"Trifles" as a metaphor for canon formation

Those in power get to determine what matters, what is important, what is worth time and exploration, as well as what is less significant, not important, "trifling."

Torrential Downpour

Politics and Literature
Jacob Russell writes: "Not that I believe for a second that literature and the arts are not in themselves, consequential--even primary to politics. But they cannot be so as Mandarin pursuits apart from the messy realities of power and its relations to everyday life."

This reminds me of something that I've tried to argue in the past: it's not that literature becomes politicized, but that politics underlies so much of how we approach literature.

In grad school, I took a course on Asian-American literature, and we very much took for granted that literature is political. During this time, I was reading William Wordsworth's "Nutting," describing an excursion tramping through the woods looking for nuts. How on earth is this a political poem?, I thought. Then I considered some questions one could ask about this poem. What political realities granted the poet access to the woods, and the leisure time to walk about in the woods? More pressing: what political realities lead professors to determine this poem belongs in any canon (in other words, that students should read it)? Why this poem instead of another? Suddenly there are political ramifications underlying my approach to Wordsworth's poem: politics in why I was reading it in the first place.

I don't suggest that one must ask these questions to read that or any other poem (though Wordsworth did occasionally touch on politics in his poetry--"The Prelude" includes his musings on the French Revolution and its aftermath). In fact, I think one would have a more authentic, meaningful experience reading the poem without those political questions. But it is good if somebody asks these questions. Whether you would like to ask these questions or not is up to you as a reader. But politics underlies the canon, and it is a good thing that people are asking the serious political questions about what the canon includes and excludes, and why.

Grammar, Clarity, and They/Their
English teachers should not teach and enforce grammar rules to be conservative sticklers of traditional usage; rather, English teachers should teach and enforce grammar rules to facilitate clarity.

The top priority of most writing (and all academic writing) should be clarity: one wishes to convey one's meaning as clearly as possible. Grammar is a (very small) part of clear writing: poor grammar can distort or confuse one's meaning.

I'm ready to accept the use of "they" or "their as a singular genderless pronoun on philosophical grounds. I don't like it, and I won't use it myself, but I'll tolerate it. Language evolves, and it's silly to resist change on one little grammar rule. However, in some contexts, the use of they/their as a singular pronoun can confuse the point. If a sentence has two separate nouns, and then later in the sentence they/their is used as a pronoun, it can be unclear whether the pronoun refers to both nouns or to only one (or which one).

On the grounds of clarity, I think I ought to encourage my students to maintain subject-pronoun agreement. It is not about nit-picking a clearly evolving grammar usage; it is about encouraging students to be as clear in their meaning as they can be.

Mostly Vegan
I'm in the early stages of working out precisely how I'm living for the next year (or more). While most days I am a fairly strict vegan, I am now also a "special occasions cheese eater." Those special occasions are rare: I ate pizza for my birthday, and in the summer, I foresee three special occasions: an important wedding, a trip to Boston (first real vacation in three years--I want to eat some cheese), and the Hazelweird Fantasy Football Draft.

Links (a few which will show how unabashedly low-brow I can be)
I thought Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle was an outstanding movie in its way; it was a silly comedy, but it was actually exploring something meaningful, too. I hope the next one is just as good: in The New York Times, Dennis Lim calls it a "stoner protest film."

Ona Bonfiglio in Common Dreams: "Peace activists are often accused of being naïve dreamers when it comes to dealing with conflict or dangerous enemies. So what is the alternative? Usually it’s to fight fire with fire (i.e., revenge and retaliation)."

An article in The Onion for fans of Back to the Future.

At New Scientist, read "24 myths and misconceptions" about Evolution.

Reading for breadth or depth

In the last eight months, among other things I've read Demons, The Idiot, The Adolescent, and re-read Notes from the Underground, all by Dostoevsky. Of my "choice" reading, approximately 2,000 pages was devoted to just one writer. I intend to re-read The Brothers Karamamozov and Crime and Punishment sometime in the next few years, too.

If I had chosen, I probably could have read between five and 10 contemporary novels by five to 10 different novelists. I would not have experienced one writer with such depth, but I would have exposed myself to several writers, and learned something of several different writers' work.

What's better? Is it good that I'm so immersed in Dostoevsky's work, or am I better off taking short swims in several writers' work? Let's shift the metaphor: do I want to find a plot of land and dig down to see what's there, or am I better off wandering about the desert just scraping at the surface of different plots of land?

Of course as readers we do both. But there are many, many critically acclaimed and discussed contemporary writers of which I have little to no familiarity. I sometimes feel ignorant of the discussion of contemporary literature (though not entirely).

And there's also an argument for choosing older literature over contemporary literature. It has stood the proverbial "test of time:" it's the stuff that many have agreed is good, and thus to devote yourself to it is to devote yourself to art. To know contemporary literature and discourse about it, may be to know a fashionable trend that will later be dismissed from the canon. If experiencing literature is a spiritual quest (as I believe it is), I don't want to waste my time tinkering with the stuff that's not going to feed my soul--I want the good stuff, the prose, poetry, and drama that is going to reach to my spiritual being.

This also gets at another issue of experiencing one writer. I started reading Dostoevsky with The Brothers Karamazov; if I had known that I'd wish to go further with him, I would have started with Notes from the Underground and read his novels chronologically to The Brothers Karamazov. Now, admittedly, I was assigned The Brothers Karamazov in grad school, and that affected my own chronology. But if we're going to experience a writer, we'll often choose his or her best (or most popular, or most famous, or whatever) work. Sometimes this is by choice: if we're going to expose ourselves to a particular writer, we often wish to start with the best, not knowing we'll get to anything else. Sometimes it isn't by choice: when teachers assign a writer, they'll often choose his or her best (or most popular, or most famous, or whatever) work to expose students to. That makes sense. So as readers, we often start with a writer's best work (even if it's a work he or she progressed to), then scatter around to read the rest (if we want). We don't necessarily progress with the writer's ideas or style (combined, his or her "art").

We can take this all to cliche: is it better to know a lot about a little or a little about a lot? Again, of course we try to do both: having a specialty does not require ignorance of everything outside one's specialty. But as readers, keenly aware of our time limitations, and keenly aware of our own mortality, we make choices. If you bring up a well-respected contemporary writer that I haven't read, I may have to listen (or read) silently, learning without contributing. But I don't regret immersing myself in Dostoevsky, one of those artists who is touching at my soul. For while a life of reading should bring much discourse about the stuff we're reading, a life of reading is also largely an inner life.