Category: english major

Reading Emerson: Criticism and Theory

Posted on by marklong

In the first few weeks of this class we talked about the English department’s four program objectives:

Production and Reception: The program teaches how historical, social, and cultural contexts shape literary works-including those works produced by cultures whose humanity and identity have been devalued, denied, or dismissed;

Language and Poetics: The program introduces students to the major genres of literature, rhetorical and literary strategies, and the ways in which literary works relate intertextually.

Criticism and Theory: The program introduces students to historical contexts and critical theories that shape literary analysis and inform scholarly debates in the field of literary studies.

Reading and Writing: The program teaches careful reading, the use of literary vocabulary, an orderly critical approach, and the use of writing for a range of purposes.

All of these program outcomes are in play in English courses all of the time––at least to some degree. But at this point in the course, our case study of Emerson is moving in the domain of literary production and reception. On the one hand, reading (and studying) Emerson’s writing is our primary work. On the other hand, your study of Emerson’s writing can become more as you learn more about Emerson and his milieu, gifting you with a more capacious appreciation for his contributions to literary and cultural history; that is, as you join other readers in the study of Emerson, you will find that your reading will become more informed and your writing about (and with) Emerson more productive.

I recommend that you think about our work in the coming weeks in two ways. First, you are continuing to read in the primary work:  Emerson’s journals and letters, as well as his lectures and essays and poems. There is an argument to be made that Emerson’s essays are examples of literary criticism and theory, too, and we can talk about this idea. Second, you will be reading in the history of commentary on Emerson’s writings, what we call the secondary materials. The goal is for these two areas of reading and study to come together in your thinking and writing.

The Norton Critical Edition gives you a glimpse of the vast corpus of materials in the vast archive of secondary writing on Emerson’s works. We will be sampling Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Reviews and Impressions––by practicing poets and essayists; people trained in history and historiography or literary and cultural studies; and philosophers, theologians, literary critics, sociologists and political scientists.

Last week, for example, the literary historian Perry Miller’s “New England Transcendentalism: Native or Imported?” asked you to think about the “ism” in its title. Miller’s question helps us to understand Emerson’s “heresy” in the mind of his mentor in the Harvard Divinity School, Andrews Norton—that is, his pupil’s “trust in intuition, in direct perception of truth” (668). One suggestion Miller makes is Emerson’s 1842 lecture, “The Transcendentalist,” in which he exclaims in the opening to his audience at Boston’s Masonic Temple, “What is popularly called Transcendentalism among us, is Idealism; Idealism as it appears in 1842” (93). Another recommendation was to return to Emerson’s essay “Nature.” The “Contexts” section in the Norton (573–83) lists four additional resources, comments by Madame de Stael, William Wordsworth, Frederic Henry Hedge, and Sampson Reed. Have a look at Russell Goodman’s entry Transcendentalism in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The Table of Contents of this Encyclopedia will also lead you to other entries if you become interested in the philosophical context for reading Emerson, such as “Idealism” and “Materialism.”

The Reviews and Impressions from Emerson’s contemporaries will be useful fas well. So will the reception of these ideas in the next generation of American writers and thinkers. Perry Miller, along with Steven Whicher, Joel Porte, and F. O. Matthiessen reset the terms of the critical discussion of Emerson; and excerpts from this body of commentary is included in the “Criticism” section of the Norton––from the 1930s (Firkins) to Hyatt H. Waggoner’s assessment of Emerson as a poet in the 1970s. These writers make up the historical contexts and critical theories that shape literary analysis and inform scholarly debates in the field of literary studies that we describe as criticism and theory.

In the coming weeks, reading the primary and secondary work offers you the opportunity to place your own experiences and assessment of Emerson’s writing into the arc of commentary by other readers. The pleasures of reading may even become the pleasures of reading about reading. From words to words about words. Then comes the important questions that arise in any course of reading and reflection in a community of readers, the pursuit of which some people call theory, or what might be described as words about words about words.

