blamebrampton | Cultural literacy, I likes it!

Entry tags:

postmodernism

Cultural literacy, I likes it!

I had a strange discussion with a person on the internet (god forbid!) over the concept of cultural literacy. Her thesis was that it wasn't important, that popular culture was more useful, and that no one could agree on what one needed to know to be culturally literate anyway.

We exchanged a number of comments, and she was a thoroughly decent person to argue with, but I can't help thinking that we come from opposing starting positions on this one. To start with, she's literally half my age. But she also went to school all through the period where one text was interchangeable with another, whereas I went to school in the days when you had to learn about great literature before they let you mess around with the other stuff.

And yeah, I do mean great and other. I know this will have some of you demanding I turn in my Credentialled Postmodernist badge, but some texts are better than others. They last longer, they impact more, they're Penicillin rather than Cialis, the Periodic Table as opposed to Phlogiston. To my mind, there are certain texts you should have a grounding in if you want to be a culturally literate person.

The problem is, of course, that the idea of their being 'certain texts', a canon, if you will, has become problematic. Harold 'Groper' Bloom's The Western Canon is often held up to ridicule by people who call it a roll-call of dead white men. But I think that's because they couldn't be arsed reading it. He talks positively about Austen and Woolf, Mary Shelley and not one but two Brontës (though how he could choose Emily over Anne is a mystery to me), among other women, and has a good set from the Ancient world as well as Persian and Asian sources. He is weaker on the Orient, I wanted The Tale of Genji at least, but when he sat down to think 'Who has influenced what we think about literature in the West', he genuinely seems to have done so on the basis of the works, not who wrote them.

To me, the idea that we should not privilege some texts over others is ridiculous. No one would argue that there is no difference between a Skoda Octavia and a Bugatti Veyron, or between salad cream and hand-made mayonnaise. It's fine to like and enjoy trashier texts, Skodas and salad cream, but to argue that they should be given the same weight as their opposing numbers is something I cannot agree with.

And the case is more certain with literature than with salad cream. If you only know salad cream, you don't know how delicious aioli is. But, to use an example given, if you are familiar with Harry Potter and not Hamlet, not only do you miss out on Hamlet, but you miss out on the myriad Shakespearean references and jokes within Harry Potter. And while I think it's certainly possible to enjoy Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire if you have no classical education, I suspect it is not possible to do so without a constant feeling that there are certain levels of the text that are passing over your head. Without the cultural literacy that allows you to do so, some authors are wholly unapproachable: Laurence Sterne, Jasper Fforde and the entire Monty Python output, to start with.

Some people have absolutely no urge to cultural literacy, which I can see as a valid choice, but it cuts you off from a lot of reading. I would argue that you cannot say that you are a keen reader or keen consumer of film and television if you are also avowedly against cultural literacy, because it is like saying that you are a biochemist who doesn't believe in valences. However, this could all just be another sign of me becoming an old fogey.

What about you lot? Especially you young folk? Do you still have that frisson of glee I used to have when I uncovered secret references in texts as I read and learned more and more? Or is that so appallingly 20th century that I should just dig out a corset and start worrying about those commies?

On a final pomo note, Happy 50th Birthday, Severus, and Happy 75th Elvis! May you continue to bring joy to your fans for many years! And happy Real Birthday to

tnumfive ! You're in good company ;-)

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

I have a similar feeling, though I did animal science and Spanish. Neither did much in the way of building a literary background, though I can talk at length about animal management and Meso-American civilizations.

I read to be entertained, too, for the most part, but I find Shakespeare as entertaining as Joe R Lansdale (they're both funny, and violent, and full of shagging, what's not to love?).
I had a discussion about this with Blondie a few years ago, in which I stated that I probably got more out of reading Jasper Fforde than he did, because my liberal arts education had funished me with the cultural literacy required to understand all the in-jokes and intertextuality. He interpretted this as me saying he was either thick, or poorly educated, and has been sulking about it ever since.
But I stand by my claim.
And yes, the GLEE! How can Clueless possibly be quite as funny if you've never read Emma? Surely a familiarity with Les Liasons Dangereuse is the only thing that could make watching Cruel Intentions bearable? And how can the idea of Hamlet, Jude, and Heathcliff duking it out for the title of 'Most Tormented Male Lead' make you giggle like a loon unless you've read the books?
If it will help restore your faith in the reading habits of young people (do I still count?), the books on my bedside table are as follows:
Two Bear Mambo - Joe R Lansdale
The Eyre Affair - Jasper Fforde
Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
THe Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler
The Magic Toyshop - Angela Carter
My Booky Wook - Russell Brand
Rebecca - Daphne Dumaurier
The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
Vanity Fair - William M Thackeray
Assorted Torchwood novels *blushes*
The Castle of Otranto - Horace Walpole

