Everyone did a great job with the exercise we did in class on Friday, using a mound of literature textbooks to come up with a map (of sorts--or at least, the beginnings of one) of later eighteenth-century literature. I've collated the results, the results are posted in the links under "The First Map" on the sidebar to the left.
First is "The Roll Call": a list of all the authors you guys found in the period specific textbooks. It is not an exhaustive list, but it is an authoritative one: these are the authors that Norton, Longman, Harcourt, Prentice-Hall and the like believe matter.
Second is "The Short List": this shorter list is the authors that were common to two or more textbooks, or that you selected where you found little agreement among your textbooks. I have indicated the frequency with which authors were mentioned.
Third is the really short list, which I have dubbed "The Survivors." These are the authors of the later C18 who made an appearance in the general literature textbooks you looked at. These are the authors that textbook publishers have deemed important for the general liberal-arts background of students who aren't necessarily planning to study literature in any depth.
The question for you to consider: What significance do these lists bear for the work we'll do in this course this semester? To what extent should these lists guide us in selecting texts to read together and as part of your Independent Units? Are "The Survivors" authors who we definitely need to cover or have they "survived" for reasons that have nothing to do with this course?
You don't have to answer all those questions! But do post your thoughtful reflections here.
Deadline: Monday (1/26), 9am.
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11 comments:
Your instructor here. Just a few things I want to draw your attention to.
1) "The Roll Call" includes only three dramatists: Richard Sheridan, Hannah Cowley, and Royall Tyler (American).
2) None of the lists (and therefore, presumably, none of the textbooks) included John Newton. He wrote the words to "Amazing Grace."
3) If you removed the women (Phillis Wheatley, Mary Robinson, and Mary Wollstonecraft) from the list of "Survivors" and added Oliver Goldsmith, you would be fairly close to the list of later C18 authors who populated the "intro. to lit." anthologies of your grandparents' generation.
4)"Holt Water" appeared in Mary Jones's 1750 volume, Miscellanies in Prose and Verse. 1400 people signed up in advance to buy copies of it, including many members of the Royal Family. Blake, Burns, Cowper, Gray, and Wordsworth ("survivors" all!) had nothing like that degree of advance publicity or recognition.
Do with this information what you will!
This exercise was helpful for me because I hardly had any knowledge of the authors on the lists. That being said, I hope we can concentrate on the Survivors list.
It seems like later C18 literature just wasn't as popular as the eras before and after, and I think textbooks nowadays love to organize around those 'big boxes;' romanticism, enlightenment, modern, etc. If we look at these Survivors texts, we can ask questions like: How might these works fit into those 'big boxes?' How might they not fit?
Part of why I study English is so I can speak to people about literature. If the work is too obscure, it might be hard to keep people in the conversation.
The fourth comment left is particularly interesting. Something so popular at one time faded into irrelevance for later generations. Will incredibly widespread, popular works like Harry Potter survive and be considered important to later generations? It's a very similar idea to the first post question about what should be considered for a future lit anthology.
I think it is unfortunate that we only study the more well-known and time-tested authors, so I look forward to reading more obscure literature like Mary Jones. I think the "survivors" could have survived because of their prestige within an academic community, or they could have survived because the first literature anthologies felt a whim to include them and the rest followed suit. It's difficult to determine, but the generally popular authors should be covered in a basic lit class like 209 or 210 and classes like ours have the opportunity to delve into less popular, but still influential texts.
I agree Cayla.
Although, I feel it is important to study the "survivors", it may be even more important to focus on those who were the survivors of the time, the people popular in their era. but that are no longer Finding out why, and how they gained prominence could lead to a deeper insight into the era. Moreover, as pointed out in class, some authors come and go from the survivors list even in our lifetimes. Studying perhaps those that have fallen from literary graces might also provide some important thought provoking concepts that would be lost to the class otherwise.
