genders.

Even though I think these deep-seated assumptions and views about male and female writers will persist for a long while (they are, after all, deeply rooted in our minds, so much so that it took me reading a Feminist perspective to discover them for the first time in my 21 years of existence), but I think we are on the road to at least unearthing and challenging those assumptions. After all, we just have to read the sources and see them for what they truly are...

Undoing the Centuries?

"To write. An act which will not only 'realize' the decensored relation of woman to her sexuality, to her womanly being, giving her access to her native strength; it will give her back her goods, her pleasures , her organs, her immense bodily territories which have been kept under seal; it will tear her away from the superegoized structure in which she has always occupied the place reserved for the guilty (guilty of everything, guilty at every turn: for having desires, for not having any; for being frigid, for being "too hot"; for not being both at once...)."

~Hélène Cixous, "The Laugh of the Medusa"

I know that's one of the longer quotes I've started a blog with, but as I was reading Cixous's "Laugh of the Medusa," I had an "aha" moment that both startled and amazed me. Published in the 1970s, Cixous spoke to the repressed woman, the woman standing at a crossroads in history, with a seemingly never-ending pile of male discourse behind her, and a seemingly impossible hurdle to cross in front of her with the liberation of the female intellectual. She illuminated the feelings of guilt women felt for being "too much" and yet "not enough." And she said that writing from yourself, from yourself as a woman, would allow you to reclaim your sexuality, and your beauty, and everything you are meant to be.

And then I realized that I've heard those words before, perhaps in a slightly different format, but the same message nonetheless. And I read them in Christian non-fiction... Christian books for women designed to "rescue" a woman's heart. The one I am thinking about most right now is "Captivating," by John and Stasi Eldredge.

Let me give you an example: In talking about the messages society (and perhaps discourse?) sends to women, they say,"Isn't that just the message you've lived with all your life as a woman? 'You're too much, and not enough. You're just not worth the effort'" (86).

And still another place they talk about a woman's shame:

"We come to believe that some part of us, maybe every part of us, is marred. Shame enters in and makes its crippling home deep within our hearts. ...shame keeps us pinned down and gasping, believing that we deserve to suffocate. ...Shame makes us feel very uncomfortable with our beauty. ...We either think we don't have any beauty or if we do, that it's dangerous and bad" (73-74).

Sound a little similar? I was amazed when I read the quote from Cixous, and I immediately realized that much of Christian nonfiction right now aims to reclaim the hearts of women... to reclaim the beauty of women (perhaps, too, their sexuality), to reclaim their self-images, to show them they are whole and do not need to feel guilt for being who they are.

And then I thought, how do women get to this point to begin with? Why is there such a plethora of books out there dealing with this topic of a woman's self-image (written mostly, or almost entirely, by women)? Why is this the dominant feeling women have? Are they born with this feeling of inferiority and worthlessness? I am no psychoanalyst, but I will venture to say that this is a learned behavior / thought process. But why does it happen? Cixous, and other feminists, argued that it was greatly because of the previous history of male discourse, and only male discourse, that causes such repression. And I really see her point. The male discourse has been repressive, especially in light of the fact that it did not give woman her own voice, but it also has shown women again only in relation to men (I'm thinking about the binary oppositions discussion we had in class today), which ultimately does not allow women the totality of their being.

And then I also thought about conservative Christians and the "attacks" I have heard about feminism and it's "evils" in society, how it is effacing all we know of morality (yes, I have heard that). And I really wonder... what is inherently wrong with giving woman back her voice and her beauty / sexuality? God created us man and woman, equal in his eyes as humans. I can't see how a loving God would say women must remain silent and guilty of who they are. That just doesn't make sense to me.

And I also think... these attacks again feminism... is it because change is taking place, and no one likes change, especially if it removes from them their power? I still have many questions and not as many answers... but it's definitely something to think about...

The Women of History

"All these relationships between women ... are too simple. So much has been left out, unattempted. And I tried to remember any case in the course of my reading where two women are represented as friends. ...But almost without exception they are shown [only] in their relation to men. ... And how small a part of a woman's life is that."
~Virginia Woolf, "A Room of One's Own"

I had never thought of literature in such terms. Sure, I've been introduced to the Feminist theorists, but I can't recall ever internalizing the fact that most all literature, up until Jane Austen's time, only portrays women in relation to men, if they portray women at all.

