"Not to know what has been transacted in former times is to continue always as a child. If no use is made of the labours of past ages, the world must remain always in the infancy of knowledge." - Cicero
The other day I was out for brunch with my parents. We were talking about the work both myself and my youngest brother do, in that we both study literature (he, Classics, me, English). They told me about the trouble they encounter when they tell their friends what we do, and their friends ask "Why?" As in, "Why are they bothering to study that stuff?"
It's a question that I've had in my head since day one of my university career. A former T.A. of mine asked us this in my second year, and it has both intrigued and plagued me since. I recently put the question to a couple of my own classes.
Why do we study literature?
I think that perhaps it is a question that doesn't occur to many who pursue an education in literature. An English degree is often something you just get, and then move on to other endeavours, with the weight of the degree behind you, whatever the degree may be. There are those in the classes I teach who are merely fulfilling a requisite for their degrees, one that requires them to take a course in English. I asked them why they thought they were required to do so.
But more broadly, I wonder why those of us who pursue this path, potentially as a career, do so. What is the point? In this, I would invite any and all to chime in. Email me, send me something, and I'll post it here. Tell friends that you think might have something to say. I would like to see a compilation happen, a variety of perspectives and opinions that might bring us all a bit closer to understanding this strange thing that is the study of literature.
My own thoughts on the subject are vague at best. I have a notion of history telling us what happened, and literature telling us how people felt about what happened. A recent example from the class I am T.A.ing for is the comparison between Charles Yale Harrison's Generals Die In Bed and John McCrae's "In Flanders Fields" -- two works about the same historical event (World War I), but with radically different viewpoints. And this kind of contextualization about historical events is important. History is, of course, a fiction in and of itself. It is a fiction that is generally agreed upon as fact. The context of fiction, then, allows us to understand that reactions to that "fact" were varied, as should be our reactions and acceptance of said "fact."
I did say vague at best, right?
In closing this first post, I'm actually going to move us past the question that spurred the creation of this blog. In Anatomy of Criticism, Northrop Frye says that "for those concerned with literature, the first question to answer is not 'What use is the study of literature?' but, 'What follows from the fact that it is possible?'" While I am loathe to dispute Mr. Frye, that first question is the one that intrigues me at the moment. Why do we study literature? And in answering that, maybe we'll get some hints at what follows from the fact that it is possible.
What do you think?
