On Cleanth Brooks and formalism

Why do we consider form such an immovable, illuminating thing? Why do critics consider it the unshakable alternative to Wimsatt's and Beardsley's dreaded fallacies? Why do we expect that structure guarantees Truth, and consider historical/biographical discussions flimsy wanderings yielding relativism?

Yesterday, in a Victorian literature class, we discussed __'s use of the heroic couplet in his poem ___. We studied the heroic couplet as form, form which derives meaning from its situated, historical function. That is, it connotes heroism because, historically, poets have used it for epic poems. And we studied the heroic couplet as if its use in epic poetry was somehow inherent to the couplet. But what if what we know as the "heroic couplet" had been historically employed not in epic poems but in ballads and odes? What if its historical function had been

Here I echo Foucault in saying that language is ambiguous, and not as dependable as formalists claim, because the meanings of the words - and, therefore, the meanings of their structures - are neither singular nor universally consistent, but dependent upon cultural and historical contexts.

Likewise, Cixous asserts that personal identities are culturally and discursively structured because people interact as situated subjects (and, might I add), situated subjects dealing with situated experiences. Such situatedness makes it impossible for the poem to be anything less than situated.

Literary ownership and creativity

Can you imagine our modern literary world without copyright laws? Without ownership, authorship would truly become secondary - if ordered at all - to our literature identification system. Perhaps, especially, we'd depend upon works' titles for sole identification. The poem wouldn't be a "Wordsworth" or the story a "Poe" or the novel a "Tolkein." Very odd conceptualize, actually.

On the flip side, it'd spare us the obnoxious works cited labor.

In "The Author" Andrew Bennett cites Martha Woodmansee in stating that "'our laws of intellectual propriety . . . are rooted in the century-long reconceptualization of the creative process which culminated in high Romantic pronouncements . . . to the effect that this process ought to be solitary, or individual, and introduce 'a new element into the intellectual universe'." I'm growing convinced of our inescapable deep-rootedness in Romanticism. Will we ever be able to escape those tendencies, and should we even attempt it? At this point in my studies I can identify my own Romantic tendencies and influences - noting my tendency toward solitude, my desire to create innovative pieces, my frustration over restriction and conformity - yet I don't know how to escape them. Not that I necessarily need to. But I do wonder what our literary education would be were it shaped by something other than Romanticism.

and I was pondering the "creative reading" to which my Barthes blog alluded. What if, in school, we learned to encounter texts for the first time together? What if our initial encounters were communal? As in, for example, reading books aloud in classrooms. (Would that environment be too controlled?) In elementary and high school, I only recall reading plays aloud in class. Every other reading assignment occurred outside of class, in solitude. But what if we learned to talk through a first reading together?

Is reading too much of a solitary act that to suggest any other method would be too forceful?

Somewhere along the line we stopped reading aloud in class. A shame, for I actually enjoyed it. But I suppose many teachers consider it a poor use of time. They're probably right in assuming so. Reading through, say, Huckleberry Finn alone would require almost an entire semester. Not very efficient.

But what if efficacy wasn't the goal? What if, instead, we endeavored to emphasize the creative process of encountering text? Not just the 'creative process' of analyzing text, or reacting to text, but actually encountering it on a first-response basis?

I've read that, while filming the movie version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the director restricted the child actors from seeing the finished sets before filming. That way, they preserved their initial reactions - unfeigned wonder and awe - on camera. Fresh and honest. What if we encountered our literature that way - without prior filters, without our predetermined interpretations?

Tonight I'll see a version of Valerie Rae Smith's new play Between Two Chairs. As I understand it, she has performed the play before, but it's still in the 'construction' stages. To me, the potential of engaging in and reacting to a progressing work is so exciting. It still changes. It's still fluid. That, to me, indicates real creativity.

A challenge for our generation

In his essay The Storyteller, Walter Benjamin writes that the decline of the storytelling tradition can be attributed (in part) to alterations in social and economic structures. Essentially obsolete occupations such as "the resident tiller of the soil, and . . . the trading seaman" reduce our experiences to what Benjamin calls "strategic experience": "tactical warfare, economic experience by inflation, bodily experience by mechanical warfare, moral experience by those in power." Today, our experiences, though highly valued, are also highly controlled. We often experience within bubbles of safety.

Last weekend I visited friends who, for the past year, have been serving as missionaries among the Didinga people of Sudan. Hearing their stories of logistical issues, language barriers, social structure confusions, and lack of government intervention made me wonder how they function. They experience a society in which no code - moral or otherwise - exists to keep things in check. No code protects them - or anyone else, for that matter - from dangers of . . . well, living. I was reminded how intrinsically I depend upon an assumed 'code' to keep my experiences in check, safe. Even while studying abroad in Barcelona, Spain, I was protected by moral codes, international codes, relational codes, language codes, institutional codes. My experience there, though seemingly 'liberated,' was actually highly controlled. My friends' experiences in southern Sudan? Not so much.

Their stories are better, though. (Partly because they're characterized by a raw suspense that I've never encountered.)

Benjamin writes that the storytelling of such "peasants and seamen" thrived because their stories "combined the lore of faraway places, such as a much-traveled man brings home, with the lore of the past, as it best reveals itself to natives of a place."

I wonder, even if we don't experience the same caliber of storytelling today, are we developing new forms?

In his New York Times article entitled "The Odyssey Years," David Brooks writes that a new life phase is making its way into normalcy. He calls it "the odyssey" phase, and he identifies this stage of life in this way: "During this decade, 20-somethings go to school and take breaks from school. They live with friends and they live at home. They fall in and out of love. They try one career and then try another. . . . The parents don’t even detect a clear sense of direction in their children’s lives. They look at them and see the things that are being delayed. They see that people in this age bracket are delaying marriage. They’re delaying having children. They’re delaying permanent employment." Brooks is certainly onto something. As I approach graduation, more of my friends are committing to "gap years" - year or more commitments to teaching, traveling and exploring other countries. Even those who aren't devoting their gap years to international volunteer work are intending to lay low for a period, trying new jobs, moving to new locations. Few of my 20-something friends have intentions of settling down in any aspect of life. Most see their next career or educational move as transitive.

