Revitalizing the literary canon
This is a guest post worth sharing by a dear friend and colleague. Enjoy
By Dr Laila Abdel Aal Alghalban
Professor of linguistics
Faculty of Arts
Kafrelsheikh University
Last week, I was invited by the Department of English Language and Literature, Damietta University to give a talk there. I was amazed by the warm and generous reception as well as the wonderful audience. However, it was the following question raised by an undergraduate student that has stunned me most and kept resounding in my head. "You said that literature is language at its best, but why should we be taught classic literature, with 'difficult and strange' language?," he asked. " We need to study contemporary literature from which we can learn easily." The question has raised a bunch of urgent questions. What are literary canons? Who set the standards that evaluate works of arts? Does classic literature still relate to present-day students who are being mercilessly bombarded by globalization and cultural cannibalism?
Reading in youth
Italo Calvino, the Italian writer and novelist, argues that "reading in youth can be rather unfruitful, owing to impatience, distraction, inexperience with the product’s “instructions for use,” and inexperience in life itself." It pops up in my head now what the renowned Egyptian writer Anis Mansour said when he refused to give permission to the Ministry of Education to assign some of his books to school children:" I don't want children to hate me."
What are classics and what is the literary canon?
What if we removed classic literature from the syllabi of academic courses of the university English Departments? Would learning and teaching English (as a second or foreign language) be better? The status of classic literature in educational programs has been deeply established; it enjoys a long history of fervor and appreciation. Classic works of art have special halo, radiation and magic; they sparkle special infatuation even among people who have never read any of them. Most classics are more talked about than read, as Italo Calvino states. In every age, there are always those volunteers with acute classics mania symptoms. A classic work of art, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is the one with " recognized and established value”, and is "memorable and a very good example of its style”. Classics are fundamental works with a lasting and luring artistic value that never fails the test of time. Sometimes, works of art are not regarded classics during the lifespan of their authors and their contemporary audiences. They retain their status as long as they continue to be in circulation and pass the tests of criticism. Such works constitute "the canon", "a collection of the most representative and revolutionary works of the Western world, a Hall of Fame for those whose works have remained in circulation for a long time," writes Simon Petersson, who argues that the canon usually embraces the works of the wealthy, the powerful and the elite. The literary canon echoes the central Western view and excludes the minority and disadvantaged voices. Literary critics usually have the power to assign the status of 'classic' to a particular work of art. They set the rules, the standards of the time. Critics form what is called "the interpreting community" whose members are the gate keepers and the ones who orchestrate the way readers by large receive a given work of art.
Small pool, undiversified canon
Teaching classics or literature of any era or genre is determined by the nature and the purpose of the academic course. However, it is commonly up to teachers to pick material for their classes; most of them opt for classics driven by their artistic and literary reputation. Unfortunately, classics are usually drawn from a small pool, an undiversified, fossilised canon. Specific works by Shakespeare, Shaw, Ibsen, Orwell, Austin, Dickens and the Brontë Sisters have been a staple of literature classes for centuries, with slight changes over the years. Unfortunately, teachers depict classics from the same perspective of previous generations of teachers and give the same tests from so many decades ago. This is their teaching comfort zone. Eventually, they break up with present-day world and the changing learning needs and priorities of today's students.
As students are wrestling with unprecedented distractions, typical of a thunderously changing world, the age of postmodernism, post-humanism, globalization and cultural cannibalism, with no central values or standards to follow or abide by, it has become mandatory for them to reset their learning and training priorities to cope with a highly competitive world, armed with special skills in artificial intelligence technology and modern languages.
Why teaching classics?
The paramount significance of teaching classics lies in: teaching universal values and virtues that humanity has long fought for; and capturing the essence of human experience as classics depict universal and timeless themes that tear the fabric of place and time. Classic literature ignites imagination and creativity. Classics are monuments, time machines through which we travel to ancient, exotic worlds to experience their peoples' original versions of reality, walk their earth, live their cultures, taste them and bear witness their glories, weaknesses and setbacks. According to Italo Calvino, "A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say."
Modernizing reading lists
Reading classics is definitely important for language learning, they encapsulate culture, history, values, and the intellectual storehouse of a certain era in the history and civilization of a given people. Reading classics enriches vocabulary and nurtures a linguistic sensitivity much needed for deepening linguistic repertoire. To satisfy aspirations for modernized reading lists, students could be given the right to choose from a wider pool, and a vaster and more diverse canon that echoes the multiple literary voices that reflect the new demographics of the English speaking world, especially in the inner circle which includes the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Multicultural literature, which tackles issues swaying present-day lives such as colour, social injustice, minorities, immigration and racism, should find its way to the canon.
Pleasure and learning
Finally, teaching and testing sometimes kill the beauty and magic of classics. The mechanical, dry approach of cutting the work of art into pieces and dismantling its unity into characters, themes, techniques and plot would undermine its magical entertainment, captivating life lessons and wisdom, and illuminating light bulbs that might lit in readers' heads, turning ugliness into everlasting beauty. Let us review literature pedagogy to help students experience raw reading and never miss its pleasure. Let me end with this quote by Margret Atwood. She says: "I read for pleasure and that is the moment I learn the most." Never worship fixed classics and never throw them out of the window! Strike a balance!
