On Literature and Teaching

  One aspect of the research published around the teaching of literature ( literatuuronderwijs , in the Netherlands) is how often it is conducted with the higher reaches of schools: vwo 5, vwo 6 for example. Or that research is conducted with an implicit line of development: it starts in Year 1 at secondary school and finishes in Year 6. And because only vwo go to Year 6, it’s clear that if you’re not in vwo, you’ll stop short of achieving whatever those in vwo can (or are supposed to) achieve: that’s exemplified in the oft-quoted ‘literary competence’ of Witte, which, let’s be honest, makes little sense. Why on earth would we want all our students to be literary competent? What for? To be experts at reading a niche market like literature? Why then leave visual literacy – surely a much more pressing problem in the world of social media – out of education? And the biggest problem is of course: does that mean those in vmbo or havo can have no hope – are given no hope – of reachin...

  One of the most famous questions asked in linguistics – and there are a few – relates to the way language might influence our perceptions, and in particular whether the language you speak restricts your perceptions, or at least forces you to perceive in this way rather than that way. That’s what is known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, with more or less strong versions. And while the strong version of their hypothesis (that the language you speak influences your perceptions) has largely been abandoned, milder, so-called weaker versions have been shown to operate in the world. When Frederic Jameson, the literary critic and theorist, wrote his seminal book ‘ The Prison-house of language’ (1972), he was partially referring to that idea, something Barthes or, of course, Derrida, were keen to emphasise as well. You inherit the language you speak: from people, from history, from a culture – the language you speak every day is not transparent, it is loaded, it carries ways of thinking th...

  ‘ The aim of literary study is not to amuse the hours of leisure; it is to awake oneself, it is to be alive, to intensify one’s capacity for pleasure, for sympathy, and for comprehension. It is not to affect one hour, but twenty-four hours. It is to change utterly one’s relations with the world. Not isolated and unconnected parts of life, but all of life’ (Arnold Bennett, 1901).   ‘Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach’. How many times have we heard that old saw? Because, really, can you teach something you can’t do? Well, yes, there is a way: by theorising that very thing you can’t do, or would like to do, or, well, that thing you teach. Or by canonising it, so you don’t have to engage with it. And here it is important to remember what happened to literature as an object of study. Despite arguments about who – and when – was the first, it is clear that there was no English Degree until late in the 19 th Century – that is, a university degree entirely dedicated t...

  Fiction as a safe place The great, late French historian Paul Veyne, having shown that the ancient Greeks both believed and did not believe in their own myths, asks a question: what was the use of those myths for the Greeks then? Why did senators routinely use mythical references and examples in their speech to their fellow politicians? Veyne’s answers is that it enabled them to discuss actual political matters in a roundabout way, so that political sensibilities would not be hurt by hearing a particular problem discussed openly. In other words, senators would use a myth to introduce a question at play in Athens’ society, but which was too sensitive to some to be aired directly: it needed to be metaphorised , in a way – it needed to be about problem A but discussed in terms of Myth B. This Fiction-as-a-safe-place is one of the great advantages of using literature in class to discuss citizenship-related issues. The Council of Europe (2018), among others, breaks down Citize...