Considering this undeniable development of the odyssey phase, I wonder if, once my generation ages to 'settled' - to Benjamin's resident tiller equivalent - we'll revive the storytelling tradition. After all, if we're all embarking on our odysseys for the next decade or so, we're sure to accumulate unregulated, unbridled experiences. And those are bound to make great stories.

More on classic status (and a crazy YouTube video)

Literary critic Roland Barthes writes:

"The goal of the literary work (or literature as work) is to make the reader no longer a consumer, but a producer of the text. Our literature is characterized by the pitiless divorce which the literary institution maintains between the producer of the text and its user, between its owner and its consumer, between its author and its reader. This reader is thereby plunged into a kind of idleness—he is intransitive; he is, in short, serious; instead of functioning himself, instead of gaining access to the magic of the signifier, to the pleasure of writing, he is left with no more than the poor freedom either to accept or reject the text: reading is nothing more than a referendum. Opposite the writerly text, then, is its countervalue, its negative reactive value: what can be read, but not written: the readerly. We call any readerly text a classic text."

I have to admit, I don't know much about reading creatively. At least not as a legitimate method of analysis. Usually for "experimental" purposes. Even my initial reactions to works occur in "I liked it"/"I didn't like it" responses. Accepting / rejecting binaries, as Barthes would say. And my reader-response papers, which seem to be creative avenues of expression, often mimic the parent text. Spawns prompted by someone else's classic conventions. "Creative writing" is certainly a common phrase in our literary vernacular, but "creative reading"? Novel.

So, considering my lack of exposure and experience in the area, I wonder what creative reading actually looks like? How does one jointly-produce a text through reading? Rather than accepting and/or rejecting, does the reader accept some and reject some? Does that show readerly discernment? Does one write essays in response, creatively altering the text? We often use the phrase "join in conversation" to refer to active participation on literature, but, honestly, how does one do that without writing back? Surely one doesn't read back?

Yet Barthes considers "what can be read, but not written: the readerly. We call any readerly text a classic text." So perhaps, after all, writing is a means of creatively reading a text. If one can read a text but not respond to it through writing - if it is unalterable - then one can only participate in consumer reading.

Ok, switching Barthes-isms. So I found this YouTube video which uses dance to expand Barthes' work vs. text theory. Check it out. According to the website, the project seeks to 'probe language objectively through art movements' in order to 'understand that literature, as with all arts, is a powerful reflection of cultural practices and ideologies.' I've watched the piece several times now, and I'm still struggling to make the connections. And usually I enjoy connecting art genres like this. I get that in some sequences the dancer dances while controlled, with constraints, and in some sequences she appears to move without constraints (though one can see the controls underneath her odd church-musical/'Bible-times' get-up). Beyond that, I've developed few theories? Anyone else want to take a stab at it?

What qualifies a classic?

The "classic" definition has puzzled me. Most readers and students seem to agree on an unspoken definition for term. We use the word to connote high literary merit, longevity, and model form. Our classics are our archetypes. Educated readers, we understand, study and reference the classics. Half-guiltily I admit that I purchase leather-bound classics from antique shops for the sole purpose of collecting them on my bookshelves, the marks of a true scholar. Reading them would be ideal, of course, but at least I have them on hand to imply my reading.

Why do I succumb to these standards? Should I succumb to these standards? What is valuable reading material?

Charles Augustin Saint Beuve writes that "a true classic, as I should like to hear it defined, is an author who has enriched the human mind, increased its treasure, and caused it to advance a step" (http://www.bartleby.com/32/202.html). I agree with his definition. Maybe a classic isn't a 'model in any language whatsoever,' and maybe historical longevity isn't its primary characteristic, but in its own way it enhances and stretches the thinking of a pocket of humanity.

What I find interesting is that Charles Augustin defines a class as a "who," not a "what." He writes that a classic is one "who has expressed his thought, observation, or invention, in no matter what form." So, then it seems that the author's personal quality (of writing?) is what characterizes 'classic.' The writer is the classic, not necessarily the work he produces. So does that mean that Milton, for example, always produces 'classic' work by virtue of being a classic himself? Can different works from the same author be classified as both 'classic' and 'non-classic'?

Jane Austen comes to mind. A recent, 2007 movie version of Austen’s lesser-known novel Mansfield Park exists, and I’ve prolonged renting it until I read the book. I haven’t read much of Austen after severely disliking Sense and Sensibility, so this will mark yet another attempt to appreciate her work beyond Pride and Prejudice. If Austen herself is classic, then it doesn't seem to follow that all of her work be classic. Pride and Prejudice certainly seems more classic than Mansfield Park. So here's my question: should the classic label refer to the author or to the work?

stuck on terms

A sort of I'm-probably-missing-the-point question in regards to Thomas Aquinas' "Summa Theologica:" when did we start referring to poetry as "art" and not "(the lowest) science"? And what's the difference between the two - art and science - to d'Aquino and his contemporaries, if any? We rarely refer to poetry as science anymore (though some schools of thought would see it as such), so when did the "art" definition apply? Just for historical tangent kicks, here goes.

I'm particularly impressed with Aquinas' rhetorical structure. A very logical, bare bones method of argumentation. I understand that this method was associated with Scholasticism, a movement which employed "the use of philosophical knowledge in explaining and defending the truths of faith" by fusing faith and reason. The material on this website, written by D.J. Kennedy, contends that Scholasticism has been wrongly associated with 'logic-chopping' and that it is, instead, "the highest form of intellectual activity and intellectual perfection; in the second place, for those who are Christians, it is of the utmost importance in explaining and defending the mysteries of faith." I suppose Aquinas' essay structure demonstrates one method of explaining faith with reason. This particular method also seems to most closely jive with our modern definition of 'science' - a step-by-step, ordered approach to logic-ing out.

