File spoon-archives/phillitcrit.archive/phillitcrit_2000/phillitcrit.0008, message 118


From: zatavu-AT-excite.com
Date: Mon, 14 Aug 2000 17:27:31 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Re: PLC: Literary Saints



On Mon, 14 Aug 2000 09:10:53 -0400 (EDT),
phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu wrote:

>  
>  On Sat, 12 Aug 2000, Barron wrote:
>  
>  > I'm also still confused about why such designations seem so important
to
>  > both the accusers and the defenders. Why is it important that Eliot was
an
>  > antisemite (let's just assume he is) or that Faulkner was a racist?
>     ...and...
>  > What does the teacher do besides point [Faulkner's racism] out?
>     ...and...
>  > As a corollary to this, I would be interested in knowing who the
literary
>  > saints are. 
>  
>  Three great questions which have provoked a debate big enough to stock a
>  small library....or at least way too many books in my office.  These
>  questions go to the heart of why we study literature (or art) at all, why
>  and how we construct a "canon" of major over minor writers for
>  instruction, what purposes are served by literary and cultural history,
>  and how we conceptualize / theorize all those activities.
>  
>  Here is how I would start formulating a reply....
>  
>  The basic issue, I suppose, is why we read (a term which embraces a set
of
>  interpretative activities).  The response which resonates with me is
>  "because we need advice on how to conduct our lives."  Two texts I often
>  recommend to students for a defense of this position are Kenneth Burke's
>  "Literature as Equipment for Living" and Jean-Paul Sartre's _What is
>  Literature?_ (there are others which can be highly recommended, but these
>  have the advantage of brevity and succinctness...and they have manifold
>  implications). 

We read fiction because we want advice on how to conduct our lives? Dear
God, I hope not! I certainly do not. I would personally recommend reading
philosophy and perhaps certain aspects of psychology for that. Literary
fiction should be used for advice on how to conduct our lives about as much
as paintings or symphonies or sculptures should. Literature is first and
foremost art. Any that coincidentally provides advice is an added bonus.
What in "Naked Lunch" or Don Barthelme's "Snow WHite" gives us any advice on
how to live? We should read literature for the beauty it provides in our
language, which we cannot escape, since that is how we relate to the world,
through language. Paintings provide visual beauty, symphonies provide
auditory beauty, literature provides linguistic beauty. What you are
essentially claiming here is that there is such a thing as moral or immoral
literature. As Oscar WIlde pointed out, there is not. THere is only well- or
poorly-written literature. This is not to say that in some literature
(including the novels I write) where philosophy has been woven into the
novel that advice cannot be garnered. BUt that is not its primary function.

Troy Camplin





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