Go back to Petrarch, where the lover pines for his beloved. She does not acquiesce to his proposals, and he is left without the lover he so desires. But we know nothing about the woman, except that she is the woman who does not return the man's love. End of story. And then there's Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet," with again the focus on Juliet in relation to Romeo, and also her father... but still in relation to men all the same. In "MacBeth" we may see a little more of the actual character of Lady MacBeth, but she is still seen in relation to King Duncan and her own husband. And she even asks to be "unsexed" so she can be more like a man.

So what does this say about women, and about how this literary canon informs us as women today? Obviously, this literature shows women only in one type of role, that in their relations to men. And I thought back to my childhood, how Disney movies and fairytales all placed the woman in relation to the man. How I grew up believing that I had to have a man to be whole (I have now realized my error in this train of thought), and I attribute that greatly to books and movies. Those books and movies that showed true love and women searching for their prince charming, or even women being "bold" enough to refuse the man. And that's how I thought life had to be... thinking of women (and myself) in relation to men. I know you are getting biographical information that you didn't ask for... but I was an avid reader of romance novels (and I give the term "romance" novel to those like the Anne of Green Gables series and the Little House on the Prairie books. And I read the love story parts over and over. I could have cared less about the rest). And these romance novels, although they often painted a bigger portrait of women than those of long ago, still gave women in relation to men... entire books on the search for a woman's completeness through a man, in fact. And that is what I internalized, for better or for worse.

And then I think about the Christian books out there, the ones that say you are whole because of who you are, not in relation to other men. That you don't need a man to be pretty or whole or anything else. But do we have to say this because women automatically think - from the day they are born - that they need a man to be beautiful or whole or worth something, or is this view learned from society and from the literature that surrounds us each day? I would venture to say is it the latter. Yes, I believe women and men "complete" each other... but it doesn't necessarily have to be in a romantic sense all the time. And we certainly don't have to spend our entire lives as women searching for the man that will make us feel whole... for a man can never do that, and nor can a woman do that for a man. And yes, we were created man and female, to live side by side, together working through this life and towards God. But each one of us separately has different gifts and talents that work for a wholeness in the world... but we have to know both sides, not just one in relation to the other.

But I digress... Yes, women have been portrayed only in relation to men, and until recently, they still were. In the beginning of the semester, I read "Mama Day" and "Beloved" for a class.... and both books gave me thorough pictures of women, not only in relation to men, but in relation to each other and themselves. And just as men need men in literature, so women need women - and themselves - in literature. Through reading these books, I am now discovering what it is to be a woman... to be that one, whole, beautiful part of the twofold human race. And yes, women do have to be seen in their relation to men... but that is not all they are. We were created man and female, each one with our own gifts and talents. It's time to let both women and males shine through literature...

A Class Distinction

"Popular taste applies the schemes of the ethos, which pertain in the ordinary circumstances of life, to legitimate works of art, and so performs a systematic reduction of the things of art to the things of life. ...Intellectuals could be said to believe in the representation - literature, theatre, painting - more than in the things represented, whereas the people chiefly expect representations and the conventions which govern them to allow them to believe 'naively' in the thing represented."
~Pierre Bourdieu, "Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste"

The upper and the lower class. The intellectual and the banal. The good and the bad. Marxist theorists such as Bourdieu focused on class distinctions based on monetary and intellectual status (which really goes hand in hand), among other things, in their writing. In "Distinctions," Bourdieu draws a sharp distinction between the upper and low classes and how they relate to literature. And I find myself questioning his assertions.

Let's start at the beginning: the intellectual elite - those who are educated - see art for what it is: art. The common people, however, look to art and see what it represents. They focus on the ethics of the art, and make it a legitimate art form based on these ethical assessments. They do not judge art on its form, but rather on its content. And in this light, so it seems, Bourdieu places the working class on the low rung of the ladder, with the highest echelon of society being the intellectuals, those who like art for art's sake, and not for its ethical value. My first question is about this distinction: just because someone is not educated, does that mean they can't appreciate art for the sake of art?

Take Shakespeare's plays... they were not for the upper echelon. They were for the common people, and the common people loved them. No, perhaps they did not love the plays solely for their representation, but they loved them because they spoke. They entertained. But maybe those common folk really had something in their love for his plays: every school that I've ever heard of now studies Shakespeare. What started as a "common" art form has now risen into the higher bracket of society's intellectuals as we study and analyze Shakespeare's work. So that leads us to the fluidity of class... can works of art be equally enjoyed by both the upper and lower classes, and can it further travel through classes at different times to serve different purposes (or even the same purpose) in each class? I think in this case - and many other cases - it can be. The question further is, however, are the classes appreciating it in the same way? Bourdieu seems to say not: the lower class looks to their emotions and ethos to find value in a work of art, while the upper class looks to the art itself. But does that necessarily mean that one class is wrong and the other is right? I find that hard to believe. There is a place for form and a place for content, and each should be a viable thing to analyze. Yet, that leads us to the age-old adage: do we have a responsibility to appreciate that which we do not like? For if we now as middle class people - who are rising in stature - read plays that play with form, but the content does not meld with our beliefs, do we have a responsibility to still appreciate the form?