Seems like, if these methods were highly prized as the perfection of intellectual activity, no wonder Aquinas considered poetry "the least of all the sciences" (240). Poetry doesn't always obey method. Poets aren't (necessarily) model logicians. Not by his standards.

Does our current "art" label allow for liberty of thought by exempting thinkers from following method? Often we seem to tout "creative liberty" as our get-out-of-jail-free pass. Sure, we learn methods of painting, sculpting, writing, composing, dancing. But we're usually expected to exercise this knowledge in unique and unconventional - not order-adherent - ways.

So, even though I know better contextually, I feel a tad peeved with Aquinas for referring to poetics as "the least of all the sciences." It's not even a science, I'd like to contend. Who's defining 'science' anyway?

Where soul meets body and we learn by signs

Several weeks ago I attended an inspiring lecture by poetry professor Christine Perrin during which she said (something to the effect of) "...The church needs this, too. Often we're told that truth can occur without beauty and the soul without the body. It's a lie." (For the complete - and accurate - quote read The Bridge magazine! There's a plug...) So lately I've been contemplating the relationship of the physical, corporal to the divine. Growing up I learned to distinguish between the purported binary oppositions of "spirit" and "flesh," reciting "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak" ad nauseam. Now, cognitively, I understand that the "flesh" refers to sinful nature, but, habitually, I still associate flesh - evil, sin - with everything corporal, physical. Assuming the things of this world are inherently tainted. I wonder if this is true.

From friends and lectures I've gleaned enough to know - and be intrigued by - Professor Perrin's emphasis on physical images. (Here's where I might diverge from her theory - I don't know enough to say) See, even in writing that sentence I'm tempted to type "emphasis on physical images to point to higher truth" . . . but what if the images are the higher truth? What if the physical world - the body, say - isn't comprised of mere symbols to stand for higher truth, but in itself is higher truth? Or, what if we need the body, not merely to enhance or house the soul, but because the soul is, in fact, nothing without the body?

Augustine writes about the value of signs, writing "things are learned by signs" and "A sign is a thing which causes us to think of something beyond the impression the thing itself makes upon the senses" (188). Even as I read I nod in agreement, concurring that, yes, Jesus' 'body and blood signify what he wished', and, yes, 'when the woman was healed by touching the hem of His garment, something was signified' (189). But what if those physical occurrences didn't just signify revelations but were, in fact, revelations themselves? That the physical act of touching Jesus' robe transformed the woman, not that the touching symbolized a higher transformation.

(I can hear my Sunday School teacher correcting me, "The woman wasn't transformed by the act of touching - Jesus wasn't magical as we think of it. She was transformed because she believed." I'm not asserting that Jesus' robe possessed magical powers. More like: the woman needed to touch, to act, to use her body, in order to believe. Something physical had to happen.)

We often quote "Faith without works is dead," where 'works' means 'action.' The popular interpretation is something like, 'It's not enough to believe. One must act on that belief." Essentially, one who professes belief must confirm it, do it, with the body. The corporal is integral to belief. The corporal maybe is belief.

We Christians often refer to corporal things - our aging bodies, frequently - as just 'signs of things to come' or 'shadows' or sub-par versions of the 'new bodies' that await us in Heaven. As if these 'shells' only house our spirits for the time being and will be discarded upon acquiring a more perfect model. But what if the connection between our bodies and our souls is, actually, a more integral connection? What if they can't be separated? What if they shouldn't be separated, cognitively, theologically, or otherwise?

A more articulate wording: "To put it simply, all the body is in the soul, and all the soul is in the body. Or, in chemical terms, if sodium is absorbed by human beings, they die. If chloride is absorbed into the human body, people die, however sodium chloride, or table salt, as two principles of being can be absorbed into the human system at will without any damage. Therefore, salt is proof positive of substantial change."

Maybe our souls can't understand without our bodies, and our bodies can't understand without our souls?

Neither one points to another, higher 'thing' to aid the other. They just exist together, a whole.

I wonder, does anyone know of any writings that pertain to this inquiry?

How to be a discerning reader?

Professor Powers' essay "Reading Ethnic Literature Now," reminded me of a comment from a high school journalism professor and prompted a few questions. Powers writes, "the real problem for ethnic literary studies . . . is not the unsympathetic reader who misses cultural references, remains ignorant of cultural contexts, or simply can’t escape his or her cultural prejudices. The biggest problem is the vast and growing sea of non-readers who can’t imagine why reading a book ought to be an important thing to do in the first place." I suppose few would deny the declining trend in reading practices. Readers are rarities these days, it seems. Many people - I'm guilty too, more often than I'd like to admit - consider it laudable to accomplish the reading of anything at all, be it People magazine or a Danielle Steel.

Reminds me of a moment when, after the Harry Potter craze motivated non-readers of all ages to delve into books, my high school journalism teacher found herself fielding questions about the morality of allowing her elementary-aged boys to read the popular series. She responded simply, "This is the first time ever that my child has wanted to read. At all. To me, that's worthwhile."

The morality of Harry and his wizarding habits aside, I wonder if my teacher's logic holds weight. Does it matter what we read, or matter simply that we're reading? In my critical analysis essay I argue that Kolodny offers a more effective method than Emerson for dealing with skepticism of reading: rather than avoid it entirely, read more. Does that logic apply even in these instances? I suppose, in my essay, I assumed that the readers Kolodny imagines are scholars of literature, familiar with the canon and discerning of literary value. They, perhaps, can afford to read more. But what of the less discerning readers? Should they read more, or, in doing so, do they run the risk of 'spoiling' their literary intake? The 'Garbage in, Garbage out' adage.