As you continue your writing about Emerson, consider developing your first thoughts (or first impressions) into second thoughts (more developed thinking). One way to do this is to follow the strategy Emerson himself used in the essay Quotation and Originality: make a case and then argue the opposite of the case. That is, Emerson may offer in one sentence or section of an essay what you think is a position or case; but then, and this happens again and again, the position becomes less reliable, more uncertain, even difficult to hang on to. “I take this evanescence and lubricity of all objects, which lets them slip through our fingers then when we clutch hardest, to be the most unhandsome part of our condition,” Emerson says in his essay Experience.

Photo credit: Aurora Borealis, Sarkijarvi, Finland. Mark C. Long

Consider This

Posted on by marklong

What is English? This gnarly question has a complex history that I asked you to think about as we began the semester.

We have been using the term “English” to refer to a field of study—a body of material (literature, writing, texts), method (ways of reading or approaching texts) and theory (the questions that arise in the practice of criticism or the assumptions that underwrite particular methods, or a theoretical approach, such as structuralism).

So, where to begin? You might start, as many do, with Wikipedia:

In the past an academic degree in English usually meant an intensive study of British and American literary masterpieces. Now, however, an English Major encompasses a much broader range of topics which stretch over multiple disciplines. While the requirements for an English Major vary from university to university, most English departments emphasize three core skills: analyzing literature, a process which requires logic and reflective analysis; creativity and imagination with regards to the production of good writing; and an understanding of different cultures, civilizations, and literary styles from various time periods. Prospective English Majors can expect to take college courses in academic writing, creative writing, literary theory, British and American literature, multicultural literature, several literary genres (such as poetry, drama, and film studies), and a number of elective multidisciplinary topics such as history, courses in the social sciences, and studies in a foreign language. To the end of studying these disciplines, candidates for a Major in English attain skills in rhetoric, literary analysis, an appreciation for the diversity of cultures, and an ability to clearly and persuasively express their ideas in writing.

We looked at what other people have done with the question, including Terry Eagleton’s chapter What is Literature. Or Listen to Eagleton discussing the questions about the literary in his book, The Event of Literature (Yale 2012). Another path is to examine the table of contents of anthologies that define the field of study at the level of the course syllabus—a more instructive path, perhaps, than the Wikipedia, or at least the next step in a genuine path of inquiry leading out from the question. I will use here the examples from the Norton anthologies of literature: American, English and World. (There are also anthologies published by Norton on poetry, African American Writers, and so on, designed for courses that have a narrower generic or thematic approach.)

The Norton Anthology of English Literature is using mostly historical periods to divide the material into digestible units. The Middle Ages, The Sixteenth Century, The Early Seventeenth Century, Restoration and the Eighteenth Century, Romantic Period, Victorian Age, Twentieth Century. You can link to the web page and pull up the Table of Contents. Close readers will also note that the volumes in the set are organized not only by century but also by other categories that refer to a period (“Medieval”) a political era (“Restoration,” or the reign of King Charles II) an intellectual and artistic movement (“Romantic”) or a queen (“Victorian”).

The Norton Anthology of American Literature (Beginnings to 1865) organizes the material  chronologically. The Norton Anthology of American Literature (1865 to the present) Consider the Table of Contents for The Shorter Norton Anthology of American Literature. This condensed survey text selects from the selected works in the multi-volume edition (already a selection in and of itself) and organizes literary history chronologically, as well as by author and by theme. It starts with transcriptions of oral creation stories from the Iroquois and Pima to the early writings of exploration and puritan writings all the way to a selection of poems by Sherman Alexie and Jhumpa Lahiri’s short piece of fiction “Sexy.”

The Norton offers one representation of a consensus in the field of study “American Literature.” (Over the years, I have used this edition, and the longer version, in my courses, and have offered comments to the editors on texts that I think might be included or discarded.) The point here is that a table of contents is a dynamic list that changes as the field is shaped and reshaped. The Norton American Literature is now in its ninth edition.

