Curious as to how one qualifies to be “proper” enough to read these books.
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The word “proper” comes from the Latin “proprius” meaning one’s own. Think “appropriate” (verb, not adjective). Here, “proper” is an adjective; however, it needn’t mean “suitable” which is how most think of the word nowadays. The latter has a kind of elite or exclusive connotation to it. Marlowe would be glad to explain that he didn’t hail from such an upper-crust background. Most of us who love the great books didn’t.
Please move on.
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I’ll take “genuine”, @RichInPitt .
A famous formulation of the proper relation of reader to writer once was: “to attempt to understand the author as he understood himself.” Of course making that attempt, requiring discipline and a stretching of one’s imaginative powers, is hardly worthwhile unless one believes the author has something especiallly interesting, expressive or truthful to impart. It implies a reader who is humble and receptive to a mind greater than his own. That was Lincoln’s attitude to Shakespeare. Lincoln was a proper reader of Shakespeare.
The Theory of Forms crippled multiple fields of science for centuries. Well, so did most of Plato’s other theories. Plato was also an elitist is the worst sense, so there’s that.
On the other hand, he was probably just an imperfect image of the Real Plato…
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I didn’t realize we knew that much about Plato the man. Or are you basing this on the fact that he was probably the ultimate one-percenter in his time … and that whole philosopher king business?
Yep, that whole idea that society had to be divided into a clear class system. I am pretty sure that I could guess to which class he believed that he belonged…
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From the English department’s admissions FAQ’s:
How many applicants does the PhD program receive per year and how many of these applicants are admitted?
In recent years, we have received around 500 applications a year and have admitted anywhere from 2% to 5% of those applicants into our PhD program.
https://english.uchicago.edu/graduate/admissions
Not really. Pound shaped the writings of peer and subsequent authors and was also responsible for developing a noted method of literary expression. He was also a noted literary and social critic at the time. So any study of that era would probably need to include some of his work in order to satisfy the standards of rigorous inquiry. While the decision of a group of artists or a population to choose their leaders is subjective, and the decision to cover some era or type of literature in English class at UChicago is subjective (albeit perhaps also the prof’s specialty), the decision to include Pound among the list of representative authors would likely be quite well-reasoned.
“Well-reasoned” is not a refutation of “subjective." The two can walk hand-in-hand. For example, to the extent they exist at all, your "standards of rigorous inquiry” are subjective constructs, products of an ever-shifting social consensus and/or conversation among those who concern themselves with such things. You and others like you may find these standards compelling and their application to include Pound to be “well-reasoned,” but others may disagree on both or either count. Both the consensus and the critique are subjective.
Likewise regarding whether the Mona Lisa and Shakespeare are “better" than Poker Dogs and Harlequin. Within certain broadly accepted social and historical constructs, the answer may seem obvious, but it is nonetheless subject to those constructs. Yet some are so deeply embedded in their particular subjective perspective and so comfortable with their world-view that they can’t quite fathom that others could ever possibly view the world differently. Thus the absurd comparisons. But whether they are aware of it or not, these people confuse consensus and convention with objectivity.
It might all just be dismissed as semantics, except that some attempt to weaponize this illusion of objectivity to stake claim to what they perceive is an intellectual higher ground. Often while feigning humility and open-mindedness, they glibly act as if they and others like them have some special power to objectively ascertain beauty, excellence, truth, etc., They don’t even have to explain it, because they know it when they see it, and they dismiss those who might take a more critical and skeptical approach as lacking in the imagination, intelligence, or "finer spirits” necessary to see the light.
My kid would put it more succinctly; some people just love the smell of their own farts, and they can’t comprehend why others might not.
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O, O, O, that postmodernist rag, it’s so elegant, so intelligent. That mandarin vocabulary, those recherche concepts, these fine-spun distinctions - many a fine mind has become ensnared in them cobwebs. Only an intellectual could concoct a way of believing - or pretending to believe - that Shakespeare is not better than Barbara Cartland and that “better” itself is a problematic word. However, this way of thinking, whatever it may be in the world of ideas, has a sociological function - it separates the high-class goats in the academy from the hoi polloi sheep out there in the field.
