Literature is an issue for me. Just what constitutes literature. I have an undergraduate degree in English and a MS in English Education. I love to read. But frankly I don’t care much for what the Englishy types call literature. Much is presumptuous and pretentious. It’s a matter of cultural capital rather than really affecting how a person interacts with the world.
I’m still irritated at some of the messages I received from some people who participated in a recent thing I participated in.
Maybe because I had a working class childhood and had to claw my way to some level of academic and social respect, I don’t like pretention. I think there is as much, if not more, to be learned in the common culture as there is in high culture.
So called high culture is a tool for sorting and ranking. Yeah, I know it’s an old argument that goes all the way back to Harold Bloom (who was actually quoted by one of the more irritating people I had to deal with recently). But based on my recent experience, its one that still raises it’s ugly head.
2 responses so far ↓
1
drdana
// Aug 17, 2007 at 11:58 am
You should totally read Maureen Corrigan’s Don’t Bother Me, I’m Reading. She got her Ph.D in English Lit from Penn, but became a book critic for Fresh Air b/c she loved detective fiction as much as she loved nineteenth century Eng lit. I think you would love her take on all of this. Am thinking of using excerpts with my class, actually.
2
gjacobs
// Aug 17, 2007 at 6:39 pm
Thanks for the recommendation. I checked out the npr site that includes an excerpt and I like what she had to say. So I’ll add the book to my list of must reads.
Leave a Comment