Stanley Fish - On Virtue

Actually, the title of his address was "Why Literary Criticism is Like Virtue" (I read it in the collection called The Stanley Fish Reader). After having read Fish's other articles on the usefulness of the humanities (see previous blogs) I found that this essay was almost like an extension of those articles - that they are incomplete without the information that Fish imparts here. I don't entirely agree with him that the only way that literary studies can influence the world is by keeping themselves to themselves, but I thought it was interesting that here - unlike the impression I got from his articles on the humanities - Fish really does believe that the humanities can influence the world. He just doesn't believe they can achieve change in the way that many people try to make them do it. I'm going to have to do some more reading of Fish in order to really understand his views on this, but I'm definitely interested to see what else he has said on the topic.

Seamus Heaney Redresses Poetry

Today I was reading the first essay in Seamus Heaney's collection of criticism, The Redress of Poetry, and I thought quite a bit of what he said answered questions that we have posed during lit crit ... and questions that I've posed in my blog. First, Heaney makes a similar acknowledgment to Stanley Fish: "Professors of poetry, apoligists for it, pracitioners of it ... all sooner or later are tempted to show how poetry's existence as a form of art relates to our existence as citizens of society - how it is 'of present use'" (1). Heaney goes on to make a remark very much like Stanley's defense of the pleasure of poetry when he writes, "Poetry cannot afford to lose its fundamentally self-delighting inventiveness, its joy in being a process of language as well as a representation of things in the world" (5). As I commented two blogs ago (in "Vote for Stanley Fish"), I feel as if there can and should be an element of pure pleasure in poetry or in literature, despite any practical usefulness it may or may not have. But Heaney doesn't stop there. He goes a step further than Stanley Fish when he writes, "The movement is from delight to wisdom" (5). I italicized wisdom because while Stanley Fish seemed to conclude that the only quantifiable benefit that literature has for anyone is the pleasure it provides its readers, Heaney suggests that poetry, to be great, must move from "delight to wisdom and not vice versa." It is important, then, that poetry does not stop at beauty, but that it also contains meaning. Though I said in my other blogs that I didn't think literature produces any quantifiable benefits for society, Heaney says that poetry is what makes us able to imagine a better world, a different situation, one which we can achieve by working hard in the political or societal realm. I still don't know if poetry is really what's responsible for this human ability, but I do think that Heaney wonderfully expressed the way in which poetry can stay true to poetry while at the same time having an influence on its readers.

Stanley Fish, Part Two

... another colleague, a friend ... announced one day that members of English departments were 'parasites on the carcass of literature.' A medical doctor, he was also a lover of literature and just didn’t see why a world that already had poets and novelists and playwrights needed an army of people feeding off them.
- Stanley Fish, "The Uses of the Humanities, Part Two"

It's funny that Stanley Fish had this experience, when I had the exact opposite experience. One day I was talking to someone who is highly invested in literature studies, and this is how the conversation went:

Unnamed Person: So, where do you plan to go to gradschool?

Danielle: I don't know. I'm not sure if I'm going to go to gradschool.

U.P.: What?!?!? Not go to gradschool?

Danielle: Well, I'm thinking about getting an MFA in creative writing, but probably not right away. I need to financially recuperate from Messiah, first.

U.P.: But ... you're not going to get your doctorate?

Danielle: No, I don't think so. I don't really need it.

U.P.: But you need it to become a professor!

Danielle: Ah, well, that's where the misunderstanding is coming from. You see, I don't want to be a professor.

U.P.: (faintly) Don't ... want ... to be a professor?

Danielle: No.

U.P.: Then ... what are you going to do?

Danielle: Work in publishing. And write.

U.P.: (mutters to self) What a waste of a good mind.

Now, I didn't say it during the conversation, because I was a little stunned by the whole event. But let me say it now: "Ouch!" I mean, first of all, as someone who makes a living off of studying literature, this person really shouldn't scoff at people who want to publish or write books, because where on earth does he think books come from in the first place? The book stork?

Stanley Fish encountered snobbery from the production side of literature studies, who challenged the usefulness of studying literature when actually creating literature is (according to them) far preferable. I, on the other hand, faced a bit of nasty criticism because I want to dedicate my life to creative writing instead of teaching about literature, which is a noble calling if you're made for it but unfortunately I don't think I'd be doing anyone any good by standing up and spouting off half-baked ideas and unfounded opinions about books. We really don't need people like me rampaging around universities and leading people astray.

