With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it.
The other day, I was re-reading a biography of C. S. Lewis (A. N. Wilson's, to be precise), and enjoying not so much the biography of Lewis as the description of a time, and a lifestyle, that is now gone. here is much I don't regret from that time (world wars, women's lack of basic rights, no antibiotics, etc) but one thing that ruck me very forcibly, on reading about Lewis's reputation as a scholar, was: "Where has the value of being well read gone?"
English today, as an academic subject, seems to be more and more about being well read in theoretical works, having grasped the latest theory, and ideally making one's own contribution to the proliferation of theoretical works. But does anyone read, well, books? As in fictional or non-fictional texts that are not literary criticism? Have the people who comment on Seneca's or Aristotle's views on literature in fact read Seneca or Aristotle, or are they quoting what someone else said in a work of literary criticism? I will admit I haven't read either of them, but then I don't generally quote them, either. I have, however, read Euripides and Sophocles.
I thought we all became literary scholars because we enjoy reading. I spend many hours of my life travelling, why should I not take that opportunity to read? When bored, unhappy, sleepy, taking a bath, or having tea, I reach for a book. There are many options: a Christie crime novel, a new edition of The Anatomy of Melancholy, Edgeworth's Belinda, McKinley's Deerskin. It's rarely, however, the latest book on postcolonialism - that just doesn't make for relaxing with tea and crumpets reading.
Of course I do read literary theory - it's part of my job, after all. But I don't want to lose track of, firstly, what initially attracted me about a career in English lit - the pleasure of reading - and secondly, of what being a scholar is really about: being a reader.