Cultural literacy, I likes it!

[blamebrampton]

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 ;-)

Comments

Re: That ‘the last century of cultural analysis has already done this’ is hardly encouraging, is

[niennah.livejournal.com]

Hi! You know the Empire? You might have heard of us. We wrote back. But do feel free to keep colonising a past and places not yours for your literary history and precious canon; it's not like anything has stopped you before, right? Keep up the old humanist project. Well done, and good evening.

Re: That ‘the last century of cultural analysis has already done this’ is hardly encouraging, is

[nacbrie.livejournal.com]

I say, that's hardly Trinners talk. More suited to The Clonskeagh Polytechnic, I would have thought. </jest>

But, more seriously: I think you're being a little unfair with regards to what makes classics classic, and how such works remain in the contemporary consciousness. Yes, political factors play a role in which works become notable and how they stay notable. A work cannot be a classic of the Western Canon if nobody's read it because, say, the author couldn't get published. There are without doubt many worthy works which have fallen to obscurity, and many of the lauded titles may not deserve such praise (*cough*Waiting for Godot*cough*, oh God how awful it is).

But there is also a point to be made that the writers who incorporate elements of literary culture into their work have, you know, read those Great Books. And some may have done so because they were only educated about those Great Books, but surely others have done so because the Great Book spoke to them in some way, or illuminated for them an aspect of the human condition, or struck them in some other way? Not that I'm saying that the only good books are Great Books, but that for a book to remain Great, and for its Greatness to have permeated every literary aspect of out culture, its author had to be doing something right.

Re: That ‘the last century of cultural analysis has already done this’ is hardly encouraging, is

[niennah.livejournal.com]

lol, it's totally Trinners talk. :) First year undergrad. There's still the old guard there, of course, but over my 5 years there (undergrad & mphil) I gravitated towards the more modern, more politically aware courses, including a lot of postcolonialism. I think it's that that informs my wariness of an idea of a canon, you know? I mean, once you have a set canon, and it becomes something fixed or understood to be fixed, you are immediately going to have opposition and struggle. In the past, that struggle (the Empire writing back, feminist movements) hasn't happened because it's all about good books, it's happened because writers and theorists have recognised the political power of the freedom to make lists and to name what is good and what is not.

So I am all for great writing, but I am not for a list of it, identifying what belongs and, by default, denying entry to everything else. When the author above talks about "great literature" that you have to look at before "they let you mess around with the other stuff", well, that's setting up an opposition that I feel always needs a bit of interrogating. Even judgements that seem to be made on aesthetics alone, i.e., the identification of great writing, are not free from politics.

That's really all I'm saying. I don't think I was clear yesterday, for which I am sorry, but I hope that's clarified my own perspective.

And some may have done so because they were only educated about those Great Books, but surely others have done so because the Great Book spoke to them in some way, or illuminated for them an aspect of the human condition, or struck them in some other way?

Sure, I absolutely recognise that this happens. But there's an awful lot going on behind all that too, more than just a recognition of some common human condition. In fact, the idea of the human condition itself is historically situated and has been interrogated and deconstructed and would be rejected by many writers and theorists today (i.e., feminists, postcolonialists, poststructuralists), so again there are myriad things going on that intersect with certain political axes even in the use of this phrase.

However, I understand not everyone needs to take things apart to see how they work, so I'll leave it at that. And just to clarify it for everyone: Trinity has feminists, postcolonialists and poststructuralists too!