But in the case of Fish's experience and my conversation, I really can't for the life of me figure out what's going on here. After my previous blog, which commented on Fish's other article, let me repeat that in the end, no matter how much we talk about the usefulness of English studies, studying English only continues to be a practice because there are creative writers to produce books and literature majors to study them. No one else cares. I mean, there are people who read books and would be sorry to lose such a nice, enjoyable pastime, sure. But if there were no one of the literature-studies persuasion to read and study Ulysses or the works of William Faulkner, how long would those books stay in print? I mean, honestly? So basically, pure English studies, without any historical or political undertones, is a self-perpetuating system which is not necessarily very useful to anyone outside of the discipline itself. And I think that's just fine (see previous blog for a more extensive rant on this topic). But sometimes, as Fish and Dr. Powers have pointed out, the English department comes under attack, and people try to drag some sort of practical use out of it. So if we are under attack, then why on earth are people from one side of the study scoffing at the other side? Shouldn't we be trying to join forces, standing up against the big bad economically-minded world? And as someone who is one class away from having a double emphasis, I just don't get how someone interested in one side of the major could devalue the other side. I mean, it's fine if someone prefers reading and studying literature over writing it, but surely they can still appreciate the work of a writer, seeing as their pursuits are dependent on people who write or have written?

I know that this isn't the main point of Fish's article, but it's just something that I was wondering about, and that seems to be one of his concerns as well.

Vote for Stanley Fish

"It is not the business of the humanities to save us, no more than it is their business to bring revenue to a state or a university. What then do they do? They don’t do anything, if by 'do' is meant bring about effects in the world. And if they don’t bring about effects in the world they cannot be justified except in relation to the pleasure they give to those who enjoy them ... To the question 'of what use are the humanities?, the only honest answer is none whatsoever ... The' humanities are their own good."
-Stanley Fish, "Will the Humanities Save Us?"

Hear, Hear! That's what I have to say.

I suspect that some of Fish's (English-studies-inclined) readers may have bristled in indignation as they read this essay. I know I instinctively responded to it by thinking, 'English studies, useless? Nonsense! English ennobles the soul! It contributes to our understanding of humanity! It improves our critical thinking skills!'

But deep down, here's what I think. I think that studying English is like wanting to walk on the moon. If you try to figure out how traveling in a rocket to the moon actually helped the average person - whether it cured cancer, or alleviated world hunger - you would have to admit that it didn't really do much of anything. But still, it was a beautiful thing to do, if only for because of the pictures the astronauts took of our world, enveloped in clouds and surrounded by black space. If nothing else, humanity benefited from the whole endeavor by being able to say that we had reached that far.

And the same thing goes for literature. Studying literature - not producing literature, mind you, but studying it - does not achieve anything practical. It does not cure diseases, and despite our mantra about critical thinking skills and ennobling the soul, the only souls it ennobles are our own, and plenty of other people have critical thinking skills without spending four years of their lives analyzing poetry. But who the heck cares? Just because everyone on earth can't appreciate literature, that doesn't mean that an English major should have to sit there trying to convince everyone that studying literature is "useful." It's not useful. People have known it all along, and now the secret's out. But it's beautiful, and if it has the ability to enliven and ennoble even one soul, then it is justified. Period.

And while I'm blaspheming like this, I might as well just throw in that I believe in art for art's sake. That's right! I think beauty is a good in itself, and that if there are people who require it to display some sort of economic or social value, then they are missing out and I am sorry for them, but I don't feel bad about committing my life to something that not everyone can appreciate. Let the math, the science, and the politics people come to truth and fulfillment in their own way; as for me, I will keep on reading.*



*This is an appendage to everything I said in this blog. I'm sure if anyone reads it, then they will think they have seen all sorts of holes in my logic. For instance, they might point out that studying literature helps us understand history, or human nature, or that it helps us know how to write, which is of course a useful skill. And they would be right. But what I'm really saying is not that English studies can't be justified, because it can to a certain extent, and it is all the time by people who need funding or who feel like they have to prove themselves to their parents. I'm just saying that it shouldn't have to be, and that I for one don't feel guilty for studying literature, even if the only one who ever gets any benefits out of my interest in literature is me.

Alan Jacobs and the Necessity of Contraries

While reading Alan Jacobs' observations on feminism and Bakhtin's idea of "outsidedness," I couldn't help but think about William Blake's contraries (or Hegel's dialectic). The whole feminism movement seems to be moving from the oppression of women to, in some ways, the domination of women over men (perhaps not literally, but Virginia Woolfe for instance talked about how men, in finding it necessary to always be on the defense, have lost an essential part of their personhood - she wrote "when one is challenged, even by a few women in black bonnets, one retaliates, if one has never been challenged before, rather excessively ... virility has now become self-conscious - men, that is to say, are now writing only with the male side of their brains" (1026-27)).

