Literature

For most of the year so far, we’ve been reviewing books about the study of literature. I’ve made a case previously about why you sould study literature, but let’s assume you’re ready to begin studying in a serious way. What should your first steps be?

In my review of Ezra Pound’s ABC of Reading, I wrote that Pound had many interesting insights and asides that, though they didn’t fit with the main review, are nonetheless worth discussing. So, here, I’ll go over some of the highlights. I’ll cover them in no particular order, and much of it will be direct quotations from the book with a few comments from me.

Today we’ll continue our series of books about literature, following Mortimer Adler’s advice about syntopical reading. This time, though, instead of a Classical author, will be someone of almost our own time, Ezra Pound.

Last month, we met with our friend Demetrius to discuss his observations on style. I mentioned in that post that Loeb’s edition of On Style also included Aristotle’s Poetics and Longinus’ On the Sublime, so today, let’s meet the last of those three men, Longinus.

One pervasive problem with the way that literature is taught today, perhaps the pervasive problem, is the lack of any framework for understanding and evaluating it. Typically, a class at the high school or college level is assigned some reading, perhaps with some background about the book or author, but then the lecture period is little more than a book club facilitated by the instructor. Students are asked for their opinions about this or that aspect of the novel (or poem, play, whatever), but no definitive interpretation or means of assessing the quality of the work is given. In my time as a Literature major at college, there was really only one professor who did otherwise, and it was in his course on Shakespeare that I first encountered Aristotle’s Poetics (which we’ve discussed previously) and today’s author, Demetrius.

Today, we’ll meet Fr. George Herbert. Our friend was born in 1593, and educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He served briefly in Parliament (1624-5), but retired from public life in 1626, due to health problems that plagued him for the rest of his life. He was ordained an Anglican priest in 1630.

It’s October and Halloween is almost here, so it’s time to read something spooky. Last year we took our trick-or-treating rather far afield, to Pu Songling’s Chinese studio, but this time, let’s spend the season closer to home and head over to the Van Tassels’ Autumn festivities, over by Sleep Hollow. We’ll check out both Washington Irving’s original “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and Disney’s 1949 adaptation.

Today, we’ll meet Mr. Thomas Carew, born in Kent in 1594 or ‘95, the youngest of three children. His early life had its ups and downs - as a young man, he meant to follow his father’s career path into law, but he studied little and that was a dead-end. He was hired into secretarial roles to diplomats in Italy and France, but shot himself in the foot by writing too frankly of a patron’s faults.

I’ve written a few posts over the last year discussing various children’s books and authors, but I don’t know a lot about the history of children’s literature or what criticism of the genre looks like. So, I decided to start looking for a general overview and began with The Cambridge Companion to Children’s Literature, edited by M. O. Grenby and Andrea Immel. It was published in 2009 so it’s not the leading edge of criticism, but for a general overview that seems plenty recent enough.

Did you forget this series? It’s only been, well, a long while since we met our last friend, but I’m going to reintroduce it now. You needn’t worry about it quickly falling off again, either, because the next few posts have already been written. How’s that for planning ahead?