Giving Voice to the Voiceless: A Look at Oral Literature

We did the activity in class the other day: think of the storyteller (if there is one) in your family. Think of the context of that story. Recraft the story in your mind. And now think of the purpose that story served in your life as the listener, and further, what purpose the telling of it served in the life of the storyteller. And now think of how the hearing of it was different than reading a novel. It was quite different, wasn't it? The story was told in a familiar setting - that of family or friends - and you knew something about the people talking, and they too knew your background. You have a shared history. And of course, the story was as interesting - or perhaps even more interesting - than the last novel you read... mostly because the story is personal. It is about people you care about (not that novels are not personal and you don't end up caring about the characters).

But would you classify these oral stories as literature - as something that should be taught in classrooms? As something that should have weight in the grand canon of literature?

Peter Wasamba thinks so. As I mentioned in my last post, Wasamba (who is professor of oral literature at the University of Nairobi) believes that oral literature is not only a valid literary form, but also can be an aide in promoting reconciliation, as well as ensure land preservation in Africa, and perhaps ultimately, the world. And I also spoke of his thoughts on this matter in the last post, which for me, were very convincing.

But let's just take up the topic of oral literature in general. When I was listening to Wasamba's lectures, I started thinking about the art of theatre. I wrote about this before in a very early post, but do we ever think of theatre as literature? The play had to come from words, from a script, and that script would most definitely be found in the category of literature. And that story was most likely penned by an individual (not a collective source). Oral literature, on the other hand, can come from either one source or a collected source, and can take on mythic or legendary qualities as it is passed down. But eventually, if it is told enough, it is written down.

So my question is, does oral literature only become literature once it is written down? Or is there an inherent literary quality in these stories, as they have the potential to be put down on paper for the whole world to see? For if there is a potential to these unwritten stories, then it follows that these stories and their storytellers are potential literary authors. And that further means that oral literature is a valid form of study in classrooms. But in this case, you really can only "study" oral literature once it has been written down. Does that mean that the written story can no longer be titled "oral literature" and must just be termed "literature"? Or do these stories retain any part of their orality?

I read a book in a Personal Narratives class here, and it was a collection of stories from an African American family. All the stories had been passed on for generations, and some had taken on mythic proportions. But the book was a legitimate form for us to study, and the purpose of the assignment was to have us discover the genre of family folklore. It was a meaningful assignment to me, and it made me realize how much I want to know, remember, and eventually write down the history of my family. After all, writing is a form of preservation, and in writing down oral literatures, we are preserving voices that would otherwise have gone unheard and unnoticed.

And that is what Peter Wasamba kept stressing: in his field work, and ultimately his teaching, he is giving voice to the voiceless. He listens to the stories of those who are never heard (thereby forming relationships with these people, something nonexistent in solo literary readings), and he records them. His efforts are going to change conditions for the poor, for the land, and in general, for the betterment of humankind and our life on earth. But stories serve still more purposes: they preserve the lives of people, stories of hardship and wisdom, terror and joy... they give voice to the voiceless.

But of course, in order to study these oral texts, we have to read them. Or we have to write them down. But writing them down firstly involves listening. And our society is losing the art of listening...

But that is a topic for another day...

Oral Literature: Protecting the Planet

"Folklore is, therefore, tradition based, collectively held, orally transmitted, and a source of cultural identity. When looked at closely, it can be deduced that folklore defines the people's norms and taboos on the use of resources: when to use, what to use, and how to use them."

~Peter Wasamba, "Conservation for Sustainable Development: The Unexplored Potential of Kenyan Folklore"

From both reading Benjamin's "The Storyteller" and looking ahead to the upcoming visit of Peter Wasamba, I decided to research a little more on oral literature, and I am amazed as some of my findings. The above quote from Wasamba was included in this essay which sought to explore the role of folklore in the promotion of indigenous environmental conservation in Kenya, and how Western influence and the decline of oral literature due to such influences has not only destroyed the value of oral literature, but also begun a destruction of the nation's biodiversity and sustainable development.