I thought Jacobs' question, "is this exclusion a contingent requirement of a particular historical situation ... or does it signify the ineradicable difference between the genders?" (99), was really pertinent. It seems to me like Woolfe's claim that women writers cannot look to male writers for help right now is a contrary to the way things used to be. Or, if you're thinking Hegel, then Woolfe's view is the antithesis of a sexist society - it is the pendulum swing in the opposite direction. Luckily, though, Woolfe seemed to acknowledge that this at least should be a temporary stage (of only a mere 100 years in length). We have gone from the oppression of women to a sort self-oppression on the part of men, but we still haven't reached a synthesis, because a synthesis, I think, would mean women and men being able to exist as chiefly one gender but with an awareness, appreciation, and experience of the other gender - without fear or strife. Virginia Woolfe thought our synthesis would be androgyny, but I'm still not sure I entirely agree with her on that. Androgyny seems somewhat suspect to me because as Jacobs pointed out, "outsidedness" is an important aspect of understanding something. A synthesis is a marriage of two extremes, not an eradication of their differences; and so in the synthesis between the two sexes it seems as if it is important that we keep a sense of our own gender because gender, though it has caused some problems in the past, is not a bad thing. I agree with Jacobs (and Bakhtin) that "outsidedness" is not only an inevitable part of human life, but also an essential part of the way we understand things. No matter how much you try to understand someone else, you still end up understanding them in relation to the self, and that is not necessarily a bad thing (we run into trouble if we value the self over the other, or to try to change the other according to the self).

Agutsine's Theroy of Lanugage

Probably almost all of us have received an email containing something like the following paragraph:

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

When I was reading through Augustine's "On Christian Doctrine," I thought of this paragraph, and what it might mean for our understanding of how words function as signs. According to Augustine, "no one should consider [signs] for what they are but rather for their value as signs which signify something else" (188). He also makes the distinction between conventional and natural signs, locating human communication under the category of conventional signs. Language, especially written language, is conventional because it is artificial, and has no other purpose but to transfer "to another mind the action of the mind in the person who makes the sign" (189).

This jumbled up paragraph illustrates Augustine's point nicely, because it shows that words don't have inherent meaning; their only meaning is as signs which point to something else. But in a way, it also shows that words for us have almost taken on a shared meaning with the thing they point to, because even when they are garbled we can still associate the very combination of letters with the signified thing.

The Paradoxy of Representation

I ran into an interesting little news article today. Apparently an American author, Jonathan Littell, has published an extremely controversial book in French - one that fits under one of the topics we've discussed in Lit Crit. "Les Bienveillantes" ("The Kindly Ones") is described in this article as a

900-page brick of a novel, told from the not-so-welcoming perspective of an incestuous, gay and possibly matricidal Nazi officer, and larded with graphic sex scenes and coolly detailed musings about the most efficient way to put Jews to work before exterminating them.

What interests me about this book is not the fact that it's scandalous, but that its author is ... of Jewish ancestry (!!!). In class Dr. Powers asked if it was ok for a racist to write a book representing Native Americans, but this article seems to pose the opposite question: is it ok for a Jewish man to write a book that represents the Nazis? It's a different situation, of course, but sometimes looking at the same question from a different angle helps to illuminate it.

For instance, the Dr. Powers seemed to be asking whether it were moral for a racist to write a book representing Native Americans, not whether he would be capable of representing them; after all, in the scenario he presented us with, the book had been praised and valued until its author was unveiled. But somehow the same question doesn't seem to apply to Jonathan Littell, perhaps because we feel like the Nazis deserve to be represented accurately and reviled for that representation? I wonder, though, if Jonathan Littell had tried to create a sympathetic portrayal of a Nazi, would the question of morality arise then? Jory, in a post from March 23, asked,

If ecriture feminine is the female response to centuries of suppression by the male sex, how can males possibly employ this writing practice in their own writing?

And maybe the question I'm asking in regard to Littell (and the example Dr. Powers gave us in class) is similar. Admittedly, fiction is fiction, and authors can make up whatever they want. However, the question seems to be, is it possible for an author to accurately represent the "other" if they are completely opposed to them in experience and ideology? Again, I don't really have an answer ... but the question interests me.