On Literature and Teaching

 At the heart of every literature class, there are some questions we hardly ever hear asked, or even acknowledged. Yet, in order to determine what we do, why and what for, it is essential that we do ask those questions, however uncomfortable they may make us feel. Ignoring them means missing the very point of our classes: why do we do what we do, what do we want to achieve, and the most important of all: do we in fact achieve what we claim? Can we achieve it?   Q.1: How difficult is it to read fiction? That is something we tend to forget, especially if we like to read ourselves: reading is not easy, and it’s one of those things where the reward might be long delayed, or, in any case, will take long to reap. Reading is time-consuming: chronophage , as we say in French, it eats (devours) time. Watching a complete episode, with a beginning, middle and end, of a series on Netflix will take 45 minutes; in that time, you will have read, what, 20 pages of a normal quality novel? Few

  ‘ 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 to English

  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 Citizenshi