In a nutshell, it goes like this: the myths and legends of the African people have served for centuries as "practical ecological, socio-economic, and spiritual functions. Emotional ties with nature and legends are two of the most powerful incentives to conserve and respect forests [and the land]" (Wasamba 2). Living in direct contact with the land day in and day out, the people knew it intimately and therefore knew how to care for and preserve it. But in walked Western civilization, who spread (or imposed?) both Christianity and their "modern" environmental planning to the African nations. They viewed the indigenous ecological belief systems as "backwards" and started their own system of land "preservation," and as the people's religious beliefs changed, they themselves "disintegrated the traditions on which the folklores were based" (Wasamba 4).

And the result has been bordering on the disastrous: land is eroding, and violence is breaking out as a result of the loss of bio-diversity which has exposed people to chronic poverty.

All because folklore was taken away.

I have heard of this before... not only from Africa, but also Asia and South America, too. We, the "civilized" West, have conquered their land, and in an effort to "civilize" the people and the land, we have not taken into account the richness of the indigenous people's knowledge of the land that they have so long lived in harmony with and preserved far longer than we could imagine. Because their folklore is so tied to nature and how to care for it, they knew how to use the land... and, in effect, love it. But that was contrary to the scientific rules we set up as Westerners to care for land. As Christianity spread through the land, the death of traditional religious beliefs and practices that supported indigenous conservation initiatives was accelerated, as these practices again were looked upon as heathen and "backwards."

This brings up a few issues for me: first off, the importance of oral literature. In my last post, I talked about oral literature and the storyteller vs. the novelist, as spoken of in Benjamin's "The Storyteller." And I wasn't entirely sold on his assessment of the two. But after reading Wasamba's article, I can see the importance... even the need... for oral literature. Not only does it preserve the history of a people, but as seen above, it preserves the land and way of life of a people. And I actually find that fact alone quite fascinating. The literature of the West may preserve history and ways of life, but I don't recall much of it being so tied to the land in its stories that it promotes environmental safety (a big issue now because we have been "destroying" our earth while we advance in technology, etc.).

Second, I wonder what this says about Christianity and Western civilizations. As Christians, we are called to be good stewards of our resources. But we chose to ignore (is that what we did?) the richness of the indigenous people's lives and stories, even pronouncing them as heathen (in the end, perhaps not being good stewards of the land). And in doing so, we have made them ashamed of their heritage (is this what we have done?), which in turn has made them forget the stories that have preserved the land (i.e. "be good stewards" of the land in our Western Christianized terms). To be honest, this makes me angry. Who were (are) we to do that, esp. without first seeing the goodness in their own ways of life?

I'm looking forward to Wasamba's lectures on Monday... I am anxious to hear more about oral literature in such societies, and anxious to see if I can reconcile my discomfort with my Western history and Wasamba's illumination of the importance of recapturing the essence of folklore...

The Storyteller vs. the Novelist: A Battle to the End?

"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, "The Storyteller"

Benjamin begins his essay by lamenting the decline in storytelling, brought about by our dying ability to exchange experiences. He says that "experience has fallen in value" and that as the years have moved forward, we have become poorer, not richer, in communicable experience. Interesting. How are we declining in experiences? We are living the same lives - longer, even - than our ancestors. We even have more knowledge of the rest of the world. We take communications classes now to improve said skills. And yet, according to Benjamin, those experiences - and the ability to communicate them if we have them - are dying rapidly. He further goes on to say that this decrease in communicability of experience means that we are losing the ability to seek counsel as readers/hearers or give counsel as writers/storytellers. Counsel and the wisdom it imparts are dying.

And the novelist perpetuates the continuance of this decline, as Benjamin throws in the shocking news that the novelist as the solitary individual is"no longer able to express himself by giving examples of his most important concerns, is himself uncounseled,and cannot counsel others." He seems to be saying that the novel - and its author - are not worth much.

Ah, but the dying breed of the storyteller. Now, he is the one we need. He has listened to the stories, has remembered them, and now tells those stories as the continuation of the grand story of life. And let's just admit it: oral literature is not highly regarded in our society. And even the written word is losing its audience. Good storytelling IS diminishing in our technological, fast-paced society.

Let's start with oral literature. At holidays, my family sits around the table and tells story after story about their past, their experiences, what made them who they are today. And I sit there fixed to their every word. I want to know the stories of their lives, the stories of generations past that I will never know. But that happens maybe three or four times out of the year, and I know for other families, it is even less than that. We have moved away from the family and into 60-hour-a-week jobs, movies, computers, and in effect, have lost much contact with other people, and even more with the stories of our elders. Stories used to be told around the fire at night, and those stories would be passed from generation to generation. Stories, legends, myths... they came down to us and we have internalized those stories until we don't even remember that they were from the storytellers of old, so much are they now part of our lives.

