how do you justify studying literature?

[poppyensemble]

Studying lit (and the humanities in general, unfortunately) is often seen as something hopelessly academic/a vain pursuit/point-blank 'useless'.

I'm very curious: how do you justify studying it to people outside the field/academia? And I mean in a non-combative, non-defensive manner, even though many non-lit people may ask this from a very skeptical viewpoint... It can definitely be annoying sometimes, but the skepticism is, to be fair, quite understandable.

In short, I'm genuinely interested in why we're doing this, besides a strong personal love for texts. I would love to hear how you folks have been grappling with this, since we're all obviously set on some form of continued academic involvement with literature. Anything from fully-formed lit-activist mini-treatises to fumbling one-line nebulous musings. This issue really interests me, and you're the best crowd to ask!

[neuroJ]

I think of it this way:

It's pretty easy to conceive of why we value medical or biological research- in order to learn about how our bodies work and what we might do to fix them. But if you really decide to conceive of people as some type of entity arising from building blocks whose functions are based on physical laws, I think you are left with the very nasty question of not how humans work but why we should even care that they do. As wonderful and fascinating as the question 'how the hell does consciousness arises from elaborate relationships between molecules and synapses?' may be, a quest for an answer becomes a futile endeavor if there is no reason to answer it. I think of literature and the humanities/art in general as addressing that point. Studying what humans do with our minds, or why we do and think and feel what we do, or what it even means to be able to produce or communicate anything at all is essential to all human endeavors. If we are entirely unable to begin to speak to the nature of what our existence even is, then we're just a bunch of self-replicating amino acid chains and it's difficult to justify anything we do, from studying medicine to even growing the food to keep ourselves alive.

that's my half-baked attempt.

[johnnyleston]

if i am talking to someone who actually is listening, i give them the stock existentialist/humanist perspective. we are the meaning-creating animals, the realm of the symbolic is our unique territory, it is what makes us who we are, so we as a species have a serious and, well, existential responsibility to come to terms with that realm.

of course, it is more complicated than that. my justification for me studying literature is separate from my justification for the study of literature qua literature. i study literature for a very complicated combination of contrariness, arrogance and sublimated oedipal issues. i study literature as a writer to steal from the best. i study literature because i don't want to be complicit with a society which i find to be corrupt to the core.

if someone is really interested in my motivations, i'd have them watch a prison production of waiting for godot, and ask them to think about why prisoners get such an out-there play so profoundly. i think if you can answer that question, you can understand why to study literature.

[Branwen daughter of Llyr]

It's the same justification for studying anything else for years & years.

Mine is perfectly practical. I want to teach English at the University level, and I want to contribute and participate in the ongoing discussion about literature with my research. To do both of these things, I need a PhD, which means years & years of study (like jonnyleston, I'm also a writer, so that's a separate excuse altogether). The study of literature helps develop analytical skills, writing skills, and thinking beyond the obvious. Looking for hidden connections and patterns is a valuable skill.

Is there a justification for studying literature in general (i.e. not my personal reasons)? Of course there is. Just about anything we study in the Humanities (literature, Art History, etc.) revolves around some type of human creation. There is a LOT we can learn about humans from human creation. Motivation, ideology, patterns of myth, cultural "truths." After all, there is more to life in the human condition than survival and reproduction. The study of human creations is just as important as the study of the mechanisms of the universe (astrophysics), the mechanisms of living organisms (biology), the mechanisms of human emotions or thought (psychology), or the mechanisms of human trade (economics).

[Enzian]

Yeah, I agree with both Branwen and johnny but neuroJ's answer is my answer, nearly verbatim.

One has to ask why we should want to save through medicine or defend through the justice system or empower through democracy these creatures, particularly in light of all of the horrible acts these creatures commit. From sentient beings who've mastered the use of tools and have risen to the highest point on the food chain, self-preservation is a pretty hollow answer.

But clearly, humans are special because they can describe the world around them, they can critique it and pull it apart and alter it in ways that elude every other species. Etc.