And, if only discerning readers should increase the variety of literary diet, when does a reader become discerning enough?

'God as author' and other considerations

Recently I've read two intriguing articles concerning the 'God as author' simile.

The first, by World magazine columnist Gene Edward Veith, refutes the popular comparisons to God as watchmaker or carpenter. Veith calls to attention to the metaphors of God as writer throughout the Bible - see John 1:1-14, Hebrews 11:3, and Revelation 20:12-15, for example - and contends that the God-as-writer metaphor is most appropriate. He bases his argument, essentially, on this concept: "While a watchmaker is detached from the mechanism he crafts, an author is both outside his creation and his characters and intimately involved with them." According to Veith, then, authorship is wrapped up, fully engaged, an integral part of a work.

The second article, Theology is Stranger Than Fiction: The best film you didn't see this year, by Messiah professors Sharon Baker and Crystal Downing, essentially agrees with Veith. Baker and Downing analyze the theology in Will Ferrell's movie "Stranger Than Fiction," calling attention to the blurred control relationship between author/narrator Kay Eifel and her protagonist Harold Crick (Ferrell). Baker and Downing write, "Not too far into this provocative film, however, we begin to wonder who exactly controls Harold's life: Harold, who programs his watch and obsessively counts all his footsteps, or the narrator, who tells his story?"

I affirm the metaphors asserted in these articles. The connections are easy for me to see when they relate to God's involvement in my life - the "yes, he's writing my story" type of affirmation. But, if God's authorship of the Bible - even of our very lives - can be considered so integral, can secular authors be considered similarly connected to their work? Even in today's literary criticism class we noted a definite shift in thinking as we transferred 'tried and true' literary principles to the Bible. Why don't the same principles - of analysis, of interpretation, etc. - apply? Some argue the Bible's divinely inspired nature requires different readings. Yet Emerson believed his writing - his very nature as Poet? - evidence of inspired existence. Why do we react so strongly against Emerson? If we argue, as we often do, that the Bible can be studied as literature, are we essentially asserting that it also cannot be studied as literature? Is literary criticism the only way to approach Biblical interpretation?

To edit or not to edit, 'tis the question

A ha! I spot notes of Cixous-esque feminism.

Cixous references the circular form of feminist writing as opposed to masculine linear writing; plot structures, for female writers, follow revolving circular structures, while male writing follows the traditional exposition-rising action-climax-denouement-resolution sequence. Indicative, she argues, of the male vs. female sexual experiences and anatomies.

Other critics aren't far behind her. Kolodny references a distinction between male and female writing in her essay "Dancing Through the Minefield," and Woolf argues that male writers could use more 'female' influence in their writing.

So when I read this in an article about Arundhati Roy's (pictured left) post-colonial Indian novel The God of Small Things, I rejoiced over the connection: "Arundhati Roy made the point that her work had been conceived as a single defining image, and subsequently written out of sequence: ‘‘I didn’t start with the first chapter or end with the last . . . . I actually started writing with a single image in my head: the sky blue Plymouth [car] with two twins inside it, a Marxist procession surrounding it. . . . [The story] just developed from there." True to Roy’s non-linear method, this ‘‘single image’’ is divided across the second chapter of the novel, forming the centre-piece of a
larger episode which recounts a family outing to Cochin in the southern Indian state of Kerala. . ."

So Roy ascribes to what feminist critics consider a feminist plot structure. At least in this novel. Very cool. Post-colonialism feminism at its finest.

Another interesting thing about Roy: she doesn't revise. That's right, check it out here. She doesn't self-edit. To her, writing is like breathing, and, as I've read her quoted, "[she] would never edit out a breath." And that makes me wonder, why so much emphasis on editing in our modern curriculum? It's so contrary to stream-of-consciousness method. As an idealist (and as a first glance reaction), I appreciate Roy's everything-that-makes-the-page-is-legitimate ideology. Yet, in our current writing curriculum, we're teaching our budding writers to discard potentially-legitimate thoughts. Are we teaching them to refine or teaching them to devalue?

And so, what is a writer? One who shapes a multitude of thoughts or one who offers the multitude to readers for their own sorting?

What does that mean exactly, "post-colonial"?

Seems like many literary critics have a bone to pick with the term "post-colonial." A post on Emily's blog prompted me to read this Paul Brians article on the term's inadequacies. Even in my post-colonial (with the hyphen or without? that's what I'd like to know) literature class, Professor Dzaka references the label's inability to include and span, the numerous cultures to which it literally implies. That is, if we were to pare the word down to its nitty-gritty, technical semantics, we'd have to admit that even our Northern American literature is "post-colonial:" we had colonies, now we don't. We were colonized - well, the Brits controlled our colonies? - and now we aren't.

(Ok, not the same thing, many argue. Still, the point stands.)

Yet, as our somewhat comprehensive literary swoop has demonstrated, most postcolonial literature involves India, the African continent, the Caribbean islands, and parts of Asia. 1) As if colonialism is over in these locations. To which Brians, like many other critics, challenges "What about neocolonialism?" and 2) As if an entire era of literature is Eurocentric.

This is Brians' point, not mine. He writes, "it can be argued that this way of defining a whole era is Eurocentric, that it singles out the colonial experience as the most important fact about the countries involved. Surely that experience has had many powerful influences; but this is not necessarily the framework within which writers from--say--India, who have a long history of precolonial literature, wish to be viewed."

Perhaps this is what writers like Ngugi hope to preserve: a sense that their colonization did not - does not - define their national literary identity. Not all African literature is "postcolonial." Nor is it either "precolonial" and "postcolonial." Even if Kenyan universities were to study African literature, studying African literature through English lenses - always in reference to the English dominance or lack of dominance - would be "Eurocentric."