But as the storyteller (the familial/communal and the individual) diminished with the rise of technology, the novelist grew in stature. But how can the novelist not have counsel for others? How can he not express himself? How is the storyteller so far above the novelist for Benjamin? I am torn on this issue, and really don't think I agree with Benjamin here. Novelists and writers look at the world around them (their experiences and interactions with it) and put words to these. And with the dissemination of books now, their experiences - and their counsel - can be potentially shared with the entire world rather than just with one community. And in doing so, his experience and story - like that of the storyteller - also becomes the experience of those reading the tale. And yes, perhaps the novelist has isolated himself to write his text. But he has still lived in life and heard the stories and had experiences. And he stores them in his memory until he can write them out.

So, I think both oral storytellers and those storytellers of the written word both have wisdom to impart. But Benjamin may argue that the novel may have truth, but it is not continuing the greater story of society , as the novel must always be "new" if it is to be good, while the oral story builds upon legend and myth. Perhaps that is so, but perhaps also novelists are bringing new versions of the same story to their readers. Perhaps they too are continuing the greater story of a people, albeit a singular, individual one. Perhaps storyteller and novelist can remain side by side, telling different but profoundly similar tales of the story of humankind.

Now to work on reviving the art of reading in society...

What Matter Who's Speaking (Take Two)

"The name of the author remains at the contours of texts - separating one from the other, defining their form, and characterizing their mode of existence."
~Michel Foucault, "What is an Author?"

I know we read Foucault a while ago, but something happened the other day that made this essay very real to me. This will just be a short excursion into the Author, one that I have taken up before, but one that I'm finding is changing, in Barbara Herrnstein Smith's terms, with the changes in my personal economy.

Let me give you some background... I love quotations. I have spent hours searching the internet for the most profound ones. I love finding just the right quotation to fit into a paper or to fit what I'm feeling. And because I am inextricably connected to technology, I have compiled a "database" (a Word document of 65 pages at present) filled with what I like to think are the "best" quotations, arranged both topically and alphabetically. (Yes, can you say English nerd?). And every evening, I search through that database to find a quotation to put on my Instant Messenger away message. The quote usually has something to do with what I'm feeling that day, or what I've gone through, or just something that the astute person would find is saying much more about me (i.e. my "personal economy") that day than my own words would say.

The other night, I was looking up quotes on love (yes, can you also say "hopeless romantic" and "one who still believes in fairy tales," and further believes that the art of telling them - and having them - is being lost, just as Benjamin briefly talked of in his essay "The Storyteller"?). I found one on a website that was listed as anonymous. But I liked the quote, so I decided to copy it and put it on my away message for the evening. One of my friends actually looked at the quote when I put it up, and decided to do some sleuthing of his own. He found that the quote was from the movie "Meet Joe Black." That was enough to challenge how much I liked the twelve sentences I had just copied and pasted to represent "me" for that evening.

I have never seen the movie. But something didn't "sit right" with me. Something about taking a quote from a movie - with Brad Pitt, no less - and adhering to what this movie advocated seemed wrong, or at least not "erudite" enough. I had hoped it was an anonymous quote from something "better," such as an Elizabeth Barrett Browning sonnet. Now, her name would hold clout for me... but from a movie? Nope, I didn't like the quote any more. I told my friend that I was going to find a different quote, a better quote, one that has more "status" behind it... because more status means that it's more true. Before I even thought of Lit Crit, my friend challenged my sudden change of heart towards the quote, saying he liked it, and in essence, he also asked, "What matter who's speaking?" Lit Crit discussions hit me like a wall of bricks. Here I was placing the author's name above the words, saying that if the author was not respected or well-known or from a popular movie and not from a long-standing, tried and true text, then I couldn't like the quote, and I couldn't think of it as having truth. It seems absurd as I think about it, but for me at that moment (and I suspect at many other moments in my life), it did matter who was speaking.

For me, the realization of the author characterized the quote's "mode of existence." And until my friend pointed this out to me, I didn't even realize I was ascribing such an importance to the author's name.