I am nothing if not eclectic :D

Hee! I achieved 93% for an exam (half of which comprised questions about Hamlet) having managed to avoid reading the actual play (I have read it several times since). Bless Kenneth Branagh's cotton socks, that's all I can say ;P

I am frequently grateful for the fact that I've read a good portion of the key classics, courtesy of two very good highschool English teachers who believed in a good foundational education and the fact that I decided that a second major in English Literature would be a fun way to accumulate the extra credit points needed in my Arts degree.

I am, however, appalling under-read in modern literature. Homer, Shakespeare, way too much 18th and 19th century literature, but not a whole lot on the 20th century front, unless you count a lot of vampire novels (I was goth, it was mandatory to have a shelf full of Anne Rice and Poppy Z. Brite) and Terry Pratchett (who is infinitely more funny if you're classically read). I am slowly reading more, but am currently on a non-fiction bender.

I do love that bit of glee when you get a classical reference. Though, I often have to explain it to the CPD, who sadly did not have inspiring English teachers, and trying to explain it just loses all the fun.

I think Stephenie Meyers's writing would have benefitted from a dose of pop cultural literacy. What do you get when someone, with absolutely no knowledge or understanding of the modern horror genre or the medieval and Gothic literary tradition that produced it, attempts to write about vampires? Sparkly eunuchs, that's what. I blame Anne Rice, myself, for making vampires into sympathetic protagonists in the first place.

Recommend downloading The Puppini Sisters cover version of Kate Bush's song Wuthering Heights. It's done in 1940's "Andrews Sisters" style so you can actually understand all the words, and that's pretty much all you need to know about Wuthering Heights and you get some perky "do-be-do-be-do"s in there to stop you otherwise wanting to either slash your wrists or give all the main characters a slap upside the head.

And I have this same issue with music as well, with young people not having listened to Good music. And I'm sure that's not just because I did a degree in Musicology.

My high school curricula consisted mostly of modern literature (and I use the L word loosly), but I was raised by a librarian in a house full of books. I think, in a way, it helped, because I read a lot of 'the Classics' without what darling Poppy Z called 'the hypodermic of higher learning' sucking out the souls of the books.
I am appallingly under-read in modern literature, too (and I definitely think we should be able to count the horror genre and Terry Pratchett; go, goth girls! Go!)

and he criticised that her posture was too beautiful, that sculptures showing distress had to be twisted - like all great sculptures of people in distress.

It distresses me that this man is an Art Historian, I hope he isn't teaching. As someone who has studied art history myself I find that attitude anathema and frankly stupid. Sadly Education doesn't necessarily educate a person. *g*

Well I loathed Wuthering Heights but Jane Eyre is one of my favourite books of all time (once you get past Jane's years in the orphanage *g*). Oh and I adore Pride and Prejudice though I'm meh about the rest of Asten's books.

Yes! But then I'm an Old Fogey and have a degree in Literature and Cinema, and almost one in Art History.

I agree with those that say they read for entertainment, so do I even when I'm reading non-fic but I am entertained by Hamlet and Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre as well as by Lord Peter Wimsey and Miles Vorkosigan.

The other thing is I am English/Welsh by birth and the great British writers and artists and, in a broader sense, the European canon is my heritage. I think we should all know our own heritage first, and then some of other people's as well if possible. Which is of course more difficult to manage for schools in multi cultural societies... but also richer if done well.

I completely agree with you and as she is a graduate with a BA in English Literature, you would hope that she would have the background knowledge of the gothic literary tradition in order for the Twilight series to slot into the genre. Instead it came off as a bit naff and her literary references were shoved in your face as opposed to sprinkled in sparingly.

Whatever, I'm sure Little and Brown is happy in all this.

I like your reading list, esp. The Graveyard Book. It wasn't what I was expecting, but enjoyable nonetheless. :D

I read to be entertained, too, for the most part, but I find Shakespeare as entertaining as Joe R Lansdale

Oh thank heavens ;) I mean i thought I was the only one who enjoyed reading things other than trashy for the sake of enjoying them!

I am wading my way through a book of fantasy and have now found a new writer to add to my list of "must read more of". I like something from practically every genre I have read but usually for different reasons.