Making the argument as big as that can be problematic for some people. So if they aren't connecting the dots at that point, I begin a counter-inquisition that quickly degrades into the kind of petty combativeness the OP was asking to avoid.

"And why haven't you found the cure for AIDS, Mr. Anesthesiologist?"

[Medievalmaniac]

Well, not to sound too biased, but I think those who study medieval literature know, in a way that many cannot, that what we do is fundamental to the understanding of why western society is what it is, and I believe that by studying the literature, analyzing it, comparing it to other literatures, and exposing the contents of it, medievalists can help modern society come to a deeper and more basic understanding of itself - thus laying the groundwork for change and evolution of our culture, if anyone will listen or really cares to evolve as a society.

I will lay out three examples to demonstrate why I think it is more than relevant, but in fact absolutely necessary, to seek to understand what was going on in the Middle Ages - which, of course, is recorded in the texts that are left to us, if you dig deeply enough.

First: the medieval era was the era in which everything we think and feel about gender differences in our society first coalesced. You want to know why the nineteenth century focused so heavily on the Madonna-Virgin-Whore paradigm, and why Britney Spears at 16 was the Princess of Pop and at 21 was washed up and condemned as a slutty has-been, while Jude Law can spread his seed with impunity and maintain his "sexiest man alive" status? Medievalists know. In the 4th century, St. Jerome codified Catholic thought through the creation and dissemination of the Vulgate Latin Bible - which became the cornerstone text of Catholic thought for the next thousand years, until the Protestant Reformation and the King James version of the Bible. Based on Jerome's textual choices (and he definitely picked and chose; for a VERY interesting experience pick up The Other Bible and take a look at how differently everything would have evolved in terms of the equality of the sexes if he had chosen from the other texts available at the time, much less Mary Magdalene's gospel - the only one by a woman, which was conveniently dropped from the canon). According to Christian doctrine, the teachings of Church Fathers, and the paradigms set up by such, Eve was inferior to Adam, and through that inferiority and her subsequent womanly wiles, she became responsible for everything bad that happened to humanity, including, by passing on her temptable defect, the first murder via her eldest son, Cain. It's all her fault. The Church spent the next thousand years condemning women as the weaker and lesser sex - except, of course, for Mary - the paradigm of greatness, virtue, and perfection in woman, who as the Virgin-Mother of God's son redeemed Eve's behavior through her perfect sacrifice, but did so in a way no other woman could ever hope to live up to - thus setting the stage for every subsequent woman on earth to fail at atoning for Eve's sin. This was the accepted truth, and it became so ingrained in the Western cultural tradition that it became self-propagating. We STILL to this day live by this code of thought, even if we wilfully choose not to believe it. But I swear to you, that if there is a group of five people working together on a project, and four of the people are men and the fifth is a woman, if the project goes bust the four men WILL blame it on the woman either in their heads or vocally, and the woman WILL assume she is being fingered because she's a woman, and this is no matter what the circumstances behind the failure actually are. That is because in the Middle Ages - in nearly every (western)text you can read from the medieval period, this is in some way played out - and that's because the Church held such sway over the society that it filtered through to the core of that society's identity.

