With all the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes, and Several Cures of it.

[lalouve]

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

Comments

[lalouve]

Well, reading theory for the new questions is why I read it, too - but that approach stays focused on the text. What I object to is the top-heavy reading: reading lots and lots of theory, and the texts you work on - not any of the other texts in the world. Part of my annoyance is that this makes for bad intertextuality, but overall I just object to readign not being considered a value in itself, especially among PhDs in literature.

And the value of being well read for Lewis and Tolkien excluded a whole of writers/texts as not important/not useful, so I don't in fact yearn for those days at all.

I don't really feel we need to take over their canon because we accept the value of being well read. Issues of canon will always appear, regardless of how we deal with it - but not reading strikes me as worse.

[intertext]

I, on the other hand, couldn't agree more! I often lament the loss of just reading. Also the canon. I mean, yes, the old boy power structure was exclusive and snobbish in all those nasty ways, but some of those Dead White Males were worth reading. I see young grad students in English who have never read "Prufrock." Or Milton. Or they've done Women Romantics but never read Keats.

And I was taught Shelley by someone who'd quite obviously never read Plato, or some of the Greek lyric poets that Shelley refers to.

I don't see why we can't make the reading list more inclusive without throwing out some of the essentials. Or read just for content and ideas.

[lalouve]

I don't really miss the canon - not that we really have given it up - but I do miss the idea that reading is for pleasure. In general, I think that we expect too little of our grad students. We forget that good readig is also something that can change your life; I remember the rather struggling student of mine, with perhaps not the best English I've ever encountered, who fell completely in love with Owen's Apologia Pro Poemate Meo, which is not, perhaps, the easiest text I ever taught. The desire for reading, and the pleasure in it, helped him overcome the resistance produced by his limited language.

[bibliofile]

It's a mixed blessing, the canon. Sure, the Classics (i.e., Greek & Roman) provide context for many things. On the other hand, they can also turn people off of reading as a potentially pleasurable activity.

[lalouve]

I think one has to be careful with what classics one gives them - Plato puts me to sleep, mostly, but Euripides' Medea, not to mention Aristophanes, are good reads. I still don't quite get why I have students who don't like reading - surely doing an English major if you don't like reading must be akin to hard labour?

[oursin]

Heh: I read litcrit, at least, feminist &/or genre litcrit, for pleasure, partly maybe because it's not My Work. Though there are works in my own field that I could read for pleasure; and others that, er, pleasure is not the word that springs to mind.

[lalouve]

I do read feminist litcrit for pleasure, too, provided it's not French feminism...