I do find it interesting, though, that I was "ok" with not knowing the name of the author originally, that an "anonymous" author was better than a "petty" pop culture quote penned by some screen writer (what does this further say about my view of literature and authors on film? Am I saying right now that they aren't authors? In any other circumstance, I would be the first one to say that playwrights and screen writers are most definitely authors... but in my subconscious mind I have ruled out their ability to "speak" to me and for me... which actually bothers me a lot, since my very mode of life in this instance is directly contradicting what I say I'm "standing for").

In the end, I did change the quote for that evening. I found one penned by an author I had never heard of, but who nonetheless seemed much safer - more truthful and in better standing - than the movie. (How I determined that last fact is also up for debate). But this demonstrated to me in my own life the ideas we covered in class, and how much I really do care about who's speaking. And I have a feeling that extends to many, many, many more areas of my life, for better, or for worse...

Finding the Potential

"The formalist critic knows as well as anyone that literary works are merely potential until they are read - that is, until they are re-created in the minds of actual readers, who vary enormously in their capabilities, their interests, their prejudices, their ideas. But the formalist critic is concerned primarily with the work itself. Speculation on the mental processes of the author takes the critic away from the work into biography and psychology. ...Such studies describe the process of composition, not the structure of the thing composed, and they may be performed quite as validly for the poor work as for the good one."

~Cleanth Brooks, "The Formalist Critic"

First off, there's a lot packed into that paragraph, so I think I will methodically (at least, in theory, do this methodically) attempt to make sense of it in shorter segments... beginning at the beginning, with literary works being merely potential until they are read. Part of me read this and said, "Well, of course that's true," while the other part of me wanted to ask, "What in the world do you mean by that?" Let's examine both sides. Someone writes an essay... or, let's even go with this blog. I am writing this blog. And it only has mere potential... it is nothing until someone reads it. Ok, I see that... right now, my words are just floating around, meaning nothing except something to me. They could have a potential to be profound and great (however minutely slight the chance), but they won't be profound and great to the world until someone reads my words and pronounces them as such. I understand that. But that is separating good writing from others reading it. I conjecture that there is a lot of good writing out there, many pieces that we have never read, that we will never read, that would change the course of humanity if they were discovered. Yes, they still have potential, but in all probability, they will never be discovered and read. But going back to my blog here, my words have meaning - and potential - to me. Does that count for anything? Obviously, I have a purpose behind writing here, and someone will be reading this, and however arrogant this is, I think some things I think are worth thinking. Yet, that would be putting emphasis on the writer, and looking at biographical and psychological issues related to the writing... which defeats the purpose of a Formalist approach...

So let's talk about the biographical and psychological considerations of the critic. Brooks states in the same paragraph from which the above quote was taken that "such explorations are very much worth making. But they should not be confused with an account of the work." That's good to hear from a Formalist... they are not discrediting the use of such information and studies, but they are saying it is separate from the actual text in front of them. I understand that too. But I am actually more interested in the ending of the quote above, that "these studies may be performed quite as validly for the poor work as for the good one." Yes, that is very, very true. Studying biographical and psychological information really doesn't always tell us much about the actual poem. I believe Brooks is dead on when he says that it aides in understanding the creative process that went into composition, even though I do not completely agree that it is irrelevant to the structure of the thing composed. And yet, what truly makes a good poem? Biographical and psychological considerations can be performed for both poor and good works. But how do we know which is which? This is where the Formalist stance comes in... the work will speak for itself, with its irony (Brooks believed all poetry exhibits irony, or rather, "pervasive incongruity") and subtleties. But who would bother reading something poor to begin with? Is there such a thing as a "poor poem" in the professional world? And since we all "vary enormously in [our] capabilities, [our] interests, [our] prejudices, [our] ideas," won't someone find some worth in a poem? And that goes back to the question, "Do we have a responsibility to appreciate something we don't like?"

It seems as if the questions keep coming and going in circles... and they are too in-depth for this one post... but stay tuned for more "profound" thoughts...

What Matter Who's Speaking?

"If it were proved that [Shakespeare] had not written the sonnets that we attribute to him , this would constitute a significant change and affect the manner in which the author's name functions."

"The name of the author remains at the contours of texts - separating one from the other, defining their form, and characterizing their mode of existence."

"The function of an author is to characterize the existence, circulation, and operation of certain discourses within a society."

~Michel Foucault, "What is an Author?"

Remind yourself you are a twenty-first century critic. And then further imagine that you just discovered a piece of shocking evidence: the Shakespearean sonnets were not written by Shakespeare. No, not by that genius who wrote "Hamlet" and "Romeo and Juliet" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Instead, it was written by none other than... a woman!