So how do literary scholars - particularly Euro-descending scholars - study this undoubtedly important era in literary history without limiting formerly-colonized nations to Euro-referencing works? How do we allow formerly-colonized nations their own literary identities?

By legitimizing works written in native tongues (rather than a 'standard' English)?
By valuing themes of rebellion against oppressive forces as indicative, over all else, of "postcolonialism"?

Perhaps, as overseas business furthers neocolonialism, we'll need to revisit and revise our current nebulous definition of post-colonial literature.

A response to Ngugi and the "English" department label

One of my sister's favorite arguments for implication is, "Like the book of Esther: it's all about God, but it never mentions him once. Still, he's all over it."

I think about her point every time I hear a Messiah College English student complain about the curriculum's lack of Christian faith. How much more explicitness would you like, that's what I want to ask. Seems to me that the literary discussions in our classes involve and allow and weave Christianity integrally - need it be spelled out more specifically? Sometimes, to me, the need for explicitness seems developmentally immature, like toddlers who need to be told "No, that's bad" or "Don't touch" in definite terms so as not to misunderstand. Need we label "This book is About Jesus" or "This is Christian Literature" to prevent our misunderstandings? Need we categorize Christian literature the same way we categorize British, African, or any other national literature? I would like to imagine Christianity as more pervasive, more transcendent than that.

Once I heard Don Forsythe, art professor, speak about the relationship between his Christianity and his art. A student asked "Is it difficult to be both a Christian and an artist," as if the two were mutually exclusive. He responded something to the effect of "I don't think my art needs to be explicitly evangelical to be considered 'Christian.'" I liked that. We don't necessarily need to label our work, our study, as such in order for it to be so. The mere fact that we are Christians means that our studies will inherently involve Christianity. We cannot escape it. It's like asking, 'Is it difficult to study literature being you?' - How can it be any other way?

So I'm not sure it's necessary to label our literature studies as "Christian." We are Christians who do literature study. We read and write and analyze out of our Christianity. How else could we? Just like we read and write and study out of our gender identities, our cultural identities, our national identities. We are, and that inherently is our study.

Perhaps, in response to Professor Powers' proposed department changes, we could nix the "English" label and call the department "Literature and Writing." Maybe that would eliminate the colonized/colonizer context issue of which Ngugi writes. It would certainly allow, if in definition only, a more comprehensive scope of subject matter. But to go a step further and label the department "Christian Cultural Studies" would be ending up right back where we started. From one limiting label to another. It'd be superfluous, I think. That's what we are at this institution, why should we label the department as such? (And, if our department labels itself in such a way, then will the mathematics department label itself similarly? "Christian Mathematics" or "Number Configurations According to Christianity"?) Labeling it, being too specific, might limit the scope to evangelical and apologetic material, just like labeling a department "English" might limit the study to only colonizer literature.

An interesting issue, this one. I'm sure I haven't explored it entirely. For now, I'll just mull over it.

Zora Neale Hurstons of the modern canon

Our wedding photographer is a Mary Cassatt fan.

That's what she told me last week while snapping our engagement photos. She's in the process of pursuing her master's in art history, and happened to mention her disgust over the lack of modernist attention on women. She said that as she worked on her thesis - which involved a lengthy compilation and analysis of all known modernist painters - she grew increasingly frustrated over the inattention shown to talented female artists. "I'm not even a feminist," she said. "I don't really get into that stuff. But, I mean, give the girl a shout-out."

I empathize with that sentiment. Regardless of one's feminist leanings, it's difficult to deny that men have controlled artistic (and probably every other kind - theological, scientific, etc.) canon formation since there were canons to form. Cixous, Kolodny, and Woolf attest to it.

So I read Zora Neale Hurston's essay "What White Publishers Won't Print" with a deep respect for doubly-restricted black women writers. I can't imagine writing in an era that limited - perhaps 'banned,' in many senses - the expressions of not only minorities but also women. I would hope that we are past the point when statements like these are necessary: ". . . it is urgent to realize that the minorities do think, and think about something other than the race problem" (1161). But, then again, I don't know.

How many modern minority writers do we read today?

Thinking through the past four years of curriculum, I'm thankful that I've read black writers from many eras of literary history: Equiano, Frederick Douglass, to Countee Cullen and Langston Hughes. Still, which black (female) authors pop up on current bestseller lists, on Barnes and Noble must-read tables?

Just to feed my curiosity, I'll keep my eyes peeled for the next few days.

. . . Maya Angelou, that's all I got right now.

Hughes: 'Must Negroes always write about Negroes?'

Yet Do I Marvel

by Countee Cullen

I doubt not God is good, well-meaning,
kind,
And did He stoop to quibble could tell why
The little buried mole continues blind,
Why flesh that mirrors
Him must some day die,
Make plain the reason tortured
Tantalus Is baited by the fickle fruit,
declare
If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus
To struggle up a never-ending stair.
Inscrutable His ways are, and immune
To catechism by a mind too strewn
With petty cares to slightly understand
What awful brain compels His awful hand.
Yet do I marvel at this curious thing:
To make a poet black, and bid him sing!

Admittedly, I always read Cullen's poem with an inference of confused pride over God's ordaining. Seemed to me that he wrote confidently - though questioningly - about his poetry and his blackness. I guess Langston Hughes interpreted Cullen differently. Perhaps with good reason.

I appreciate Hughes' essay "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain" for its encouraging message about being true to one's self. 'Don't try to become what you are not,' he sees to say. And I like this - it's comforting. Especially for young writers who might feel inadequate; Hughes seems to say that one possesses all one needs to write. One need only embrace one's existing identity, not attempt to fashion a new one.

However, Hughes himself begs a question I've wondered myself: "Do you think Negroes should always write about Negroes?" (1316). Or, for that matter, must all poetry written by blacks be termed "black poetry" or music be termed "black music"? Does Hughes advocate group identity over individual identity?

