the id, the ego, & the single misfiring brain cell

Sorta. I got this way about literature in class a couple of weeks ago. More specifically, I understand how it feels to understand something and believe in it so passionately that if you don't find a way to express it you'll burst. 

This came about because I was urging my students to talk with me about any questions or concerns they had about their upcoming (major) paper. I asked, and there followed silence. This is normal. No one wants to be the first. So, I just let the silence hang there for a bit. No one said anything. So I said, "You all understand what I'm after when I ask you to address the significance of your interpretation as part of your reading of the piece of your choice?" 

One of my students finally said, "Well, no. I mean...what is the significance of my interpretation?" I asked the class if they had the same question. Almost all of them nodded. 

ME: That's what I thought. Let me ask you this: Do you think how you interpret literature is important? 

Then I waited. Eventually, one said, "Yes." 

ME: Thanks, Vinny. Why?

HIM: I'm not sure, but I figured that was the answer. 

:D

ME: Fair enough. OK. [To the class] Take the bible, for example. Does how you interpret it matter? 

They blinked at me for a bit, then someone offered the notion that he just had his interpretation. He was unclear how it applied to everyone else. 

ME: Fair enough. So...everyone's interpretation matters only to them? 

More blinking. 

ME: I submit to you that the bible is arguably the most important collection of literature in the history of Western civilization, and how it is interpreted has shaped Western civilization. The same is true for the Koran or any other religious text you care to mention. 

Pause. 

ME: But those are religious texts, right? Normal "literature" is different. You think? 

They don't know where this is going, so they say nothing. Smart little buggers. 

ME: Ever heard of Uncle Tom's Cabin? What people put into stories changes history. 

Etc. 

So I spent much of my three-day weekend reading literary criticism on Waiting for the Barbarians, by J. M. Coetzee. I'd never heard of this book until I returned from Turkey and realized it was required reading on our syllabus. Coetzee is South African (currently residing in Australia), but apparently won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003. (You'd think I'd keep up with these things.) 

I read the book this summer when I knew it would be on my syllabus. Now I'm doing more research and rereading it. It is, like all great literature, a book which cannot be read--only reread. It echoes, in many ways, Waiting for Godot, but almost none of the professional literary criticism has even mentioned Beckett, strangely enough.* The novel itself is named after a poem of the same name by Greek poet C.V. Cavafy. 

* Coetzee mentioned Beckett's general influence in an interview I read, but still drew no connection between Becket's play and Coetzee's novel. 

Anyhow...as I read, I saw the novel in new and interesting ways. I saw its importance in the world at large. I even got excited about the ideas I was absorbing. 

It was then that I realized that I truly understand the purpose--nay, the importance--of literary criticism. 

I realize that sounds silly coming from a woman who has spent most of her life reading and attempting to produce literature (and in related pursuits), but I'm fer real, y'all. When I first taught at the Academy, I was required to teach different critical approaches to literature--things I'd never studied, frankly. My undergrad was focused on creative writing; I was never required to study literary theory or criticism. Frankly, I'd never even heard of it* so it never even came up on my radar as an elective. My first master's was in history, so of course while much literature entered into it, no lit crit/theory was involved. I taught the theory/crit in a cursory way the first three years around, and only after putting myself through an intense bit of self-instruction.**

* No kidding. I have mad skilz at being oblivious to things I do not think concern me. 

** Hey. I may not care, but I care very much that I do my job right, and I care deeply what my cadets learn.

So I went into a master's program studying and practicing literary theory/criticism, still trying to understand why it is important. I emerged from the other end still not fully understanding its ultimate purpose, and thus having little or no respect for it. 

Wait. That's an overstatement. I emerged from my MA in English Literature much wiser to literature and its crucial role in history, but loathing--yeah, I said it--literary theory and criticism in general. I love literature. J'adore. But all it takes to turn one against lit crit* is (1) an ongoing failure to understand why it is important at all, and (2) one or more profs who try to shove their particular criticism lens--Freudian, in the case of the prof who produced my bile--down the throats of their students. And why literary criticism is important is rarely if ever addressed; it is assumed that if you are in a master's program for literature, you either understand its importance or that you simply take it for granted.