And I did enjoy English even though I was so terribly average at it. Then again I also loved my science subjects even though I was so terribly average at them ;)

Neil Gaiman described it as 'like the Jungle Book, only in a graveyard'. I also have as a audiobook narrated by Neil (guh, beautful reading voice!).
My job does not require a great deal of brain-use, so I try and keep it active in other ways lest it turn to porridge ;)

I loved English, and failed like a failing thing at science (a great source of shame to my mother, who, before she was a librarian, studied biology at Uni and went on to teach high school science). We were brought up without a great deal of TV, so reading has been ingrained in me as a source of entertainment as well as education (which is probably why I find education so entertaining).

Its been facsinating reading through the comments. Like you BB, I grew up reading the classics, and love them to pieces. I also read the most utter trash with equal enjoyment (I see someone's Torchwood novels and raise them with some Jilly Cooper and my favourite 1910 comedy of manners called Why not bash the bitch...) I think that cultural literacy is useful if for no other reason than it gives you a broader perspective on things. The great classics have one thing in common - they are well written (otherwise they wouldn't still be banging around), resonate with people and give us a snapshot of the times in which they were written. While I can understand why some people from non European backgrounds may validly be able to say they don't see the point because its not their culture - for me it is, so it is valid. The cultural references in modern writing are sometimes hidden gems (Snape quoting Oscar Wilde springs to mind), sometimes integral to understanding the story, and sometimes don't exist at all - I'm fine with any of those scenarios, just don't make me read Thomas bloody Hardy ever again or hand me something that is so predictable I can tell you what will happen page by page without reading the thing (and yes I have done that - its why I stopped reading Matthew Reilly and Dan Brown though I enjoyed them until the formula became too obvious). I have to admit (being the aging type that I am) I feel sorry for those people whose reading history is not broad, because it possible that they miss so much - but hey if they are still enjoying reading I'm not going to force them to delve back over the past few hundred years of literature.

How are we defining Cultural Literacy here? Because your examples are all about literature, and whilst it is an excellent way of absorbing cultural information, it is by no means the only way. And I would even suggest that by getting the majority of one's cultural understanding from literature, one risks having a very restricted understanding of culture.
I guess one of my issues here is, at what point does one become Culturally Literate?

At the risk of losing any shred of respect you may have for me, I have never read Hamlet, or indeed most of Shakespeare. I threw Emma across the room because she was so unutterably tedious. Vanity Fair followed, with a wee smidge of appreciation for the irony of the fact that the author was probably vainer than any of his characters. I wouldn't touch Wuthering Heights with a barge pole. I have never read any Thomas Hardy, and God willing, I never will.

The thing is, I really hate the style of most 'literature'. I just can't engage with most of it, and most things that win prizes for being wonderful these days I find to be somewhat lost in their own cleverness.

I want to be able to engage with the characters, and I don't want to have to do battle with the author's writing style to achieve that.

I think it depends a bit on what a person wants. I love history, I love going to places with a long history and the museums around them, and really getting the historical context. A lot of people are happy enough to look at the old things. Most aren't really that bothered, and just want to see some pretty and then hit the beach/bar. But some of those people hitting the bar know far more than I do about modern global politics. It's all a bit swings and roundabouts.

I think I'm going to declare myself to be firmly straddling the fence.

Hopefully I'm at least making some sense. It's rather late/early here to be engaging in debates on postmodernism and cultural literacy!

As young folks, I am in favor of cultural literacy. I remember being a teen, and coming back from some event. My mom asked me if I had had "fun". I paused, thoughtfully, and said something like "No, but 'fun' wasn't precisely the point. It was Good." That's about how I feel about many of the classics that I've read.

And, oh, I adore that feeling of having *got* it, those hidden clues in the story. I remember my favorite English teacher introducing intertextuality- how excited it made me, and it still does! We did a lovely run whereby we read "Hamlet" and followed with "Rosencrantz and Gildenstern Are Dead".

OTOH, I dislike the way classics highlight some cultures and marginalize, sometimes even erase, others. Perhaps, particularly when it comes to race, this is more problematic in the U.S. I'll be happier when someone says "Classics", and the list that gets reeled off instinctively includes works by women, by people of all colors, by people with disabilities and queer folks.

Woah, Brammers! Way to put your finger on the great cultural divide within fandom and indeed the whole of Western culture! Are momentary entertainment and popularity the best determinants of quality?

I say yes there is a core of influential, quality works that everyone should read some of.

For an understanding of our place in history, if nothing else. Reading Shakespeare, or Austen, or Homer, shows you how in so many ways we're telling ourselves the same stories now that we were telling three thousand years ago. It's comforting to remember we're part of a tradition that's so much bigger than the Avatar or the Harry Potter of the moment, and it's also humbling, which does none of us any harm. I only wish my mind was big enough to understand more of that tradition.