Even if a modern black poet doesn't subscribe to the "white is best" mentality, does he necessarily produce "black poetry"? What if his poetry is about something other than being black? What if it's about nature or women on a bus? Will literary critics forever analyze his poetic topics through an assumed black lens?

And, if so, how does a poet escape those assumptions? For surely - and I don't believe Hughes would argue against this (maybe he would?) - a writer's identity amounts to more than his/her whiteness or blackness. If it's self-honesty that makes a promising writer, than he/she has many other facets of him/herself to be honest about. Race is only one component of self. Hughes, however, (perhaps without meaning to), seems to imply that race is whole self, the summation of self.

Or maybe, in the era in which Hughes wrote, race was the most important aspect of self. And it was the most important because adherence to it solidified a community, a support system, protection against prejudiced forces. Perhaps, in Hughes' context, a black writer needed to identify himself by his blackness in order to maintain that much-needed support of the black community. Hughes seems most concerned with preserving what he calls "Negro life in America" (1316), and all of his writing works toward that end. It may be, however, that other writers - Cullen, perhaps - had moved past group identity and adopted a more individualistic (more 'white American'?), unique self identity.

On breaking codes

A quick thought on Young Alumni Achievement Award recipient Tiffany Eberle Kriner's presentation - "Ascent, Continuance, and Immersion : Hope in the Poetry of Denise Levertov" - tonight: I appreciated her comment that she wasn't attempting to revolutionize Levertov's poety by over-analyzing it; she wanted the poetry to speak for itself.

Her refreshing comment relieved me in an 'Oh, you can actually do that?' sort of way.

In recent weeks, especially while writing the critical analysis essay, I've felt pressure to devise relevatory theories on the nature of literature, feeling discouraged to find that my puny "good" ideas have been beaten to pulps by minds much more intelligent than mine. What else is there to say? (I mean, I know there's always more to say, but there might be some truth in our inability to say anything but what has already been say. Maybe the power we possess is of saying it better? That alone provides endless writing material.)

In her book The Cloiser Walk, poet Kathleen Norris writes of her experiences teaching poetry to elementary school students. She writes of one teacher who, afraid that Norris might introduce the concept of metaphor, cautioned "they don't know that yet, they haven't been taught." To which Norris replies, "Oh, they know it. They just don't have the words for it yet." Like those students, I guess I have to learn how to do literary criticism even though, as sometimes professors remind us, we've been doing it all along. We have to be taught to "code" of which Bourdieu writes, for "the capacity to see (voir) is the function of the knowledge (savoir), or concepts, that is, the words, that are available to name visible things, and, which are . . . programmes for perception" (1810). Maybe, even, we have to learn the code in order to subvert it?

In the dance realm, ballet is the code, the standard form, to which every dancer must adhere. Budding ballerinas spend years upon years slaving over terms like arabesque, attitude en l'air, battement, and fouette, coordinating them with textbook perfect body movement. Precision, adherence to the code, strength in the executing the code makes one a "good" dancer in those early years. Yet, once the proper form has been established, once the code has been cemented, the mature dancer begins exploring forms like jazz and modern. Forms which deliberately break the code. Forms with challenge the code. The lifted center becomes the contracted abdomen, the irregular rhythms interrupt precise waltz structures. Great dancers break the codes well. Great dancers like the legendary Martha Graham, mother of modern dance. (Check out that YouTube video - her choreography is amazingly unconventional.)

Maybe that's what literature requires, too.

Ngugi: Timeliness confirms authorship?

Weeks ago, Peter Wasamba, professor of oral literature at the University of Nairobi, spoke in our postcolonial literature class. We had been reading Ngugi's novel Devil on the Cross, and Wasamba, in his lecture, shed light on the Kenyan cultural contexts which (should) affect its reading. He described the conflicting traditional and imperial tides which, to this day, pull formerly-colonized Kenyans to breaking points. He spoke of the cult following Ngugi garnered with the publication of his novel, how he became a sort of national hero, Kenya's writer. "Ngugi is the best writer to come from Kenya," Wasamba said. He described Ngugi's radicalism, his advocacy of offensive force to accomplish social change, his Marxist leanings. All of this clarified the novel for me - it gave me the contextual information I needed to understand the novel's purpose.

(And then, I wonder, it's an interesting thing that context makes such a difference to my understanding. In this case, knowing the author helps me know the literature. Without it, significant holes in my historical understanding prevent me from "getting it." It's clear that we've been molded to think Romantically [Formalistically?] on the topic of author's pertinence to work. For example, we're preparing a presentation for Thursday - an analysis of Roy's novel The God of Small Things; of course, we'll spend about a fourth of the time discussing Roy's biography. An author's essential to the work, right? That's what we've learned.)

Anyway, Wasamba went on to describe Ngugi as "a writer produced by a specific historical epoch," and noted that students imitated him because they found him "relevant."

This very comment addresses a question I've had since the beginning of the semester: need a writer acquire some eternal value in order to be considered an author, or need he be simply/merely/only contextually relevant? How accessible should a writer be to his present history and to his eternal history to be considered a writer? Need an author possess an element of historical endurance to claim the title? Ngugi, after all, was relevant for postcolonial, newly-liberated Kenyans searching for identity. Yet, as Wasamba himself mentioned, Ngugi's popularity - the popularity of his novels - has fallen by the wayside in the past decade. So, is Ngugi still an "author"? And, I don't read Ngugi with the same understanding and empathy as Dr. Wasamba does; my cultural and historical contexts prevent me from experiencing that connectedness - thus, Ngugi isn't as "relevant" to me. Is he still an "author"? What kind of time-value relationship should a true author have?