Which brings us to the question of identity. National, that is. We want so badly to pretend there's no such thing as national thought, and that in our modern, global, multicultural society such things as national boundaries shouldn't exist and / or matter, but they do. And that started in the medieval era. As powers coalesced and modern European nations began to form into what they are today, the writers of those nations crafted identities for them via epics. This is not new - Homer did it, Virgil did it. The writer of the Song of Roland and the Charlemagne cycle did it for France, crafting that nation as a great one ruled by the most perfect, Christian King in accordance with God's will to divine rule and justice for all believers (which politically eventually worked its way from absolute monarchy to socialism). The writers of the Arthurian tradition in Britain did it, rendering Arthur also the most perfect, Christian king - only, in Arthur's case, the focus was not so much on the justice through God and worship as it was on the unification of the various individual communities in England - because in an island nation, that was more important than the Crusading going on in the mainland(which politically eventually worked its way from absolute monarchy to a monarchic figurehead and a more democratic, Parliamentary government - and moved to the USA as an experiment in democracy from the beginning). And on, and on. Every country has a foundational story. The writers of that country did that, and the stories evolved over time to accommodate the changes and shifts socio-historically within the country. And therefore, national identity is a fictitious creation that was crafted to aid in the foundation and propaganda of the developing nations - in the Middle Ages. We still adhere to so many of those codified ideals today, and if you look at places where the French and British settled, these ideas came along for the ride. If we as literary critics can study these foundations, through the texts, expose the fictions, and explain how they work, then we can actually begin the foundation of a new modern understanding of societies - and THAT might actually begin the talks we think we are having, but really aren't. There's too much fiction in the way for modern countries to be able to reach common ground. The study and understanding of those fictions can pave the way for a common, human baseline from which to begin real negotiations for a global community.

Finally, we think we are so much more sophisticated and humane in the modern world than "they were in the Middle Ages". But that is also a fiction. In studying and comparing medieval texts and modern culture, we can see so clearly that nothing has really changed. We can pretend we are more humane all we want to, but the fact is that torture is still used in the modern world, by societies that claim there is no torture being used, and a lot of the methods we still use today were used in the Middle Ages. We still have mass killings and wars over religious and economic issues. We still have the upper classes and the lower classes, the haves and the have nots. We still have those who are untouchable in terms of being punished for wrongdoings because of their position in society. We still have violence, rape, murder, incest, infidelity and affairs - all of which was occurring in the medieval societies, and recorded in the texts. In the end, the human condition is the human condition, and while we can go ahead and pretend we are more sophisticated, more worldly, kinder and gentler, a true comparative reading of popular culture in the Middle Ages and popular culture now tells us otherwise. We have the capability to be more than we are - but only if we are honest about things. It's the literature that can show us where to go and what to do, if we are brave enough to point it out and demand that others look more truthfully and closely at it.

Everything that has happened in western society since the medieval era, has been a response to the medieval era. It has either held up what was believed, refuted what was believed, added to what was believed, developed what was believed, or responded to what was believed -as that belief was recorded, in the texts left to us.

There's a place for science, Math and technology in the modern world, and that place is very obvious. Likewise with service-oriented professions like medicine, social work, and education, and for politics and government. But the linchpin of it all - in my opinion - is the literature. It is the human record, and without it we would not know what has gone before, what has been done, what has been dreamed. We would have nothing against which to compare our existence or our achievements, and nothing to show us where we have gone wrong and what we can do better. My argument stands, as it has always stood, that history repeats itself, that history is recorded in the texts left to us, and that literary studies is the backbone of every other subject matter and every human endeavor.

But - I don't have any real thoughts on the matter...

Edited March 20, 2010 by Medievalmaniac

[hopefulJ2010]

i really really want to be a professor! i think that in the public school system teachers have to compromise their love of literature to fit a curriculum-- i simply don't want to fall prey to that. my professors seem to not only know everything about their field, but they have a ubiquitous knowledge about EVERYTHING. i'm eager to learn arcane historical and social details and facts in addition to working intensely with literature

[lifealive]

It's fun. That's the answer I give everyone.

In truth, I don't think we need to justify what we do anymore than the person who handles insurance claims or works in investment banking or defends corporate workers' comp lawsuits. Most people in the world do not have meaningful, productive jobs, i.e. jobs that cure diseases and create policy and help people. Ours, as others have pointed out, is more meaningful than most.

[Branwen daughter of Llyr]

It's fun. That's the answer I give everyone.

In truth, I don't think we need to justify what we do anymore than the person who handles insurance claims or works in investment banking or defends corporate workers' comp lawsuits. Most people in the world do not have meaningful, productive jobs, i.e. jobs that cure diseases and create policy and help people. Ours, as others have pointed out, is more meaningful than most.