Also, some writing is better than others and it's a shame for readers to miss out on the original thinking, grand ideas, and sheer elegant prose of great writers.

Recognising literary references I think is not a reason for reading the canon, though, as much as I agree those are lovely moments. A good work should be capable of being read by the uninitiated, with clever references as an added entertainment for some readers. What makes it great is that it's saying something universal, under all its cleverness.

No-one will be awed by everything that's on the List and only those with a special sort of brain and the luxury of time and an expensive education will ever get through most of it, but I'd hate to live in a world where it wasn't considered important.

Yes, but not for ages. They need to go onto the re-read list!

I am 100% in agreement with you on this one. I got into bitter arguments with certain people on a screenwriting newsgroup I used to frequent. They put forth that any film that had huge box office success was automatically a high quality film because so many people liked it. And I was labeled a pretentious elitist for disagreeing with that. (Apparently people don't really like art films. They just pretend to so they can sound intellectual at parties.)

And the concept of cultural education and how it adds value to the experience of contemporary works is something I'm trying to teach my daughter right now. :D

I think that this is one of the problems: teaching is often done by people who were bored or confused when they studied certain works, and they convey it. And because things are put forward as 'classics' rather than 'basics', there is also an ingrained reaction against them for reasons ranging from perceived classism through to a willingness to be seen as new and modern rather than backward-looking.

It's a bit mad to my way of thinking, though, it's like not wanting to teach division, because it's elitist ...

My answer is far more deranged than yours, and can only claim late night and extremely hot day ;-)

I think that we have a lot of angst about culture being devalued in the name of cultural literacy, but that most of it is misplaced. For example, the idea of there being ingrained political power in knowing Shakespeare is anachronistic: you might gain the power to challenge Stephen Fry in a quiz, but the average US Senator is more likely to be unable to tell his Hamlet from his Macbeth.

Increasingly, the world is run by people who are anti-culture, for which I cite the Murdoch empire with particular focus on Fox News, the US Republican party circa 2000-now (minus a sterling few who are not heard from very often), and the educational boards in Texas (I accept there may be some crossover in these three sets).

Where knowledge of the classics gains you an advantage is being able to use that knowledge in the way of, say, a junior Senator from Illinois, whose rhetorical skill can captivate and inspire. This is the reason literary classics are classic: because they are great, and because they speak to us on deep levels. Capturing the tempo of the saga in a way that would be as familiar to those who first heard Gilgamesh as to those who held their breath to 'we few, we happy few', and using it to convince a nation that 'yes, we can', is as bold and beautiful a use of language as any you will find in the canon, and born solely out of knowledge thereof.

As to who is in and who is out: it is the case that you're generally a generation dead before you are 'in', which makes change slower than it need be, I agree. But there are also different lists for different Englishes, and wholly separate lists for other cultures. These other English lists should change faster, given the regional tradition is shorter, and be more locally responsive: I would be suspicious of any US canon that included Shakespeare but not Twain, Philip Larkin but not Toni Morrison, for example.

And I don't think it makes one culture 'better' than another: it's about individual practioners who are. For all that Elizabethan Shakespeare remains our touchstone, very few recall Thomas Nash. What it does do is say that some ways of using language are better than others, and that I would stand by. But I think that you could say Jean Rhys or Toni Morrison is better than Stephenie Meyer just as easily as using the example of Jane Austen or Mary Shelley.

'I'll be happier when someone says "Classics", and the list that gets reeled off instinctively includes works by women, by people of all colo[u]rs, by people with disabilities and queer folks.'

Erm. Well, ah. There's the Analects, and Lady Murasaki, and Mary Shelley (three works and we've already ticked two boxes each for, firstly, women, and, secondly, non-Western / non-'white'); Apuleius, Augustine, and possibly Terence were of part, or wholly of, Berber descent, so far as once can determine, and Tertullian and Macrobius both seem to have been North African; Pushkin and Dumas shd be considered by academics as people of colour today, I think (odd how modern bien-pensant liberalism has readopted the 'one-drop' rule); Homer and Milton were blind or partially so, as, in later years, were Borges and Aldous Huxley; most of the Greeks and some of the Romans on the Usual and Customary List were bent as a nine bob note - and did we mention Sappho, who ticks two boxes here? - and I suppose most people had put either Wilde or Housman on the list if not both (and Byron, to be sure).... I rather think the list that gets reeled off has always included people in your various categories.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 2 of 4

Cultural literacy, I likes it!

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Wuthering Heights

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Re: A rambling answer

Er.