Some texts/authors selected by the editors of the general literature text books are able to be taken out of the late eighteenth century and applied to different time periods. Mary Wollstonecraft's writings about women can be utilized by feminists and other groups looking for equal rights, and Jefferson's Declaration of Independence will be relevant as long as there are people who still value the ideals presented in it. Perhaps for this reason the editors felt that these authors and texts were important enough to include in a comprehensive general anthology. The content, rather than style, of the text seems to be more important in this case.
As for the significance of the "survivor" list, I feel like it should be taken for what it is- a jumping off point for someone who does not plan on studying the writing of the period extensively. However, since we will be going into more depth than a general literature anthology I feel like we should focus more on what the late eighteenth century texts have to offer in terms of style- what made these texts different from the Enlightenment or Romanticism? Why is there a sixty year gap between the two periods, instead of them just flowing one after the other? To answer these questions texts must be analyzed not only for content and the enduring messages they may provide.
Your instructor here (again). This conversation is great! There have already been some excellent posts on both sides of the issue that seems to be emerging: whether the authors that have stood the test of time ("The Survivors") are particularly worth reading because they are (a) recognized and (b) probably good, or whether the kinds of editorial decisions that produce "The Survivors" have to do with a teaching agenda that has nothing to do with understanding the period in any depth. I look forward to seeing what others have to say!
One issue I want to raise: just how certain are we, based on what you found in the period-specific textbooks, that the Enlightenment ended in 1740 and that Romanticism began in 1799? Immanuel Kant didn't publish his famous essay "What is Enlightenment?" until 1784. (Those of you who looked at specifically "Enlightenment" anthologies might like to say something about what you found.)
That's all. Carry on. As you were.
I think that it is important for us to study the "survivors" because there must be a reason that they have stuck around so long, although I have yet to learn why. Maybe I'll get my answer from taking this class. I do, however, think that we should journey outside those big box ideas that Issac mentioned. Discovering something that is not very popular anymore, like "Holt Water", and learning that I actually enjoy it is kind of exciting to me. That sense of new "discovery" is why I'd like to keep learning about some of the less popular authors often times left out of broad sweeping anthologies.
I agree with the general sentiment that the "Survivor" list is most important for someone looking for a cursory overview of the era. However, it seems likely that these texts were chosen for a reason, and it would be interesting to see how more obscure texts relate to them; specifically whether or not the texts that are used to broadly represent the era actually line up in terms of style and content with those texts that have fallen by the wayside.
Isaac's idea is also interesting, though it might be difficult to do it justice in terms of establishing ideas of what works constitute a broad enough survey of those eras to make informed comparisons.
It is certainly an interesting time in literature, and as Prof. Wilcox explained, between but also intertwined with other, more recognizable literary movements. This era is often not emphasized in school, but I do feel the "Survivors" are an adequate representation of the works at the time. What is so impressive about the list is the variance in genres, styles, and writers. To have works ranging from the political writings of Thomas Jefferson to poems by Phillis Wheatley shows a broad scope of literature. This is not to say that other, lesser known authors aren't important, but the "Survivors" encompass the full spectrum of 18th century writing.
I'd like to think of the "survivors" as works that represent a general theme or sentiment of the time period. That being said, one of the most classic formats of music is a "Theme and Variations"- and, as Lit. majors, we are lucky enough to focus on those Variations, while putting them in contexts of those overall themes. I believe, for us, it is important to understand the survivors (as we will probably all have to teach them someday in the not-so-distant future), as well as the specialty lists that we study.
I don't think we should always look at something like "The Enlightenment" as a specific time period, but rather one of those previously mentioned "themes". I believe there are still authors today that express feelings of Romanticism, Enlightenment, and the like. I think the dates that we outline for purposes to generalize, but I'd be more interested in seeing the similarities of these themes across many generations.
I think it is important to cover both the original works that were deemed important in the past and the minority works that we only now appreciate. If we only look at women authors, for instance, we might not understand the context of their writings fully. We need to see the inequality to get a sense of what these women saw on a daily basis.
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