That is so true. Why on earth would I have to justify myself to someone who is an admin assistant? or to a cab driver? or to a shopgirl?

Most people aren't out there to discover the cure for AIDS or cancer. And at least, we, as future professors, will have to opportunity to shape and educate young minds. And we love what we do. I think that's justification enough.

[intextrovert]

Britney Spears at 16 was the Princess of Pop and at 21 was washed up and condemned as a slutty has-been

Poor Brit-Brit! Personally, I still love her.

Anyway, I really agree with neuroJ's response. Literature has a lot to say about the "why," and as others have pointed out, reading literature tells us a lot about who we are, both as individuals and as societies, why we think the way we do, and why living matters. That storytelling and language in general is one of our most basic instincts is meaningful. It's the way we understand ourselves. I think that a life spent with an eye towards the purpose of understanding is well worth it. And no, the practical applications aren't immediately obvious, but they are there, and I think they are powerful.

[poppyensemble]

Wow, thanks for all the thoughtful replies!

Of course, I've always been deeply convinced too of the importance of studying and teaching literature. Its general reputation of 'not-very-usefulness' outside academia (or even among 'hard sciences' academics, etc) surprises me. For a discipline that involves sophisticated critical reading and writing skills, which are so basic to everyday communication and to processing information, I think its pragmatic brand of usefulness alone —regardless of its other merits— is quite weirdly misunderstood.

Anyway, I was just really curious to see the range of different reasons that we all have for studying it. These replies have been really thought-provoking and will help me formulate my own constantly shapeshifting thoughts on the subject better..

It's fun. That's the answer I give everyone.

In truth, I don't think we need to justify what we do anymore than the person who handles insurance claims or works in investment banking or defends corporate workers' comp lawsuits. Most people in the world do not have meaningful, productive jobs, i.e. jobs that cure diseases and create policy and help people. Ours, as others have pointed out, is more meaningful than most.

That is so true. Why on earth would I have to justify myself to someone who is an admin assistant? or to a cab driver? or to a shopgirl?

Most people aren't out there to discover the cure for AIDS or cancer. And at least, we, as future professors, will have to opportunity to shape and educate young minds. And we love what we do. I think that's justification enough.

I very much agree that we shouldn't need to justify studying literature more than people who undertake many other career paths do. Thus I was careful to emphasize the non-combative/non-defensive nature of the topic. Intentions decidedly conversational more than anything.

I also agree that being passionate about a particular career is good justification for doing it, not least being that you'd probably contribute more in that field than in one you were less passionate about. : )

Personally however, I do think there is some need for self-reflection on the motivations of choosing to 'do' lit. Considering the amount of time and energy we invest in its pursuit, and the resources allocated towards us, I think we might owe it to both ourselves and others to constantly be mindful of the 'why' — especially since lit is so wonderful for opening up our minds to the 'why' in the first place, as lots of us touched upon earlier.

Also, since most of us plan to teach literature, I think there will be times when we will be expected to 'justify' the learning of literature, whether we like to or not, not least to students — oftentimes really bright, inquisitive people who are just skeptical about the 'meaning' of the discipline, or have never quite clicked with it before. These cases might call for responses more conversationally productive and open-ended than "it's just really fun for me." Also, I'd like to think that we could have wonderful conversations about studying literature, and what we do, with other professions that are equally meaningful but in very different ways from ours — administrative assistants, cabdrivers, shopgirls etc.

[poppyensemble]

Poor Brit-Brit! Personally, I still love her.

Oh, me too.

[Two Espressos]

This is a very interesting thread. I've struggled with justifying the study of literature before, so this was definitely a welcome find!

I have a similar query:

How does one defend capital-T Theory, which dominates the discipline? Literary theory has gone beyond mere close reading and has now encompassed other "texts" beyond the literary (a good thing, in my opinion, as "literariness" is very diaphanous). The general populace, as well as academics in a variety of fields, castigate Theory for being inherently political, poorly-argued, and fiendishly faddish.

