That Stoichiometry Problem Was Just Beautiful

Matthew Arnold says something about how the history of culture alternates between epochs of expansion and contraction. Great periods of creativity are enabled, Arnold argues, by periods of reflection and criticism.

Now, the things that Matthew Arnold and I agree on can probably be counted on one hand. One hand with a couple of amputated fingers. But lately I've found something attractive in this notion, in part because it legitimizes the work of literary criticism and in part because lately I can't get any work done.

So I'm telling myself that I am in an epoch of contraction. Hm.

One of the things I've been reflecting on in this epoch of contraction is what it means to teach literature. I'll save the "why bother" question for tomorrow's post (I feel an epoch of productivity coming on), but today I'll take it as a given that we do, in fact, bother with literature and I'll take up the question of what it is, precisely, that gets taught.

I had some friends over the other night, including a very nice gentleman whom I'd just met. He was browsing through the bookshelves and pulled out a copy of Milton. "Do you like this," he asked me. His tone wasn't belligerent or derisive, but bewildered.

"Yeah," I said, a little embarrassed.

"I had to read that my freshman year in college," he said, "and I hated it."

"Oh." I was at a bit of a loss. "Maybe you didn't have a very good teacher."

I said that just as a filler, just as something to say so that I wouldn't have to defend Milton or my literary taste or to reassure my guest that it's ok to hate Milton (which, of course, it is, but it sounds patronizing to tell someone so).

So I just said it as a reflex, as something to say. But as soon as I said it, I realized both what utter bullshit it is and how pervasive a notion it is, on both sides of the pedagogical relationship. Both teachers and students seem to have it engrained in them that teaching literature in large part means teaching the appreciation of literature.

For students, this notion manifests itself in pretty transparent ways. If they didn't like the books, the class must've sucked. Or, more common where I teach, the students fall all over themselves in their essays to prove how much they enjoyed the texts. These essays are excruciating. I call them the "Shakespeare is an important theme in the plays of William Shakespeare." These essays evince no original thought and resort to such critical ciphers or tautologies as "the human" or, for the very dim or very young students, "the relatable."

It would chill you to the bone to hear how often a student's thesis is something like: "the work of Sophocles is important and good because it is still so relatable. It remains relevant to our lives even 2500 years later." Swap in whoever for "Sophocles" and an appropriate time value for "2500" and you've got about 50% of the essays I read. And then the student proceeds to warp the work in order to make it fit with contemporary values. Antigone was a feminist. Hamlet is an everyman. The Wife of Bath is Hilary Clinton.

You get the idea.

As much as I caution my students against this, I realize that I may be complicit in this ethos of "appreciation." Because, of course, I do appreciate literature and I want my students to, as well. But I think it's important to remember that this is a mushy and ultimately secondary pedagogical aim. Writing about literature involves analysis and patient argumentation, it is, as Nietzsche reminds us, the slow, fine work of the goldsmith applied to language:

it teaches how to read well: i.e. slowly, profoundly, attentively, prudently, with inner thoughts, with the mental doors ajar, with delicate fingers and eyes.

One of the results of this slow attention, this training of the inner thought and the delicate fingers and eyes, is appreciation. But appreciation is something that happens (or maybe doesn't happen) alongside the activity of criticism. One need not enjoy Milton in order to attend to him, to exfoliate the densities and ellipticalities of his verse. I think perhaps we would do ourselves a great service in literature classes if we were more aware of how much we let the idea of "appreciation" creep in. People tend to really appreciate (rather than just cyncially perform their appreciation in an assignment) what challenges them, what expands their understanding.

I somehow don't imagine that chemistry teachers, as much as they want their students to enjoy their subject, have "appreciation" at the top of their pedagogical priorities. Neither, I think, should we.

Any thoughts? Any memories of what made a great literature class? I've been thinking a lot about the role of literature in education during my epoch of reflection, and I would love to hear other thoughts. My own shift so frequently and my students are of surprisingly little help (comments on course evaluations range from: "you are nice and funny" to "I hate that sweater you always wear" to "you didn't let us write about 'themes'--what the fuck was I supposed to write about? I hope you get fired" to "you're so funny it hardly felt like going to class" (now there's a dubious compliment!) to "you say 'interesting' too much. God, can't you think of another adjective?")--I am curious what other people think.