In his essay "On the Abolition of the English Department," Ngugi himself equates relative contextuality with excellence, writing "For any group it is better to study representative works which mirror their society rather than to study a few isolated 'classics,' either of their own or of a foreign culture." According to him, contextual relevance - of time and place, both - determine literary excellence. Perhaps one need not achieve an enduring 'classics' status to excel to authorship.

Re-routing the essay

I'm starting to believe I never properly learned to formulate questions. As I've honed my ideas for this critical analysis essay, I've struggled to pose decently thoughtful questions. Here are my recent thoughts - feel free to offer suggestions.

My original idea for the essay focused on Emerson's concept of Poet as seer, a "sovereign . . . [who] stands on the centre" (725). I was - have been - drawn to Emerson's concept of transcendence. That is, his assertion that Poets are sent into the world as "the only teller of news" (726). I questioned who gave the Poet such authority. What allows him to perceive other-worldly Truth? How is he able to transcend the body, the present life? (Is it a learned skill or an intrinsic perception?) Those questions led to others: is an 'author' one who transcends? Emerson writes that the true Poet "shalt not know any longer the times, customs, graces, politics, or opinions of men, but shalt take all from the muse" (738). A poet isn't concerned with context, but with the eternal value of Truth. Reject the world, he seems to say; or, better yet, transcend it. Thus, is transcendence superior to contextual relevance? That is, is transcendence what makes an author an author? How does an author relate to context?

However, as I reread Emerson's essay "The Poet," my original questions expanded. I'm reminded that Emerson, because he believes that the Poet has a divine responsibility to represent untainted Truth (to transcend the world), seems skeptical of reading. He asserts that "language is the archives of history . . . a sort of tomb for the muses" (731). Expression, as contained in poetry - images and tropes, loses meaning because, though it once represented brilliance, now exists lifeless, as "fossil poetry" (731). He asserts that nature is the superior poetry, for it "baptizes [it]self" (731) and doesn't need another to name it; in this way, it always preserves its transcendent meaning. Reading others' works, however, does nothing for revealing Truth. It is too limited, to confined to context, too contained in the individual. Instead, he seems to suggest that one must seek out one's own revelation, not rely upon another's. Furthermore, Emerson states outrightly that the Poet's obligation is to say and articulate, not to hear and absorb. (Or, the Poet is to hear and absorb Truth for himself, not hear and absorb other mortals' perceptions of Truth.) He writes of the "accidency and fugacity of the symbol" compared to the "stability of the thought" (730). Language, though Poets wield it, limit transcendence. Reading others' poetry, therefore, isn't necessary for understanding. Rather, one should 'read' the universe for understanding.

Considering that Emerson believes that "adequate expression is rare" (725), reading is unessential to understanding. Why waste one's time reading other's poorly-expressed pseudo revelations?

I've always been taught that reading is a valuable exercise, essential if you want to be educated. "Leaders are readers,"a speaker once told us at a youth conference. And I've agreed with them.

Ok, so here's my attempt at an enthymene that may or may not show up in my paper: I used to believe that Emerson's skepticism of reading was unmerited, but, after reading Annette Kolodny's essay "Dancing Through the Minefield ," I have come to see that limiting reading - or filtering reading or practicing discernment/skepticism of reading - can prevent us from being manipulated by the ones Emerson calls the "umpires of taste" (724). Kolodny suggests that undiscerning reading limits our tastes and restricts us to the approved canon.

Thoughts on the matter:

-If Kolodny argues that our present thought shapes and changes our perceptions of the past, then, as Emerson might have concurred, our own Truth - our personally-sought revelations - becomes the valuable item, not the present expressions - poetries - of that Truth. (2154) We transform text into "more current and recognizable shapes" (2154). In this way, thoughtful and selective reading positively shapes our perception of Truth.

- Kolodny writes that reading, though it can be "constantly relearned and refined" (2155), often isn't; therefore, it often leads readers into stagnation. When reading habits become fixed, they no longer serve their purpose in providing variations - continuing revelations - on the same text. Emerson probably feared the stagnation, too. Why read and grow dependent on old perceptions?

- Both Kolodny and Emerson imply that reading impacts the thought processes; it is not a passive act. Rather, it instructs the reader in how one should think. It is not mere absorption. Reading shapes our perceptions of both the past and the present. Therefore, one should read cautiously, with discernment.

- Kolodny writes, "We read well, and with pleasure, what we already know how to read" (2156). Learning the canon - the code - limits us, teaches us to limit ourselves to exclusive, circular, single-definition repertoire. Readers must be receptive to new reading languages - not just the canonically-acceptable ones - and not limit one's self to the gatekeepers' tastes.

Where am I going with this? Central to this issue is the question of reading the power it wields. Both Emerson and Kolodny assert that it wields great influence; Emerson, therefore, is skeptical of it entirely, and Kolodny advocates expansion of its territory ('read everything you can, even works outside the canon,' essentially). Both, however, seem to strive toward a similar purpose: pursue individual revelations of Truth. Emerson seems to avoid (?) reading to focus on individual, unique perceptions of Truth. Kolodny seems to expand reading to individually arrive at a more holistic perception of Truth. I argue that Kolodny's solution offers a true Poet the opportunity to 'entertain the possibility that different readings, even of the same text, may be differently useful, even illuminating" (2161); this potential illumination makes reading worthwhile.

I think I just re-routed my essay. Any thoughts?

A few unanswered questions on gender roles

After reading Helene Cixous' The Laugh of the Medusa, I'd just like to ponder a few historical background questions regarding gender and writing/reading roles. 1) Where did the man-as-writer role originate? and, related, 2) where did the woman-as-reader role originate? and 3) when did those roles switch?