What do you think?

Edited September 2, 2011 by Two Espressos

[Origin=Goal]

Well I generally have two variations of the same response, which correspond to the two ways this question is usually asked to my. For more out of the loop folks, who cannot relate to a purely "academic" response, I merely cite my love for literature of many cultures and traditions, languages, and teaching-- as well as the innovative way I can approach all three as a comparatist.

If this stock response is either unsatisfactory, or if I'm getting one of the condescending interrogations from someone with an actually "important" field, I would begin: literature, but also other forms of the aesthetic (film, visual art, etc, both encompass and present solutions to real social problems and realities. Although there is, in my opinion, an inherent value in say, the images and rhetorical strategies used by a particular poem, formal properties of a work of art can, though in manifold, often asymmetrical ways, lead to profoundly political significance of the work of art, even simply in terms of representation, insofar as it is not just an image or person represented, but, whether the work likes it or knows it, the structures and movements of society as such; "literature provides the "ought" that will move us beyond the positivist given-- read a Critique of Judgmentor Aesthetic Theory!", I've been known to inveigh

[ahembree]

How does one defend capital-T Theory, which dominates the discipline? Literary theory has gone beyond mere close reading and has now encompassed other "texts" beyond the literary (a good thing, in my opinion, as "literariness" is very diaphanous). The general populace, as well as academics in a variety of fields, castigate Theory for being inherently political, poorly-argued, and fiendishly faddish.

What do you think?

Sometime around my Sophomore or Junior year, I decided that Critical Theory was a realm reserved for brilliant people who didn't know how to write. I can chalk this up primarily to a lack of exposure, but also to the fact that I had (and still have) the opinion that a reader stands more to gain from great fiction, poetry or media than from a densely articulated theory.

That being said, the primary reason I want a Ph.D. is to teach. One need not read the Norton Anthology of Criticism to write the next great American novel, but teaching occupies a different set of goals. My favorite professors presented each lecture/seminar as an argument to attack or defend. They were able to do that because they had spent years/decades teaching themselves new ways to think, read and write about literature, language, film, etc. Theory provides a lens, changeable, it is true, but nevertheless a new way of understanding. I wouldn't want to appear before any audience, of students or peers, without that capability. Thus, Critical Theory will be a major focus for me.

Edited September 2, 2011 by ahembree

[Timshel]

Getting back to the OP question, I hear this a lot of from my students in my Intro to Lit class: "Why do we have to take a literature class? How is this relevant to my life?"

I usually answer this in two ways. First, I tell them practically, that by studying and discussing literature, you learn analytical and critical thinking skills that can transfer over into any other job or situation in your life. Being able to analyze and think critically is invaluable.

Then, I also tell them that many people believe that reading literature teaches you what it means to be human. They always seem very puzzled by this at first. But then, throughout the semester, as we read stories or poems, after we discuss one, I ask them, how does this story/poem help to teach us what it means to be human?

By the end of the semester, I can honestly say, most, if not all, of my students have a better appreciation and understanding of the relevancy of the class.

Teaching literature is more rewarding to me than anything else in the world, and I couldn't imagine doing anything else.

[Two Espressos]

Great responses, everyone! I'll offer my own thoughts, which echo sentiments heretofore expressed.

In defense of the study of literature:

Literary works are historical, cultural, and societal artifacts. By reading, dissecting, and analyzing them as such, we gain insight into their frameworks. As these works come from the human imagination, we also gain insight into the human mind, which helps us to understand the human condition, exceedingly complex though it is. In short, by studying literature one learns more about the world in which one lives. By dedicating one's life to literary scholarship, one is able to share this erudition to anyone who dares listen. No further defense is needed.

