I'm surrounded by people mis-teaching literature as "proof" that the United States is a terrible place, that women shouldn't get married ("The Story of an Hour" was manipulated into this thesis), that men are evil ("Black Venus") -- I could go on and on....and let's not forget that Jo in "Little Women" was trans...OH! and being an immigrant in the US is to be surrounded by people who DON'T LOOK LIKE YOU.
This is LOW IQ teaching. The sooner the identity garbage ends in the teaching of literature, the better.
I agree with the general argument on the value of a literary education. I do think that there is a problem when there is too much of any political ideology in higher education, as it will inevitably lead to extremes - and the problem as it stands on the lack of vision in the English departments today. If people (professors and students alike) are not exposed to all the arguments on all sides, then how would they have all the necessary information to make any sort of informed decision? And if they can't do that, and they all lean on one side of the aisle, then they are bound to see authors and books in one specific light, oblivious to the complexity in the works themselves.
As John Stuart Mill stated, "He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them...he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form."
We read so we can better understand ourselves … and our world. Reading Dickens, for instance, reveals powerful beings who create danger in our way through the world; at the same time, reading Dickens introduces us to amiable humorists, humble and loving despite their flaws. Reading literature armors us as we wend our way through the world. It sounds like the Columbia Department has lost its way, has lost its power to love. As so many universities have. It is curious to me that only the studies of Old English have escaped the depredations of English postmodernism, and such. It has been horrifying to discover.
I think there are a couple of significant errors here with regard to Northrop Frye. The first is that he was a liberal, not an ardent leftist. The second is that Arnold's precept is not his approach to literature, but to his book, Anatomy of Criticism, which is very much a book written in Canada during the 1950s.
Awesome, but universities can only do so much in the end. People have to be intellectually interested and curious to read books, especially books outside of their comfort zone outside of their real house. I really try to read “across the curriculum“ As a an ADHD challenged Didac, I know more than most how much energy and attention demand reading a book and more than just reading it absorbing it, struggling with it, writing those margin notes writing into sometimes a notebook pad next to me as I’m reading. Active reading takes energy and in my case, it takes us head on challenge to the distractions and inability to focus and bring my attention to bear. That is my disease ADHD.
Yet I am humbly and hugely grateful that I have the ability to read due to a third grade teacher or remedial, reading teacher named Mrs. Elksky, who refused to let me fail as a third grader anymore and demanded excellence and accomplishment from me in reading. She was a public school teacher in the same school district as my three public teacher, parents LA unified and how God was she good!
My father, who started his public school teaching career earlier than my mother or stepfather with the LA Unified School District.
My Navy Veteran father, told me about all the amazing and wonderful teachers that worked in school district as public school teachers many of them were World War II veterans World War II heroes . . . Jews, Latinos, Anglos, Americans of all types, all religions, and backgrounds
after World War II.
Ms. Elsky was part of that wave I believe if patriotic Americans who heard John F. Kennedy’s call to Public Service. I was gratified to find out later that my parents, my mother and stepfather ran into her in a teacher’s conference and reported to her that I’ve done well in my public school education after we moved to Santa Clarita, California then known as Valencia in 1972, where I started the fourth grade in a beautiful suburb of brand new track homes with motivated kids and successful parents surrounding all of us. They also informed her that I gone to law school graduated. Has the Bar exam and had taken my commission as a Corps officer, a Captain and as a lawyer! I hope that internally, she felt great joy at my success that she was foundational to when she taught me how to read at the beginning of the third grade. I could not even read at the kinder level. My 81-year-old mother, who recently had a bad fall were counted in the last couple months that she cried herself to sleep the night that my teacher informed her that I was in the third grade and I could not read.
I asked my mother why she kept that from me for so long. I don’t think she had a reply. It was in her nature, not to complain, but just to find solutions and push forward in life. This is obviously the sign of a great human being and I’ll never forget that my mom was always a kind of person that focused on solutions and didn’t focus on setbacks or slights. Like so many successful people in life she always found a way to succeed to get around barrier artificial or not, and complaining was not in her nature she is and will always be for me, the portrait of courage embodied. Same with my father same with my stepfather same with so many adults that I have in my family and without my family that I’ve gotten to know along the way from that generation this was the Korean war generation you could say they were too young to get caught up in either the Korean War or Vietnam, and they were too old to be drafted into Vietnam. Man had already served their country as a volunteer or as a drafting. we shall not see their like again or the World War II generation that survived the Holocaust the Shoa , the American depression and World War II.
How does our nation create an attract such an amazing human beings who gives so much in their lives sometimes everything either in sacrifice or in their brilliance, their excellence their accomplishments, their genius to humanity not just to America!
So according to Arnold, the point of literature is to broaden one’s perspective and identify both universal human emotions and the attitudes that are particular to a time or place? This means we should be reading across time periods and cultures, so for example both Beowulf and “Beloved” by Toni Morrison. Would any English professor or student really be against reading these?
I overwhelmingly agree with this argument, and I can't say how thrilled I am to see other people reference Arnold and Trilling. I discovered Arnold through Trilling back in the day and he's been my North Star ever since. Well done.