The news has spread across the globe, the academic elite in an uproar over the news. Feminist critics pounce on the sonnets, beginning the Shakespearean critique from the eyes of its new writer. Everything has changed, hasn't it? The symbols are different, the language different, the meaning different. And all because of a name.

Foucault spoke about the nature of the name of an author, which is "not simply an element of speech." The name of an author, instead, separates works and groups of works from one another. And it's true. We know Emerson by his seeming long-winded, eloquent prose, the quasi-divine seer who transports knowledge to the reader. We can identify a Shakespearean sonnet any day through his speech patterns. And we do this with most art forms. Since I know music, let me take you to a Music History class. At the end of a music listening test (where we have to identify the composer and the work we hear), Dr. Dixon gives us a piece we didn't have to study for the exam, and for extra credit, we have to guess the piece and its composer. We search for defining characteristics of the great composers. We know them by their names, and we group their music into one category, distinct from any other composer. And it works with art, too. We can readily identify a Monet or Picasso painting by the generalizations we know about their work.

But what if the name changes, as in the Shakespeare example above? It destroys all our preconceived notions of the piece of literature. We can no longer say the author does such and such because that is what he or she normally does. We can no longer judge it against works by that same author... So, really, the name has a lot to do with it.

And now, I would like to bring this topic to the Bible. We have no collective author for this text (except God...). Instead, every book (or nearly every one) has been written by a different author, many of them also nameless. We can conjecture at names (and Biblical scholars often do), but that never changes the meaning of the text. Yes, an author can help us figure out context, but it never really affects meaning in this case. How does this fact fit in with Foucault? We have no authorial standard by which to judge the Bible (and some argue about the Bible as "literature." It is a sacred book, so how can it be literature at the same time?), no way to identify an author upon first reading. And yet this piece of inspired literature has lasted generations. And the Bible as a whole does "characterize the existence, circulation, and operation of certain discourses within a society," in this case, Judeo-Christian discourses. And we have lasted without specific authorial understanding for all these centuries. And Barthes' authorial theory in "The Death of the Author" seems to work for the Bible: "a text's unity lies not in its origin but in its destination." We don't have an author, and we cannot necessarily find one, but the unity lies in the destination, the way God speaks to us through the nameless writers of the Bible. In Foucault's words, "what matter who's speaking?"

Makes you think about how we categorize authors in general...

Reaching the Destination

"The reader is the space on which all the quotations that make up a writing are inscribed without any of them being lost; a text's unity lies not in its origin but in its destination. Yet this destination cannot any longer be personal: the reader is without history, biography, psychology; he is simply that someone who holds together in a single field all the traces by which the written text is constituted."
~Roland Barthes, "The Death of the Author"

The Romantics valued the author: the poet was the representative of all humanity, embodying what every person was and is in part. And yet Emerson was suspicious of reading, for through doing this, someone else's imagination was in control of your own. Therefore, for Emerson and many of the other Romantics, books were good only if they inspired, but they were bad if you thought they were a record of pure truth. Usher in Formalism and T.S. Eliot, and you were instructed to look only at the poem, to read it for itself, without any view of the author's background or intent in mind. And then, the next player entered the stage, telling us the most radical story of all: that of the death of the author.

Roland Barthes does not say writers are unimportant... he instead gave birth to the reader. I would like to focus on the above quotation today, to see what it actually means for us as readers. Barthes is giving us a big responsibility here. He is actually allowing us to be writers ourselves, for through reading, we are really disentangling and rearranging the language in our minds to make sense of it. And we as readers are the words' destination. We are the final place it lands. We the readers - not the author - make the words come alive.

Ok, I can see that. I take my job as a reader very seriously, and I love the idea of disentangling and rearranging the words I read so that they make sense to me. I do this all the time, as I read something and write notes in the margins of what I like about the passage I just read, or what the words remind me of, or even what meaning I ascribe to the language the author uses. But doesn't that negate the second part of Barthes' quotation: "Yet this destination cannot any longer be personal: the reader is without history, biography, psychology; he is simply that someone who holds together in a single field all the traces by which the written text is constituted"? I am very much so a person with a history, with a biography, and a psychology. I couldn't be reading if I wasn't me. I do not understand how we could in any way objectify reading to say that the reader is just as impersonal as the author (who for Barthes, really plays no role in this literary phenomenon). How can you extract yourself from reading? I can understand an attempt to read objectively, in an effort to look at all possible sides and reach an objective conclusion on the writing. This actually hearkens back to my last post and the question, "Do we have a responsibility to appreciate things we do not like?" And as readers, I think it is our responsibility. We can look at a piece of work and appreciate its craft (but then again, doesn't that point back to the author, who is the creator / location of the discourse you are reading? For it is the author himself who created, even though Barthes would say it is the language that speaks, not the author... more on that later...), even though we may not like the "message." But can we ever truly extract who we are from what we are reading? Can we ever truly take away all the history we have, all the events in our lives that would cause us to view a piece of literature through our own specific lens? I really don't think that's possible... I can't take any part of me away from myself. I can look as objectively as I can, but I cannot retract my history and my story. That would be going against the very essence of my humanity.