Many critics draw the corporal connection with the male anatomy and the pen. Obvious enough. An "analog for creating," writes Dr. Mary Klages in her article "Helene Cixous: 'The Laugh of the Medusa'." And that originates with ... well, Adam. And, speaking of Adam, there's the naming role God gave him. The book of Genesis portrays Adam dubbing animals, creating terms, names, words, to call them, associate them, order them. And isn't that what writing is, after all - naming? Writing amounts to articulating, expressing, recognizing and terming. Critics also associate writing with power, the ability to wield, the potency to create. This, too, makes sense.

But what about woman as reader? When did that happen? If women have been, historically, 'absorbers' of knowledge, not creators of knowledge, it would follow that they specialized in reading. Above are Mary Cassatt's "Woman Reading" and Monet's "Woman Reading," both impressionist works. I scoured the internet for paintings of men reading, and they are few and far between. A 2007 USA Today poll found that "More women than men read every major category of books except for history and biography." Also, "among those who said they had read books, the median figure — with half reading more, half fewer — was nine books for women and five for men." The trend in role, however it originated, seems to have stuck.

Still, today my English classes are dominated by females. Few males choose to pursue writing, accepting - I think - the social stereotype of being verbally impaired. A man - especially the college student version - who writes poetry in private is 1) either "emo," mentally disturbed, or depressed or 2) super attractive for his rarity. (Either extreme depends upon the man's strange uniqueness.) Women are the creative ones, the expressive ones, and writing seems to suit this modern woman. They swoon over poetry, articulate thought, compose letters, song lyrics, and absorb themselves in the (flimsy) gender-restricted genre known as "chicklit." They've certainly carved out space for themselves. When did that change? Cixous - among others - crusaded for women's literary space, penning battle cries like "Write! Writing is for you, you are for you . . . Write, let no one hold you back, let nothing stop you: not man, not the imbecilic capitalist machinery. . . " (2041). Now, it sometimes seems, women dominate literary space, especially capitalist-driven literary space. Book clubs and chicklit make for prosperous markets. Why? Men still write, yes, many of them prolifically, but why aren't there more male writers in our generation? Where'd the male English majors go?

These wanderings are inconclusive. More later.

Woolf lives on in Desai's fiction

A few months ago, in a postcolonial literature class, we read Anita Desai's book Fasting, Feasting, a contemporary fiction set in liberated India. Desai divides her story among two protagonists, or, I would like to argue, between the heroine and her foil: Uma and her brother Arun. Like many post-colonial Indian tales, the sister experiences an unfulfilled life of subordination while the (often ungrateful) brother experiences privilege in abundance. Fasting, feasting. (Though, of course, Desai divides these binaries not-so-neatly, and not without ironies.) It occurred to me while reading the novel that, whether Desai intended the correlation or not, her fiction almost exactly mirrors Virginia Woolf's essay "Shakespeare's Sister."

Uma, like Woolf's imagined Judith, endures of life of unfulfilled potential; her life amounts to a story left untold, the "book that isn't there," according to Woolf. Deprived of education, limited to household duties, used as a pawn for socially profitable marriages, both females experience oppression. Adding insult to injury, her brother Arun, like Judith's William the famed, enjoys the privileges of education and the veritable guarantee of a profitable career. Uma, perpetually trapped, can only imagine the impossibilities: "A career. Leaving home. Living alone . . . Sometimes, miraculously, they sprouted from an idea: run away, escape . . . What was a career? She had no idea" (131).

I appreciate most that Desai, following Woolf's recommendation, allows her protagonist to find solace in writing and reading literature. Although Uma never experiences the complete liberty of her own space - the "room of one's own" that Woolf requires for writing - but she does escape through poetry. Writes Desai, "But she will read a poem or two and find the pleasure they deny her" (135).

I find it fascinating that early feminist writers like Woolf encouraged women to claim literary territory for themselves. With all this talk of the male-dominated, patriarchal literary tradition, some extreme feminists seem to call for a complete abandonment, a sabotage of sorts. I find it much more dignified that writers like Woolf - and descendants like Desai - carve out territory for the gender, claiming it, and insisting to write it. It seems like a progressive definition for them, literature, and rather than subvert the entire thing, they write into the future, affecting a present.

Lamps and Bourdieu

Gotta say, I used to find some value in Kant's theory that intrinsic ethical value determines art, but Bourdieu's pretty convincing. Found myself agreeing with his social observations, so he hooked me on the assertions. His emphasis on essentially capital-motivated distinctions didn't bother me as it has in other essays by other thinkers - in fact, I found his observations to be mainly true and inoffensive.

I wonder, however, if his context in French culture presents a purer case study for art as social distinguisher. Now, I know less about authentic French culture and more about stereotypical French culture ('all stereotypes founded in truth'?), so I can't ponder on the French side of the quandary. But of our contrasting United States social structure, that I know a bit about. Here's the catalyst for the thought: today I visited a friend's senior art show, a creative display of her designed prints upholstered (if that's the right word) to lamp shades. A marriage of aestheticism and function. Her thesis indicated that she aimed for this very effect. Noting the trend of mass-produced, aesthetically-pleasing housewares by chain stores like Ikea and Target, she desired to address the growing alliance of beauty and practicality. Essentially, art (though admittedly not "high art,"or legitimate art, as Bourdieu would say) available to the bourgeois masses.

This type of art certainly seems to fall into the "popular taste" category of which Bourdieu writes. It recognizes necessity, makes no attempt to sublimate primary needs, and refuses to shy away from the banal and ordinary. (After all, everyone loves lamp. Who doesn't need light?) It participates, actively, in the systematic reduction of the things of art to the things of life, quoth Bourdieu. It favors function over form. Or, at least, unifies the two.

So, do the French experience this trend also? The mass-production of aestheticism, the essential leveling of the artistic playing field? And if, in our country, members of all socioeconomic strata consume the same goods (Even the wealthy enjoy a bargain - why else is WalMart still kickin'?), does art still distinguish our social classes? In our age of availability, is the definition of "legitimate art" - and thus, the Elite - simply narrowing in scope?