English Students and the Value of Literature

Particularly skeptical English students should know that they are not alone in their rejection of literature; their conviction that it is valueless has precedent. 

I am personally invested not only in the discipline but in many of the forms and expressions of literature themselves. Postmodern efforts to destabilize texts a on structural level immediately concerns me given my classical background. Yet a willingness to challenge structures and reject received assumptions and values often characterizes the students for whom I will be responsible; revolution is, after all, a young man's game primarily.

Despite my belief in the value of literature and its forms -- as if the former could be defined apart from its instantiations and the conventions that have developed to distinguish them -- neither that which we call literature nor its myriad modes exist as pure platonic ideals. Literature, the novel, the poem in all its expressions both formal and informal, the play, and the short story did not always exist among the forms or as images in the mind of God. We created them. Once, there was no novel; we have, among others, Cervantes and his marvelous proto-novel about the man from la Mancha to thank for it -- and thank him we should in my view, though many an English student might disagree. Once, there was no literature whatsoever. There were no books, and the notion of recording information in textual form was seen by some to threaten our mental faculties and the strength of our memories, a concern that might be familiar to those of us who are old enough to remember a world in which information was not a google search away.

Skepticism regarding form and function -- from text, to book, to literature, to the novel -- is not new; rather it has defined, and may ever define, our discipline. Better men than I have assaulted literature, and better men than I have defended it, but the very fact that it has required constant defense legitimizes the concerns that many students express. Yet I cannot imagine that most young people are remotely aware of this fact. How often have they been told that English literature is inherently valuable, and that that received knowledge is unassailable gospel truth? How many bite their tongues while remaining convinced of nothing other than their instructors' mental inflexibility and dogmatism? At worst, how many grow to despise the act of reading in its entirety because no teacher ever gave them the opportunity to present and explore their objections to literature and the objections raised by even a few of their ideological forefathers?

As teachers, we should recognize the validity of students' positions, even those with which we fundamentally disagree, but with respect to those opinions, blind acceptance can easily be worse than de-legitimization. Raise a vigorous defense, rather than shying from the fight. Have students define literature's value or lack thereof and then introduce a range of material to demonstrate that a pervasive – perhaps even obsessive – concern with the validity of our discipline has in fact defined it since its inception. Justify the value of literature on a practical level by developing a unit around the issue, incorporating texts such as:

“In Defense of Literacy” by Wendell Berry https://docs.google.com/a/uottawa.ca/document/d/1KCtvcdoycXMCYSZGhUcdoyav9NQfl-K7f5w-_bcMsGU/edit?hl=en_GB

Percy Bysshe Shelley “A Defense of Poetry” (Which will allow for extensions into lessons on music and visual arts.)

George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language." (On the study of a vital and clear English discourse in order to protect us against malicious or weaponized language.)

The Defense of Poesy Sir Philip Sidney. A classic defense and early objections to literature's inferiority to history and philosophy. http://www.bartleby.com/27/1.html

If we truly believe that literature is valuable, we must show students that our faith is not without practical grounding. We owe the effort to those students whom we seek to best serve and we owe it to the discipline that -- I would hope -- we all love.