In defense of Critical Theory:

As literary scholarship advanced through the 20th century, many scholars realized that literary study, though relatively short-lived as a formal discipline, stood on unstable ground: the notions of canonicity, of literary value, and indeed literature itself were tendentious. Scholars began to peel formalism away, exposing and critiquing conventions, supposed beliefs, common sense. Formalism's hegemony collapsed; literary theorists began to reexamine literature without being overshadowed by formalist thought. This process of reexamination, of taking nothing as absolute, became Critical Theory.

Critical Theory is no more political than that which it critiques.

Critical Theory, and the humanities altogether, are unique in that they are without absolutes, unlike the sciences. This is not inherently a negative thing and can actually be empowering. With literary study, there is not one definitively correct answer, though there are many wrong ones. It is important to recognize that literary theory is not a field where every idea has equal merit: positions that cannot be rigorously defended are easily refuted.

Lacking in absolutes, humanities scholars, including Critical Theorists, dance on a razor's edge of limited footing but endless possibility.

^So that's my wordy, rambling opinion, which I firmly support.

[Alephantiasis]

How does one defend capital-T Theory, which dominates the discipline? Literary theory has gone beyond mere close reading and has now encompassed other "texts" beyond the literary (a good thing, in my opinion, as "literariness" is very diaphanous). The general populace, as well as academics in a variety of fields, castigate Theory for being inherently political, poorly-argued, and fiendishly faddish.

What do you think?

I think critical theory is a very convoluted justification of ones incompetence in the lost art of close-reading: lots of big words to avoid talking about the actual words on the page. Please don't answer that I must belong to the general populace. Because of this kind of argumentation literary scholars often looks like pretentious idiots despising everyone who doesn't get it. The humanities and literature in particular can be very rigorous and there can be only one good answer: stylometry and authorial studies are a good example. Not everyone is doing post-colonial-neo-kantian-pre-marxist-freudian-feminism theory. Some of us still care about the text itself: we have our data, our methodology and our set of tools like any other scientists. Focusing on methodology isn't that bad, it's just useless if nobody ever apply it.

[Two Espressos]

I think critical theory is a very convoluted justification of ones incompetence in the lost art of close-reading: lots of big words to avoid talking about the actual words on the page. Please don't answer that I must belong to the general populace. Because of this kind of argumentation literary scholars often looks like pretentious idiots despising everyone who doesn't get it. The humanities and literature in particular can be very rigorous and there can be only one good answer: stylometry and authorial studies are a good example. Not everyone is doing post-colonial-neo-kantian-pre-marxist-freudian-feminism theory. Some of us still care about the text itself: we have our data, our methodology and our set of tools like any other scientists. Focusing on methodology isn't that bad, it's just useless if nobody ever apply it.

Close-reading is fine; I have no problem with those that employ more "traditional" methodologies. I think humanities scholars need to be more ecumenical, not hasty to scoff at other forms of literary scholarship. It is important to note, however, that formalism/traditionalism is theory. http://forum.thegradcafe.com/uploads/emoticons/default_smile.png' alt=':)'> I wouldn't write off critical theory as being a "convoluted justification of one's incompetence in the lost art of close-reading." Derrida, for instance, was an extremely close reader. On this thread, , is a germane discussion. I encourage you not to disregard critical theory so readily.

[lolopixie]

Getting back to the OP question, I hear this a lot of from my students in my Intro to Lit class: "Why do we have to take a literature class? How is this relevant to my life?"

I love this question. I'm reminded of my freshman intro to lit courses and the people that asked this very same question (probably in the same room) every time I see an email go out to our department that is riddled with such vulgar solecisms that I literally cringe at my desk. Studying literature also enhances your ability to read and write efficiently, which is a necessary skill in almost any job market people!!! You should see some of the training material - I just want to get the red pen out and get to business. I could rant on this topic forever.

I, personally, have stopped explaining to people why I study literature. If you don't get it, then you're not worth explaining it to. There was a guy at work, who only has a hs diploma mind you, that congratulated me on getting a Master's and asked me what it was in. His response: "Oh, well at least it wasn't in fiction, was it? hahahahaha". My response: "Actually, a lot of the works we studied were fiction" - straight face. I'm not insulted that I study literature, but I definitely made him feel like an a**hole for trying to make fun of something he doesn't understand. The look on his face was priceless. Win!