* One of my colleagues at Boulder said her undergrad work had a course called "Criticism of Literature," abbreviated in university-speak as "CLIT 101." She didn't say what the enrollment numbers were, but I suspect they were fairly high. 

Such an assumption is akin, in my view, to assuming that your audience accepts the bible as inspired and working from there. Such an approach has varying effects, depending on the audience. Many people begin with that assumption without ever questioning it, so they don't even realize that they're starting at Step 4 instead of Step 1. Many others are given that assumption and are afraid to question it. Then there are those--like me--who can't help questioning it and find, to their dismay, that no one is capable of arguing effectively for it. 

It has to do with my personality, I guess. I am incapable of simply pushing the "I Believe" button on anything. I need to know why. For everything. And the answer must make sense to me. For this reason, I do not doubt that many of my colleagues at Boulder thought I was a bit of a dolt. I mean...I could do it--literary theory and criticism. I just didn't see a point. It always struck me as, well, intellectual masturbation. 

But it isn't, see. It isn't. How we interpret literature changes the world. 

It's more than that, even. (It is impossible to say just what I mean!)

How we interpret literature is how we interpret people. When we learn that literature is a jewel of many facets, we learn that of people themselves. When we see unreliable narrators in literature, our basic assumptions that people tell us the truth instead of their truths are rattled. With enough exposure to and study of literature, we learn--sometimes against our wills--that there are infinite sides to every story. We learn about people who are not us, and in so doing, we see ourselves anew. The person who reads sees the world not through a microscope or through a telescope, but through a kaleidoscope.* The person who reads constantly reinvents herself. She is excited about life and possibilities and grows as she reads. 

* I can't believe I spelled that correctly first try. I often tell my students I wish my whiteboards had spell check. 

And when I say "literature" I mean texts that must be seduced. They do not immediately yield their secrets. They must first be seen. You see them across the room; they seem attractive enough and don't strike you as shallow or easy. They are somehow intriguing. You approach them and ask them questions and realize that you don't understand them at all. At this point, you can walk away and seek easier prey, or you can accept the challenge.

Those who walk away want things to come easy, and I can't say that I blame them. But such is not life. Life is messy and confusing and it makes us study it and puzzle it out and never really be happy with our answers. But we keep asking the questions because only when we ask questions do we have a chance to become better people. 

But then there are those who accept the challenge the text presents. We may initially see a puzzle to be worked out, but if the text is worth our time--what I'd label "literature"--we eventually learn that there is no ultimate answer. There are many answers, and with each answer comes five more questions. 

Just like life. 

This may be why my largely STEM-centered students are so uncomfortable with literature. The sciences generally provide black-and-white answers. You have the answer right or you have it wrong. But the humanities? Never. (And those who teach them as though they do are not only heart-breakingly wrong, but they are cheating their students out of the wonder and excitement and uncertainty that is life.) It's uncomfortable to confront this truth. It's easier to believe that all you've been taught--directly or indirectly--is Truth, but that doesn't make it so. Studying literature cracks that door just a touch.

As such, literature is the portal to self-knowledge, and self-knowledge is frightening. What do you really know? And how much of what you "know" is nothing more than the product of your environment, which gives you a dangerously one-sided view of the world? And what does it mean to even "know" something? The more you read, the more you must face these questions in one form or another. And--the more uncomfortable it makes you? that's fine, because it's only when you are lured outside of your comfort zone do you learn and grow. 

Read enough literature--and by "read," I mean "reread"--and you will realize just how little you know and how little you are. That realization is the seed of wisdom. 

These days, I find myself reading literary criticism more and more. I used to seek it out only when a text was new to me. Now, I seek it out regardless. I've read and taught Toni Morrison's Beloved at least five times. Each time, it becomes more poignant, more riddled with meaning. Literary criticism opens the text to me. I may or may not agree with a person's interpretation, but I recognize that it is an interpretation, a different lens, and our lenses determine how we all relate to one another. Lit crit opens my mind to different interpretations. Sometimes I'm persuaded, sometimes not. But the important thing is that I'm at least exposed to different viewpoints. Criticism is like literature on steroids, in that sense: literature gives you different viewpoints, and criticism gives you different viewpoints of that viewpoint. 

And thus, you begin to understand why people don't understand one another at all. 

Think on these things. 

d