As for me, I will cast my lot with Dr. Johnson. When confronted by Boswell with Berkeley’s theory that our world is not real, he delivered a mighty kick to the nearest large boulder. Staggering backwards from that blow he proclaimed, “Thus he is refuted.” QED.
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Case in point.
Agree. But that’s true for any discipline - there will be discussion, debate and even disagreement over methodology, relevance of scholarship, etc. Whether it’s engineering, economics, or English - that sort of “subjectivity” will always exist due, as you indicate, to the fact that they are constructs.
IMO, debates over whether Dogs Playing Poker is equivalent to the Mona Lisa aren’t particularly meaningful ones. Both pieces have their place in culture and doubtless the latter has been discussed in the academic literature almost as much as the former. Both have been spoofed numerous times which means they’ve earned their spot in our popular lexicon (or whatever the visual arts equivalent is to the popular lexicon . . . ). Perhaps the difference between these sorts of debates and those of whether some physics or mathematical theory is relevant or not is that the latter examples remain in-house. Not so the arts. There, everyone has an opinion! Of course, my social science friends tell me that everyone thinks they are an economist or sociologist or psychologist as well. The arts, human sciences and the social sciences will often attract amateurs; perhaps in part because they deal with topics that people care about. In contrast, most assume when passing over a bridge that it will stand; they take for granted that some smart person has figured out how to make it so. Or that their medicine will work for them. Those subjects usually aren’t up for popular debate. There has always been that interesting contrast between the natural sciences - where the “experts” reign over the popular crowd - and other academic subjects.
IMO, one should always explain why they think something is beautiful - or right, good, wise, etc. Those normative terms are going to be open to interpretation so it’s best to discuss from a point of precision and not leave the discussion fruitless because one person’s definition differs from another’s.
Your kid might be missing the point here. There is a difference between one who is close-minded and one who believes that some foundations for assessing truth, beauty etc. are better than others. The latter has naturally given it thought in order to make the comparison and arrive at a conclusion. The former is thoughtless because they have decreed themselves as the arbiters - so nothing to see here folks, move along. When it comes to the academy, nothing can progress if the foundational thought is calcified. On the other hand, declining to look critically at the foundational viewpoint - ie having a “floats your boat / everything’s relevant” approach - isn’t going to move things along either. One must always guard against both - and they probably shouldn’t assume that those with a different viewpoint have bad or close-minded intentions either. “Rigorous inquiry” usually means that all ideas have to be backed up and will be questioned. It’s a competitive, merit-based process.
You seem to confuse reality with value judgement. It is one thing to say “that boulder is real”, and another thing entirely to say “that boulder is obviously beautiful, and anybody who does not think so must have problems with the ability to perceive beauty”.
On one hand, you bemoan the fact that books which you perceive and beautiful and important may be removed from required reading lists because of criteria with which you do not agree. At the same time, you believe that other books should not be on those lists, because they do not meet other criteria with which you do agree.
You are claiming that there are a set of objective and irrefutable criteria by which every work of literature and art can be judged and by which these works can be determined to be “great” or not.
So exactly who gets to determine what these criteria happen to be?
I love how you are trying to claim the mantel of The Guardian of True Culture Against the Invasion Of The Barbarians, while simultaneously claiming that you are just “one of the hoi polloi”.
Or, to paraphrase what you wrote: “You are such an elitist for claiming that Barbara Cartland is just as good as Shakespeare”.
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Okay, @mtmind and @MWolf , let me play the po-mo game on your terms…
You are expressing views taught to you in college or grad school. The academics who taught you these things belong to a class. You joined that class when you imbibed their opinions. Those opinions by their own terms have no objective truth or meaning. They are artifacts of the class that created them and their raison d’etre is to benefit that class. Ergo, your positions as to the valuelessness of value and the meaninglessness of the word “better” is no more true than the positions of almost everyone else in the world that value is real and that some things actually are better than others. Your positions deconstruct themselves. And yet you do not present them as if they were not actually true, and you certainly do not hesitate to present those of your opponents as false. You are caught in a classic contradiction.