[Origin=Goal]

I think critical theory is a very convoluted justification of ones incompetence in the lost art of close-reading: lots of big words to avoid talking about the actual words on the page... The humanities and literature in particular can be very rigorous and there can be only one good answer: stylometry and authorial studies are a good example. Not everyone is doing post-colonial-neo-kantian-pre-marxist-freudian-feminism theory. Some of us still care about the text itself: we have our data, our methodology and our set of tools like any other scientists. Focusing on methodology isn't that bad, it's just useless if nobody ever apply it.

I don't disagree you with you in one sense, as it seems to me like a LOT of the theory has strayed from rigorous, grounded necessity into the "bad infinity" of pure abstraction. For me, this occurs with the rise of post-structuralism, which in transmitting social material and as well as aesthetics into purely discursive or textual realms (a la Foucault and late Barthes/Derrida) results, for me, in a hyper-abstract form of idealism, whereby and political negativity and rigorous historical grounding give way to subversion (the sine qua non of apolitical politics) and "blurring lines." Theory as a monolithic category, is useless and even obfuscating when bandied around without concerns to the specific problematic for its application (which "grounds" it or renders it necessary) and a more precise notion of which "Theory" is the methodology in question; examining a text "theoretically" is itself a meaningless tautology.

However,Alephantiasis, your glib, cantankerous jabs at the empty of babbling... who exactly? Is it after Kant that academic undergoes its fall from paradise you so ably show? If so, are positing Kant as the solution to your exhortation against the "incompotence" of the non-close (far?) readers (this is laugable for anyone slightly familiar with how difficult and abstract his concepts/system is)? Your proselytizing of the "lost art" of close readings is mis-informed, like two espressos pointed out; there are just as many was to become hyper-abstract from a close reading as there are from any others (it seems like your contradicting yourself as sticking closer to the text, which should ground all aspects of its analysis, would imply a holistic, including thematic reading, rather than simply a close reading, which can lead to various types of formalism; haven't you read Eagleton's Literary Theory?) Finally, the high road you take as a "scientist" with your own "methodologies and set of tools", while I'm sure is only meant as a metaphor to show your rigorous engagement with the text and the historical context it exists in, has a scary resonance in an era when scientific positivism has brought cognitive approaches to literature (which makes me a bit uneasy, quite honesty). I understand criticism of the loose-baggy (not to say potentially ideological) monster that "Theory" has become, as you alluded to; but I think its criticism and qualification (bringing it out of the purely abstract stratosphere) is more important than its rejection en masse, which, if this position is not merely an exaggerated form of the criticism I just referenced, will at best lead back the formalism of New American Criticism.

[Alephantiasis]

Actually, I'm not the only one who says that close-reading is almost a lost art: it's a fairly common phrase in certain academic circles. Please, everyone knows that deconstruction isn't very fashionable anymore. Of course, some theorists still do close-readings and some will carry on, hopefully. If Derrida is the most recent example of theoretical close-reader you can name, it means that it's a pretty neglected approach. Hopefully, the new trend in cognitive cultural studies will revive formalism and structuralism. How scary of me!

Two Expressos: Since when traditionalism is considered as literary theory?

Origin=Goal: Have you read La Bruyère's Caractères? You should at least read Acis.

[Origin=Goal]

You might be right in terms of larger trends, empirically speaking I haven't found that to be the case--I've taken more than a handful of courses where it serves as a primary mode of analysis (frustrating as it might be sometimes, having read the rest of a difficult text, e.g. Dialectic of Enlightenment, and only discuss a few paragraphs).