I'm surrounded by people mis-teaching literature as "proof" that the United States is a terrible place, that women shouldn't get married ("The Story of an Hour" was manipulated into this thesis), that men are evil ("Black Venus") -- I could go on and on....and let's not forget that Jo in "Little Women" was trans...OH! and being an immigrant in the US is to be surrounded by people who DON'T LOOK LIKE YOU.
This is LOW IQ teaching. The sooner the identity garbage ends in the teaching of literature, the better.
I agree with the general argument on the value of a literary education. I do think that there is a problem when there is too much of any political ideology in higher education, as it will inevitably lead to extremes - and the problem as it stands on the lack of vision in the English departments today. If people (professors and students alike) are not exposed to all the arguments on all sides, then how would they have all the necessary information to make any sort of informed decision? And if they can't do that, and they all lean on one side of the aisle, then they are bound to see authors and books in one specific light, oblivious to the complexity in the works themselves.
As John Stuart Mill stated, "He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion... Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them...he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form."
We read so we can better understand ourselves … and our world. Reading Dickens, for instance, reveals powerful beings who create danger in our way through the world; at the same time, reading Dickens introduces us to amiable humorists, humble and loving despite their flaws. Reading literature armors us as we wend our way through the world. It sounds like the Columbia Department has lost its way, has lost its power to love. As so many universities have. It is curious to me that only the studies of Old English have escaped the depredations of English postmodernism, and such. It has been horrifying to discover.
I think there are a couple of significant errors here with regard to Northrop Frye. The first is that he was a liberal, not an ardent leftist. The second is that Arnold's precept is not his approach to literature, but to his book, Anatomy of Criticism, which is very much a book written in Canada during the 1950s.
Awesome, but universities can only do so much in the end. People have to be intellectually interested and curious to read books, especially books outside of their comfort zone outside of their real house. I really try to read “across the curriculum“ As a an ADHD challenged Didac, I know more than most how much energy and attention demand reading a book and more than just reading it absorbing it, struggling with it, writing those margin notes writing into sometimes a notebook pad next to me as I’m reading. Active reading takes energy and in my case, it takes us head on challenge to the distractions and inability to focus and bring my attention to bear. That is my disease ADHD.
Yet I am humbly and hugely grateful that I have the ability to read due to a third grade teacher or remedial, reading teacher named Mrs. Elksky, who refused to let me fail as a third grader anymore and demanded excellence and accomplishment from me in reading. She was a public school teacher in the same school district as my three public teacher, parents LA unified and how God was she good!
My father, who started his public school teaching career earlier than my mother or stepfather with the LA Unified School District.
My Navy Veteran father, told me about all the amazing and wonderful teachers that worked in school district as public school teachers many of them were World War II veterans World War II heroes . . . Jews, Latinos, Anglos, Americans of all types, all religions, and backgrounds
after World War II.
Ms. Elsky was part of that wave I believe if patriotic Americans who heard John F. Kennedy’s call to Public Service. I was gratified to find out later that my parents, my mother and stepfather ran into her in a teacher’s conference and reported to her that I’ve done well in my public school education after we moved to Santa Clarita, California then known as Valencia in 1972, where I started the fourth grade in a beautiful suburb of brand new track homes with motivated kids and successful parents surrounding all of us. They also informed her that I gone to law school graduated. Has the Bar exam and had taken my commission as a Corps officer, a Captain and as a lawyer! I hope that internally, she felt great joy at my success that she was foundational to when she taught me how to read at the beginning of the third grade. I could not even read at the kinder level. My 81-year-old mother, who recently had a bad fall were counted in the last couple months that she cried herself to sleep the night that my teacher informed her that I was in the third grade and I could not read.
I asked my mother why she kept that from me for so long. I don’t think she had a reply. It was in her nature, not to complain, but just to find solutions and push forward in life. This is obviously the sign of a great human being and I’ll never forget that my mom was always a kind of person that focused on solutions and didn’t focus on setbacks or slights. Like so many successful people in life she always found a way to succeed to get around barrier artificial or not, and complaining was not in her nature she is and will always be for me, the portrait of courage embodied. Same with my father same with my stepfather same with so many adults that I have in my family and without my family that I’ve gotten to know along the way from that generation this was the Korean war generation you could say they were too young to get caught up in either the Korean War or Vietnam, and they were too old to be drafted into Vietnam. Man had already served their country as a volunteer or as a drafting. we shall not see their like again or the World War II generation that survived the Holocaust the Shoa , the American depression and World War II.
How does our nation create an attract such an amazing human beings who gives so much in their lives sometimes everything either in sacrifice or in their brilliance, their excellence their accomplishments, their genius to humanity not just to America!
The problem with broadening the mind approach is that people are always capable of rejecting what they don't like as implausible.
And certainly there are implausible characters in literature.
So according to Arnold, the point of literature is to broaden one’s perspective and identify both universal human emotions and the attitudes that are particular to a time or place? This means we should be reading across time periods and cultures, so for example both Beowulf and “Beloved” by Toni Morrison. Would any English professor or student really be against reading these?
Being totally consumed with the idea of power is very Voldemort-esque.
I overwhelmingly agree with this argument, and I can't say how thrilled I am to see other people reference Arnold and Trilling. I discovered Arnold through Trilling back in the day and he's been my North Star ever since. Well done.