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Agree. Yet that was the juxtaposition offered, even though those offering don’t seem to know the basis on which they draw they comparison.
If this thread is any example you are giving way too much credit to the latter. Those defending the Mona Lisa, Shakespeare, Pound, and/or the “Great Books” as “better” don’t seem to have any clue as to the inherently subjective nature of their perspective. That’s the point.
I won’t speak for @MWolf, but you are mistaken in almost all your assumptions about what you term my “terms.” For example, I never argued the “valueness [valuelessness?] of value” or the "meaninglessness of the word ‘better.’” Likewise, the supposed contradiction only exists by your terms, not mine. Beyond that, your presentation of what you derisively call the “po-mo game” is so caricatured that I wouldn’t even know where to begin.
As I’ve suggested in the past, our conversations would be much more productive if you would allow me to speak for myself rather than trying to speak for me.
@mtmind, my previous post did not in fact attempt to represent your views. It was my analysis of the contradiction at the core of the position you and @MWolf are taking as to the subjectivity and relativity of all judgments. You do not wish to reply to that objection and you depart the field. That’s a pity. But thanks for correcting the typo - you are fond of catching me out on such things.
A word about subjectivity… Sure, literary judgments differ from individual to individual, from age to age, from culture to culture. Any sentient person knows this and also knows that the judgment of worth in literary works is nothing like demonstrations of truth by the means of science. Aristotle noticed this a long time ago. It doesn’t make literature or the description of the effects of literature any less challenging. This indeterminacy is in fact its hallmark and glory. Try parsing a sonnet of Shakespeare and tell me the levels of feeling and thought in it, multiple and elusive as they are, aren’t thrilling and moving for all their indeterminacy. The fallacy here lies not in this truism but in the move made from it to the conclusion that value has no objective existence and that what is “better” about Shakespeare as against Cartland cannot be described other than in relation to one’s personal identity, social class, race, etc. Please do not try to tell me that you and @MWolf have not been saying this in various ways. And, truly, if either of you tell me that you find nothing in “Hamlet” to prefer to whatever the latest bodice-ripper has to offer, I will simply not believe you, however consistent such a statement is and must be with the positions you are taking here. That many in the English Departments of the nation talk in this way should not conclude the debate.
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Alas! Demonstrations of truth in science are not as objective as you may think. There are trends and favored subjects in science also (we like to call them the sexy topics; buzzwords that you have to incorporate into your grant proposals if you are to have any chance of receiving funding).
I stumbled into this thread but felt compelled to comment. When I was in grad school, wrestling with one heck of a difficult topic in a very applied scientific field, Shakespeare was the one who got me through the toughest of times. I found an online source of his complete works, printed them out at night on our lab’s communal printer, bound it together and took it back to my minuscule apartment. It took me about 3 years of nighttime reading to get through his works. I laughed, I cried, I was elated, I was inspired, I was energized. English departments might choose not to study him but I see no end to his long lasting legacy.
P.S. I have not read the whole thread so please excuse any misstep.
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To go back to a prior query in this thread, I would dub you a “proper reader of Shakespeare,” @teleia .
But I’d say the same for those who claim that these are not better. Caring about the humanities doesn’t have to mean picking a side or abandoning common sense or rational thought. “Someone was an anti-Semite” isn’t literary criticism. “The best that has been thought and said” isn’t exclusive to those clearly recognized for developing western literary culture. IMO, there should be no reactionary “read this not that” paths. Curricular choices for any subject are probably quite challenging. Simple “rules” that abandon or accept texts, authors, ideas, or topics simply due to political and not intellectual considerations appropriate to the discipline is a step in the wrong direction.