Deconstruction as such has fallen out of favor since the early 1990's (the "de Man affair"), but I was referring to the amalgam of Derrida-influenced (granted, among other) forms of criticism that serve as the primary methods of contemporary currents of postcolonial and third-wave feminism theory (Homni Bhabha, Spivak, Butler, as well much of the modern school of Latin American cultural studies; they may not close readers in the vein of an I.A. Richards, but in derivative, post structural schools close reading lives on). I actually come said theoretical approaches more often than alternatives, maybe its a matter of being in different fields. Regarding the cognitive approaches to literature, yes, many seem undesirable in my view; I actually agree with you in the sense that "Theory" often spirals beyond the plane of its object of analysis, and thus its own usefulness. We just diverge in the ways this should be remedied.

No, sadly I'm unfamiliar with many works from the French tradition (especially pre-Rousseau), I've been a little parochial in sticking primarily to the mid-19th century on; thank you, I'll add it to my short list.

Edited September 7, 2011 by Origin=Goal

[balderdash]

I'm not a Lit student, so I hope you don't mind if I chime in.

I think that beyond the reasons discussed above, the humanities are the closest atheists like myself get to "something greater." Here's a passage from Hitchens's God is not Great, on wonderment in secularism:

Evolution has meant that our prefontal lobes are too small, our adrenal glands are too big, and our reproductive organs apparently designed by committee; a recipe which, alone or in combination, is very certain to lead to some unhappiness and disorder. But still, what a difference when one lays aside the strenuous believers and takes up the no less arduous work of a Darwin, say, or a Hawking or a Crick. These men are more enlightening when they are wrong, or when they display their inevitable biases, than any falsely modest person of faith who is vainly trying to square the circle and to explain how he, a mere creature of the Creator, can possibly know what that Creator intends. Not all can be agreed on matters of aesthetics, but we secular humanists and atheists and agnostics do not wish to deprive humanity of its wonders or consolations. Not in the least. If you will devote a little time to studying the staggering photographs taken by the Hubble telescope, you will be scrutinizing things that are far more awesome and mysterious and beautiful—and more chaotic and overwhelming and forbidding—than any creation or “end of days” story. If you read Hawking on the “event horizon,” that theoretical lip of the “black hole” over which one could in theory plunge and see the past and the future (except that one would, regrettably and by definition, not have enough “time”), I shall be surprised if you can still go on gaping at Moses and his unimpressive “burning bush.” If you examine the beauty and symmetry of the double helix, and then go on to have your own genome sequence fully analyzed, you will be at once impressed that such a near=perfect phenomenon is at the core of your being, and reassured (I hope) that you have so much in common with other tribes of the human species—“race” having gone, along with “creation” into the ashcan—and further fascinated to learn how much you are a part of the animal kingdom as well. Now at last you can be properly humble in the face of your maker, which turns out not to be a “who,” but a process of mutation with rather more random elements than our vanity might wish. (Hitchens, C. 2007. God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. New York: Twelve, 8-9.)

Granted, he's talking about science. But the same ideas apply to literature. The greats, according to the individual's own definition, have more moral authority in them than any holy book I've come across, and their ability to connect on a philosophical, spiritual, or human level is far in excess of any sermon I've heard. Since I am incapable of properly expressing this idea, I'll close my interruption of your thread with another Hitchens:

Literature, not scripture, sustains the mind and—since there is no other metaphor—also the soul. (ibid, 5.)

Indeed.

Edited September 7, 2011 by balderdash

[Alephantiasis]

Granted, he's talking about science. But the same ideas apply to literature. The greats, according to the individual's own definition, have more moral authority in them than any holy book I've come across, and their ability to connect on a philosophical, spiritual, or human level is far in excess of any sermon I've heard.

Many of "the greats" were "people of faith" and so were (and still are) many scientists. John of the Cross' Dark Night of the Soul is one of the most amazing pieces of Spanish poetry. You certainly don't have to be a sixteenth-century Christian to appreciate his poetry and the relevance of his argument. I wonder if Hitchens ever read any of the so-called "creation or 'end of days' stories"... Neo-classical mysticism can be very mysterious, beautiful, enlightening, overwhelming and chaotic.