There is also The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Have a look at the table of contents to this volume and see how time (chronology), space (nation, hemisphere), genre (orature, lyric poetry, drama).

These anthologies are a good starting point for students interested in literature and literary history.  If you don’t have them, pick them up and read in them over the summer months. (They are cheap on the used market.) One can build a broader range of literary and cultural reference and experiences as a reader when you have an anthology on the shelf.

As we talked about during the first few weeks of class, and as you explored in your writing, the bodies of writing and texts that now fall under the purview of “English” as a field, and of the English major, cannot be reproduced in a ten course undergraduate major. Still, the anthology represents a consensus—an always imperfect but useful configuration—of literary history that is worth knowing. It is also a convenient way to discover texts that will lead you to other texts and writers who you want to know.

Photo credit: Mark C. Long

Thoughts on the English Major

Posted on by marklong

“Everything is the way it is because it got that way.”

-D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson, On Growth and Form (1917)

We have been talking (and you have been writing) about English: what is English anyway? What a discipline is, its history, the many forms it takes, and the rationale for the study of language and literature are shared concerns and as always a work in progress.

Thinking about the English major leads me to D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson’s On Growth and Form, and in particular his comment that “everything is the way it is because it got that way.” Thompson was a British biologist, and a scholar of the classics, who wrote Greek Birds and Greek Fishes and translated Aristotle’s writings on biology. I first came across On Growth and Form in graduate school. But I am thinking about Thompson not because of his interest in physical forms—“the waves of the sea, the little ripples on the shore, the sweeping curve of the sandy bay between the headlands, the outline of the hills, the shape of the clouds,” all these, as he writes, “are so many riddles of form, so many problems of morphology”—and not because of his description of the material forms of living things—“Cell and tissue, shell and bone, leaf and flower.”

Sure, this is great stuff. But I am thinking about Thompson’s interest in describing things by reference to their antecedent phenomena, “in the material system of mechanical forces to which they belong.” Your looking at the way English majors are put together is an invitation for you to learn to see that the very idea of English has a history, and that the major you have chosen has distinctive histories. College majors are the way they are because people put them together in the way that they did.

Another pedagogical goal I have for this week is for you to see the English major as more than 10 courses or 40 credits that, as I have actually heard some students say, “get out of the way.” The figure of thought is a limiting way to think about the incredible opportunity of every course you choose in college.

In the interest of making visible changes at Keene State College over the past couple of decades, included below is 1) the program objectives for the English major at KSC and 2) a brief rationale that I wrote in 2005 when I was chair of English.

Program Objectives

The English Program emphasizes the study and practice of close reading, critical thinking and effective writing. Nine core courses help students understand the production and reception of texts, language and poetics, as well as criticism and critical theory.

Production and Reception: The program considers how historical, social, and cultural contexts shape literary works, including those works in literary and expressive traditions produced by cultures whose collective humanity and aesthetic identity have been historically devalued, denied, or dismissed

Language and Poetics: The program expects students to study at least two genres of literature, understand how literary works relate intertextually, and appreciate the ways in which the history of language has affected the development of literature 

Criticism and Theory: The program expects students to understand the history of criticism and critical theory, its application in literary analysis as well as current scholarly debates in the field of English studies

Reading and Writing: The program teaches the conventions of critical analysis-including careful reading, the use of literary vocabulary, an orderly critical approach, and the use of writing for a range of expressive and persuasive purposes

The rationale describes the changes to the major we were proposing at the time. Since then, we have made additional changes: adding a course to bring the major from 36 to 40 credits, and creating options in literature and in writing. At the same time, the composition of the department has changed, and we have fewer tenure-track faculty.

RATIONALE
In 2003-04, the English Department changed to a 4-credit curriculum.  While this change has been beneficial both to students and faculty, our experience with this model has helped us to identify specific areas where our major could be improved.

1) Historical background.  We currently have one introductory course to the major (ENG 209 Literary Analysis) that focuses on writing and an introduction to literary genres. However, our students also need a course that provides a more comprehensive introduction to the history of literary movements and periods.

