An interesting thing happened.
In going from individual identification of "three main ideas" (the first task on the worksheet) to categories that each group could tape to the wall and group texts around, many of the "main ideas" that you all had identified on your own lost their specificity and interpretive bite.
Here are some of the "main ideas" that you all identified in the first part of the exercise (material in brackets was added by your instructor in the interests of precision and historical accuracy):
the conflict between perpetuating middle class values and the still hierarchical nature of society
emphasis on civilized, moral man
struggle of defining a unique English literature, past and present
wider public audience [along with a changing understanding of what the "public" is]
issue of who the audience for literature is
education of the masses [or, more precisely, emerging middle class]
primitivism/[idealization of] the "noble savage"
new ideas about what literature is
class relationships: shifting views of aristocracy, rise of the middle class
how...interpretations of the past influence national identities
rise in sensibility
most written works attempting to make a clear argument to the reader
discourse is speculative and relaxed
beginnings of real pedagogical literature
In the course of the group exercise, however, "shifting views of aristocracy, rise of the middle class" (for example) became simply "class." Likewise, "primitivism/the "noble savage" and "how...interpretations of the past influence national identities" got conflated as "national identity."
For purposes of our class exercise, there are advantages to such broad categories. The bigger the subheading, the greater the proportion of course texts it can accurately encompass, the easier it is to group texts without laying claim to any particular insight about what they say. But there is a price for that capaciousness. After all, as we discussed briefly at the end of Friday's class, "national identity" and "class" could be categories of the literature of any literary period. The fact that they are relevant to the later C18 doesn't really tell us anything about what is distinctive or interesting about that period. The narrower versions of these "main ideas" do convey insight about the period.
To arrive and knowledge you have to give yourself the space to (a) venture a claim that might turn out to be wrong and (b) engage with the fact that no literary period is a seamless and coherent whole. There are alway going to be dissenting voices, prominent voices that happen to be preoccupied with offbeat concerns, and multiple (even contradictory) conversations going on at once.
So what would it be useful to add to the list of "main ideas" extracted from the first part of the exercise? Are there are any of these main ideas that seem less..."main"? That don't seem as central as others? What productive and informative syntheses of these main ideas can you make? How does Monday's reading (Thomas Day, The History of Sandford and Merton) help you to articulate a more substantive version of one of your group's broad headings? Respond to this post by either (a) adding to the list or (b) identifying a course reading (it doesn't have to be Sandford and Merton) that seems particularly crucial for framing, elucidating, or complicating one of these main ideas.
Deadline: Wednesday (4/1), 10am.
3 comments:
With the topic of the Rights of Women fresh on my mind, I believe I would add a specific section of women's roles into the map. While it could fit under the category of social expectations and roles, the role of the woman is changing (in some ways not progressively) throughout the period. The piece by Frances Burney that we discussed in class included the idea that women have a certain role, and therefore wisdom, towards domesticity. Looking at her work and relating it to other texts throughout the later 18th century explores a new part of the "mountain" and "trail" we discussed in class.
I think that every time period that we as English majors study has an emerging "new sense of what literature is" so as a main topic of the course I do not think it is as important a theme as many of the others on the list provided. With that said, the idea of a new literary spectrum is important but I think it would better serve as an umbrella to the main topics. Ask as a general question- What makes this period of literature different or special, what is its' specific sense of literature?- and talk about all the main topics of the course that fall under why the type of literature is changing and important.
In my opinion the english classes that I have found most relivante are those that seemlessly combined history and liturature together. To understand a moment in time is to understand the issues and ideas that were being thought of in that moment. When this is understood we can see the relvence of any pieace, and truly know were the author is coming from. I feel like the the middle class is somthing that should be focused on because it has changed the whole hiarchy of the time. Also the seeds of imperializum should be focused on for the roll that it will play for the next century and part of the 20th century as well.
Post a Comment