And the beauty of having a history, a biography, and a psychology is that you see something new every time you read something (be it a new piece of literature or one you've read over and over again). Take the Bible, for instance. Why is it timeless? Why can it speak to so many people in so many situations, millions of times over? Why can we read a passage and have it mean nothing, and then read it over five years later and have it transform our lives? It's because we have a story, and each time we read, we are bringing that history to the table.

Yes, perhaps that is making literature too personal. Perhaps I am giving the reader too much leeway. Perhaps I have taken Barthes' birth of the reader to a place he never meant it to be. And I will agree that part of the power of literature is in its destination, in what it means for the reader. But I will not allow reading to strip away the richness of my history... I will not allow my reading to always and only be an objective study of words on a page...

What We Don't Know

"The recipe for perpetual ignorance is:

be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge."
~Elbert Hubbard

I just want to mull something over with you today. On Thursday, the end of our class brought about the questions "Do we have a responsibility to appreciate things we do not like?" and "Do we have a responsibility to expand or multiply our pleasures?" In my last post, I was almost touching these questions, so let me revisit a few of my points at the end of it. Wimsatt and Beardsley believed that we are in no place to judge a piece of literature on the grounds of our emotional response to it. Yes, we will have emotional responses, but we must justify those through the medium of the poem itself. In essence, Wimsatt and Beardsley say that we must be critical readers, and it is the reader's job to "fit" into the whole... the immediate emotional response you find is not the only important thing in regards to the poem, and in regards to judging it as a work of art. In a sense, the reader is called to change, to look beyond what makes them feel happy or sad and see what the actual poem is doing and why it is producing those responses.

And that brought us to the two above questions. And in my last post, I brought up the Christian take on literature and art (in many cases)... it is judged as "evil" or "good" depending on the content, the way it makes us feel, etc., etc., etc. We are appalled at the sexuality or the language and do not look passed that to the actual work of literature itself. Is this saying we are not good critics? And does that also mean that we have shut ourselves off to works of literature that are truly "great" if we cannot get passed their vulgarities? Do we really have a responsibility to look beyond that and see the genius of the work, despite its moral flaws?

Let me just give you a small example, one that was actually brought up in my Writing Seminar the other day. We had a guest speaker, art professor Donald Forsythe, and somehow, we got on the topic of "good art," and what exactly that was. One of my peers asked about the Blue Painting that so many people come from miles to see (I can't really remember the artist's name), and Prof. Forsythe commented that it was an incredible painting. It looks something like this:
Yes, this blue piece of canvas by Robert Motherwell is labeled as one of the greatest works of art in the twentieth century. Prof. Forysthe went on to say that it was the background of the artist's life that made it so great (which would have me go into a lot more than the Formalists of literary criticism would ever wish me to do, so I will respect them in sticking with the topic at hand). Most of my peers wrinkled their nose or laughed, thinking how this could truly be one of the greatest paintings of the century. And I wondered the same thing.

But then I thought back to our class... do we really have a responsibility to appreciate things we do not like? I would not hang this painting up in my house, but can't I say that the subtle shades of blue Motherwell achieves are enchanting, and the lights spots in the middle give me the feel of a ship on the ocean? Can I not appreciate this work of art for what it is - a work of art? I don't have to like it, but I can still appreciate it.

I have found that I often do this with literature. And I truly think we do have a responsibility to appreciate things we do not like. Just as the above Hubbard quote says, we will remain in ignorance if we can't open up to things we do not know. And what implication does this have for Christians? No, I absolutely do not think we should condone overtly sexualized and vulgar topics in literature, art, theatre, music, etc. But I do think we should learn to look critically. Because really, if we just speak as "Christians," saying something is moral or not moral, and that's all we tell the world, how will they ever listen to our message? We need to give them concrete reasons why such a work is good or bad... and not just from a moral standpoint. Critically reading something ensures that we know how it works, and then we can go and tell people publically what we think of a piece of literature... armed with the intelligent ammunition of a "why."