We are, therefore, proposing a second introductory course that will be part of a two-course sequence.  This new course will focus on in-depth work with one of the genres introduced in the first course of the sequence; students will then study the development of this genre over time.

Proposed introductory-level sequence:

ENG 200 Literary Analysis
ENG 300 Literary Form and History

2)  Preparation for 400-level work.  We currently require three 400-level courses.  Students seldom have the necessary background for the advanced work we would like to see them doing at this level.  For example, students may take a 400-level Black American Women Novelists course without ever having studied Black American literature or the American novel.

We are, therefore, proposing an advanced sequence of courses, with one course at the 300-level and one at the 400-level, so that the 300-level course serves as a foundation for the work at the 400-level.

Proposed advanced-level sequence

ENG 395 Sequence I
ENG 495 Sequence II

3) Enhancing student’s critical writing and reading abilities.  The advanced work that we expect from students demands that they continually improve their ability to understand, interpret, and analyze the complexities of difficult texts.

We are, therefore, proposing a new design for the major that will, through small class size (20 in the first sequence and 20 in the advanced sequence), ensure more one-on-one interaction with students, more individualized help for students who need it, more opportunity for students to practice their critical skills, and more consistent and challenging writing instruction.

4) The need to study theory.  While we currently have a critical theory requirement at the 400-level, students again often come to it unprepared for this study. They may, for example, take a theory course in Romantic Literary Theory having never studied the Romantic period.

We are, therefore, proposing that all 400-level courses incorporate critical theory with the historical background foundation of 300-level courses and the advanced sequence ensuring that students will study theory with the necessary background.  We are also decreasing our 400-level requirement by one so that students can more easily select a 400-level course for which they are prepared.

5) Acknowledging changes in the discipline.  Over the last three decades, the once clear lines that defined literature in national terms have been blurred. Our current curriculum tries to address this development through our Multicultural / Continental/ World requirement, the name alone indicating the amorphous nature of this category. In addition, some of our courses fall into both American and Multicultural categories (such as Black American Literature). Therefore, while we require two American literature courses, students could fill this requirement by taking two courses that actually focus on non-traditional approaches. By examining the records of past students, we discovered that their way of fulfilling requirements was far more random than our distribution system would appear to allow.

We are, therefore, eliminating the distribution categories, and focusing on providing an overview of literary history in ENG 300, and an in-depth study of one literary area in the advanced sequence. Since we will still offer the same courses we do now and students will still have to choose from among them, we are certain that they will receive as much “coverage” of the different areas of literary study as they do now.

6) Flexibility. Under the current system, 8 of the 9 courses for the major fill requirements. This leaves students with only 1 elective.

We are, therefore, trying to balance the new requirement of 4 core courses, by allowing students to have the increased flexibility of up to five electives (selected with the help of an advisor) that will allow students to prepare for their future (graduate school, a specific career option) or to follow a particular area of interest.

7) Ensuring that students are challenged. We know from our assessment of former students’ schedules and from our enrollment data, that students will seek courses in areas they are most comfortable studying. We know that they are able to do the work in other areas, but often need to be engaged in this study before they understand the richness of these areas or their own interest in them.

We are, therefore, maintaining one pre-1800 literary requirement so that students will need to study older texts and language.

8) Requiring students to take a multicultural literature course. Currently our students must select two courses from among our Multicultural / Continental / World offerings. While all of these courses are out of mainstream British and American offerings, students can still study very traditional and Western literature (Classical Literature of Greece, Bible as Literature, Russian Literature) and avoid taking any courses that truly expose them to particular groups of people that have been historically marginalized.

We are, therefore, strengthening our “multicultural” requirement by more carefully defining the category as “Differing Cultural Perspectives” and requiring students to take one course in this category.

The English major at Keene State College has changed over time. Becoming aware of some of the reasons those changes have come to be will give you a better sense of what you are doing as an English major. The major (the thing) “is what it is because it got that way.”

Photo credit: Mark C. Long